Chapter 187: The Kill-Box
The moment the Lion-Ant died, a jagged scratch appeared on the surface of Ronin's Susanoo. It was from the Ant King's third Destructo Disc.
The King's adaptation was terrifying; his third attempt was exponentially more potent than the first.
However, the King himself was covered in shallow lacerations—reminders of the exchanges Ronin had forced during the opening minutes.
Ronin felt a warm trail of blood leak from his left eye. Every hit he landed required a burst of Amenotokotachi to bypass the King's "Limitless" barrier. The Ocular Power drain was hitting its limit.
I can't let this become a war of attrition, Ronin thought.
The King was a learning machine. If the fight continued, the monster would eventually find a way to toggle his defense and offense perfectly. If that happened, Ronin wasn't sure he could secure a win.
And if the King chose to flee, even spatial stasis wouldn't be enough to pin him down indefinitely.
Fortunately, the battlefield had been cleared. The Lion-Ant was gone, and the Monkey-Ant was being occupied by Benket's survivors and the mercenaries. Ronin finally had the room to deploy his endgame.
First, he had to limit the King's movement.
Ronin had verified two things during the fight:
Abilities that didn't directly target the King failed to trigger the automatic "Interception" response.
The "Paradox" had a fixed radius. Attacks originating from more than ten meters away functioned normally until they hit the threshold.
Four Shadow Clones materialized in a wide square around the King, each exactly twenty meters away.
The clones completed their seals simultaneously.
A wall of purple energy surged upward, connecting the four points and sealing Ronin and the King inside a 20x20 meter cage.
Ninjutsu: Four Violet Flames Formation!
At the same moment, the diamond mark on Ronin's forehead flared.
Release: Strength of a Hundred Seal!
The continuous combat and the creation of four high-output clones had pushed his Chakra to the red line. Releasing the stored energy from the Yin Seal was the only way to refuel for his final strike.
The King sensed the shift. He redirected his fourth Destructo Disc toward the purple wall, trying to breach the cage.
The disc struck the barrier. Purple flames erupted, consuming the disc's aura instantly. The energy was incinerated into ash before it could crack the seal.
Ronin had finished his "refueling" phase.
He raised both hands and began a full 44-seal sequence. This wasn't about speed; it was about maximizing the output to its absolute ceiling.
The Susanoo ribcage remained his only shield.
The King's primary weakness was now exposed. Aside from the cutting discs, which couldn't breach the Susanoo, he lacked a diverse offensive arsenal. He was a master of defense forced into a small room with a master of execution.
He was trapped.
He could only stand there, watching Ronin charge up a world-ending attack, relying entirely on his "Limitless" paradox to save him.
If I can't survive this hit, I die. If I can, I wait for the next opening.
The Ant King felt a surge of frustration—a very human emotion. He had been born into a world where he should have been the apex, yet he was being treated like a trapped rat by this "Devil."
He retracted his aura, focusing entirely on his internal core. He would see what kind of fire the outsider would bring.
Ronin's strategy was simple.
He was going to turn the entire cube into a furnace. But to bypass the "Attack" trigger, he didn't aim at the King.
Ronin turned his back to the monster.
The King blinked. What is he doing?
Ronin flicked a tiny spark from his fingertips. It drifted slowly toward the floor behind him.
The moment the spark touched the stone, it exploded.
Fire Style: Intelligent Hard Work (Zukokku)!
The fire didn't lunge at the King. It expanded into a standard wildfire, intending to fill every cubic inch of the barrier.
Because Ronin was facing away and the fire was an "environmental effect" rather than a targeted strike, the King's barrier hesitated.
But as the flames neared the King's position, the paradox triggered again. The fire began to shrink, compressed into non-existence by the spatial fold.
Nen logic was absolute: "If it hurts me, it is an attack."
But heat... heat was harder to categorize.
Ronin watched through the Susanoo's ribcage. His left eye flared.
Amenotokotachi.
He didn't freeze the King. He froze the boundary layer of the paradox.
Then, he hurled a black kunai—marked with the "Shinobi Love" charm—straight into the firestorm.
The kunai tore through the Susanoo and raced toward the King.
Simultaneously, Ronin's hands completed the seals for a second jutsu.
The King felt the stasis hit. The flames, which had been shrinking, suddenly rushed in from all directions, no longer hindered by his space-warping defense. His vision was blotted out by a wall of crimson.
The heat hit his hide with the force of a branding iron.
Through the fire, he saw the black kunai. It was growing larger, aiming for his eyes.
When the kunai entered his personal ten-meter zone, it didn't shrink. It continued its flight, but it slowed to a crawl, caught in the viscous "spatial ice" of Ronin's left-eye technique.
Ronin's right hand began to hum. A blue orb formed in his palm.
Rasengan.
But he didn't throw it. He waited.
He waited for the King to move. He waited for the kunai to reach the strike-point.
The Amenotokotachi field was a hollow sphere. The King inside was free, but the "Limitless" barrier surrounding him was being suppressed by the stasis.
The drain on Ronin was catastrophic. Blood flowed freely from his left eye now. He was burning Chakra faster than a tail-less tailed beast, fighting his own spatial lock to force an opening.
He was the anvil, the King was the hammer, and the stasis was the fire.
Something has to break, Ronin thought. And it won't be me.
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