One to two seconds later, Brone looked at the ground, then slowly lifted his gaze and traced the angle of the attack.
His eyes followed the imagined line until he finally saw it: an orb floating quietly above him.
"So, that nen bullet attack came from that orb."
"This means that he controls that Orb..."
"He is most likely a manipulator or conjurer like myself." Brone thought.
The orb was not flashy.
It did not glow aggressively or release pressure like a brute-force Nen attack, which he can see and understand.
As Brone was about to start a monologue inside his head, trying to define the ability, to categorize it as more than just understanding it is a category.
Conrad did not give him the chance to do so.
He leaned forward and started running straight at him.
"I only deployed two of my orbs…"
In just three seconds, he almost closed the entire distance between himself and Brone.
Brone's eyes widened.
Too fast.
"Protect me!" Brone shouted out loud.
His shout came from the depth of his soul; he understood that if he let Conrad get too close to him, one or two attacks at most, he would be defeated and get hit by a powerful strike from him.
In close combat, he was not much different than your average Nen user, and he can see that Conrad was much better in all terms of close combat.
At his command, all the rings snapped back toward him at once.
The rings aligned in front of his body, rotating rapidly and overlapping to form a barrier.
They acted like dogs protecting their owner. Brone basically used Rings to create a solid wall between himself and Conrad.
Brone felt a small sense of relief.
At least from the front, he was safe.
But then it came again.
That strange feeling.
A sense of danger that did not come from where he was looking.
His instincts reacted before his thoughts could.
Brone twisted his body and dodged to the left.
"Bang."
The sound echoed sharply through the arena.
A relatively deep hole opened on the ground where he had been standing just a moment ago.
Dust and fragments of stone scattered across the floor.
"Again!"
"That orb must be destroyed," he thought, but he knew that he could not send rings to the orb to destroy it, as it would weaken his defense and Conrad would enter from the gap and start a close-combat situation.
Brone landed awkwardly, barely managing to keep his balance.
"So that's how it works…" he muttered.
Conrad slowed his pace and stopped several meters away.
He did not rush into the ring barrier.
He did not attack it directly.
Brone felt the pressure rising.
He tightened his control over the rings.
The barrier vibrated slightly, maintaining its form.
Conrad took one step forward.
Brone flinched.
Then nothing happened.
A second passed.
Another.
Brone's eyes moved constantly, trying to track every possible angle.
Above.
To the side.
He knew he couldn't see everything at once.
"Where is the next one coming from?" he thought.
Conrad raised his hand slightly.
The orb above Brone shifted.
Brone reacted immediately, throwing himself backward while maintaining the barrier.
This time, it was not a shot but some sort of a spreading aura of energy.
Also, he noticed that despite the fact that the one who shot him vibrated, the aura wave did not come from him.
"He is mocking me..." Brone thought.
Brone knew that he was lost at this point, and spending time on trying to understand the ability of the enemy was not going to make a difference at all.
"If I stay still, I get hit."
"If I move, I lose control."
"And if I attack—"
He glanced at Conrad.
The man was still untouched.
Brone started feeling overwhelmed.
It was not the sudden kind of panic that made one lose composure instantly, but the slow, creeping pressure that tightened around the chest.
Every second he spent reacting pulled him deeper into it.
Conrad already noticed that mentally Brone was not a capable individual.
At least now there are too many talented Nen users.
He loses his calm quickly.
From the moment after he shot at him with White Death, things have changed for the better for him and for the worse for Brone.
He smirked slightly, just enough for the expression to be seen, and leaned forward as he whispered,
"You think and worry too much."
Brone heard him.
His eyes locked onto Conrad, who had stopped advancing for a brief moment.
That pause, that unnatural stillness, made Brone uneasy.
He realized something then: while he had been desperately dodging the ranged attacks, his attention had slipped.
The rings.
They were slowing.
Not because Conrad interfered with them directly, but because he could not maintain perfect manipulation while constantly moving his body to survive.
The precision he needed to guide them had been broken by fear of death.
"That is…" Brone muttered under his breath.
In that instant, he saw it clearly.
His weakness.
His ability was powerful, versatile, and deadly when allowed to escalate, but it needed focus and a high level of mental fortitude.
Before Brone could adjust, the same ominous sensation surged through his body again.
That feeling.
Danger.
Conrad took a single step forward.
The rings hesitated for a fraction of a second, their rotation faltering as Brone's concentration split. He reacted on instinct, throwing himself to the left.
"Bang!"