Through relentless practice, Ronin had compressed the time needed to complete forty-four seals to the absolute limit.
His hands moved so fast they left afterimages. In less than four seconds, Ronin completed all 44 seals!
Vast chakra gathered in his mouth—so much it felt like nearly half the chakra in his body was being drained.
And remember: he was still under the boost of Nen he'd borrowed from Milia.
This was a B-rank ninjutsu—an entire B-rank offensive technique he was unleashing even at brutal cost.
When Nen users fight, they're limited by their visible aura output. Even the strongest Nen users struggle to release their entire aura in a single instant.
In Ronin's memory of the manga, only Chairman Netero had ever done it—an unrestrained one-moment eruption of all his aura.
That move was called "100-Type Guanyin: Zero Hand."
A strike that contained Netero's life itself.
But ninjutsu didn't have that limit. A jutsu wouldn't literally drain a ninja dry, yet the power it could erupt with could come infinitely close to something like Netero's "all-aura" output.
Or, to put it more concretely—
Ronin's normal visible aura output, by Milia's estimate, was a little over 700.
Big Bang Impact plus Cherry Blossom Impact could push his burst far beyond 700—nearly doubling it to around 1,500.
But that was basically his ceiling.
Compared with his latent aura pool of 8,400, that kind of burst only consumed about one-sixth of his aura.
The ceiling could be raised, but Ronin had no idea how much effort it would take to expand it through training.
Even if he borrowed aura from Milia, his burst output still wouldn't easily exceed 1,500—the extra aura mainly improved stamina and endurance.
But ninjutsu was different.
The more chakra you poured in, the greater the power an offensive jutsu could release—without being capped by "visible output."
Right now, after converting the aura borrowed from Milia into chakra, Ronin's "number" was roughly 23,500.
And the jutsu he cast consumed around 13,000 chakra the moment it fired.
The power of this single strike was about ten times the power of his Big Bang Impact + Cherry Blossom Impact burst.
Fire Style: Great Fire Annihilation!
The chakra Ronin had condensed became scorching flame, and he expelled it in one breath from his mouth.
In an instant, a massive firestorm formed across the ring. Everything around them turned into a sea of fire.
Uvogin—hit first—was swallowed by the inferno immediately.
The overwhelming flames even looked ready to surge into the stands, but they stopped expanding as they reached the ring's edge.
Ring 227 was enormous to begin with, and Ronin had already positioned himself near one side's edge before casting.
In the stands, as Great Fire Annihilation erupted, some people finally couldn't stay seated.
Two figures vaulted out at the same time, skirting the edge of the flames. Ignoring the terrified spectators scrambling backward, they charged along the wall toward Ronin.
Ronin's eyes swept over them, and he recognized both instantly.
The one with a hand on his sword hilt was Nobunaga.
The other—pink long hair, slightly petite build, expressionless as she ran—was one of the Troupe's women: Machi.
The one who transmuted aura into threads… and liked to hang enemies with those threads.
Ronin also felt pressure from behind—as if something had him in its sights.
He didn't need to look. He could already guess: the one aiming at him wasn't Shalnark, but Franklin, arriving together with Machi.
He'd known this before entering the ring—Milia had already told him.
Franklin was an Emitter, best at mid-to-long-range attacks.
Which meant Nobunaga and Machi's moves would likely come only after Franklin's firepower arrived.
Great Fire Annihilation had already been cast. A huge amount of chakra had left Ronin's body, freeing his hands again.
He formed a cross-shaped hand seal in front of him.
Another Ronin appeared behind him—
And the moment it formed, it began forming seals at high speed.
Earth Style: Earth-Style Wall!
Stone slabs popped up from the ground—and in the next instant, bang bang bang, they were pierced full of holes.
Just as predicted: Franklin's attack.
Nen bullets rained down from the stands, tearing through spectators who happened to be in the way—and shredding the rising stone slabs into powder.
But in that same moment, Franklin—standing high above with long earlobes drooping to his chest, arms raised, fingers forming dark gun muzzles as he fired Nen bullets—suddenly felt danger spike.
He instinctively twisted aside. His finger-guns swept in suppressive fire.
And he saw a young man with an inverted-V hairstyle weaving through the barrage, dodging the shots.
Franklin's brow tightened.
The aura coming off that man was strong—strong enough to give Franklin the sense that they weren't far apart.
And when Franklin's peripheral vision caught the spot the man had just dodged from, he noticed a small hole had appeared there out of nowhere, making him even more cautious.
So the Ronin on the ring had set things up in advance.
With help like that, no wonder he dared accept Uvogin's challenge.
Meanwhile, near the ring's edge, Nobunaga and Machi had already closed in—yet before either could strike, Ronin had crouched and slammed both palms onto the ground.
Earth Style: Earth Flow River!
Ronin injected chakra into the ground. The floor—and even the wall Nobunaga and Machi were standing on—resonated with his chakra and instantly shifted from hard stone into rolling, muddy earth.
Neither of them expected such a change. They didn't even have time to react—one step forward, and they sank into the mud.
A strange force grabbed them the moment they were trapped, dragging them rapidly toward the ring.
But Machi flicked her hand, firing aura threads into nearby spectators.
The spectators became tools. As they were yanked toward her, Machi used them as anchors—pressing them down into the mud as she tore herself free of the earth's grip.
By then, Ronin had already jumped down from the ring and sprinted toward the exit.
As for Uvogin—Great Fire Annihilation's flames hadn't fully dissipated yet. Ronin had no time to confirm whether the strike had truly burned him to death.
He couldn't afford to look.
The professional Hunter he'd hired for a high price could stall Franklin and the others briefly—but Ronin didn't expect them to actually stop the Troupe.
He simply didn't pay them enough for that.
Especially since the people he hired were either "support-type" specialists or mercenaries—masters at slacking and collecting rewards.
Back when he traded with Vesley, Ronin had taken a liking to Vesley's bodyguard: Adly.
After all, that was someone who would later assist Beyond Netero in traveling to the Dark Continent—he definitely had real strength.
So using Adly to hold off the Troupe was, in Ronin's view, the best option.
And Adly had brought him another pleasant surprise: he could connect Ronin to mercenaries who could provide safe shelter.
Ronin accepted gladly.
~~~
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