Colin once again showed his strength. One javelin after another shot from his hand at high speed, precisely piercing through one—or even several—flying ants in midair before falling back down.
At the same time, other Nen users in the team began unleashing their abilities, while some used various firearms to launch attacks against the swarm of flying ants sweeping toward them.
But there were simply too many flying ants. Suppressing them in a short amount of time was almost impossible.
Then, to everyone's surprise, several Nen users worked together to conjure a mountain off-road vehicle.
Even when the huge vehicle was struck by flying ants, it barely suffered any damage. The reason was the layer of Nen covering the body of the vehicle.
Once everyone climbed aboard, Colin stopped throwing javelins.
His javelins weren't conjured. They were all weapons he had brought in with him. Even though his companions had helped him carry quite a few, he couldn't possibly waste them all on small fry.
After all, no matter how you looked at it, those flying ants in the air didn't seem like the final boss.
The off-road vehicle's throttle was floored, and it let out a beast-like roar. In front of it, massive soldier ants began appearing one after another.
But once the off-road vehicle charged forward like a wild horse, all of those soldier ants became nothing more than targets to be crushed beneath it.
During that process, however, the expert's earlier analysis began to prove useful.
Ronin's shadow clone had instantly killed the ants before, preventing them from unleashing the ability they had inherited from spiders. But now, facing the off-road vehicle barreling toward them, the ants turned their bodies around and pointed their abdomens at the vehicle.
The next second, large amounts of white spider silk sprayed from their rear ends, covering the vehicle.
But the experts had predicted this in advance. With a fourteen-person team, how could no one have prepared for it?
The windows were pushed open, and two tall Nen users appeared at them, each holding a flamethrower.
After they had discovered that the monsters in the underground city feared fire, flamethrowers had become standard equipment for the operation. Earlier, when dealing with those rampaging monsters, flamethrowers had also proved that those creatures could be easily ignited.
The ants they were facing now had some resistance to fire, but spider silk was extremely flammable.
As the two pulled the triggers, scorching flames burst out.
The spider silk sprayed by the ants ignited in midair.
Like a charging beast, the off-road vehicle burst straight through the flames. The huge spiked bumper at the front of the vehicle became a weapon for harvesting lives.
With a series of heavy bangs, one ant after another was sent flying.
Every ant hit by the vehicle was left with massive tearing wounds.
The off-road vehicle sped through the forest. Even trees blocking its path were smashed down in a single charge.
However, the face of one of the people controlling the vehicle quickly turned pale amid the violent jolting.
He was one of the members who had jointly activated the ability to conjure the off-road vehicle, and he was also the one maintaining the powerful Nen defense around the vehicle.
But as the vehicle charged wildly through everything in its path, the drain on him was terrifying.
In just about a minute, he felt as if his aura was almost completely emptied.
The protective Nen around the off-road vehicle began to thin.
With a soft pop, a flying ant diving down finally pierced through that layer of defense. Amid a sharp screech, its claws scraped directly against the metal roof of the vehicle.
But immediately after, a handgun was pressed straight against the ant's head.
Bang.
The flying ant's head burst apart, and its corpse was thrown away by the jolting motion of the vehicle.
On top of the vehicle now stood a man wearing sunglasses and holding two pistols.
His Nen had entered a state of Ren, and he moved across the violently shaking roof as if he were walking on flat ground.
As the flying ants dove down, the man moved and fired, sending each one crashing into the ground nearby.
Two minutes later, the flying ants in the sky had nearly vanished, and there were no more soldier ants blocking the path on the ground. Caves and cliffs gradually came into view for the people inside the vehicle.
But the massive off-road vehicle also seemed to have reached its time limit, vanishing into thin air.
The people riding it seemed prepared for this. They rolled as they landed, reducing the impact as they hit the ground.
Five members stepped back, then sat down on the ground under the protection of three others, panting heavily.
Among the five, four were the ones who had conjured the off-road vehicle, while the remaining one had maintained the protective barrier.
The man in sunglasses who had been shooting was also breathing hard, but he didn't immediately rest and recover. Instead, he looked toward the cave with a grave expression.
He seemed to have sensed something.
But before he could react, a huge tail burst out from the ground and instantly pierced through his body, lifting him high into the air.
The nearby Nen users immediately noticed something was wrong.
Some assumed combat stances, ready to attack at any moment, while others quickly retreated, trying to put distance between themselves and that massive tail.
But in the next second, two more people were pierced through and flung into the sky.
"Careful!" Benkt shouted.
At the same time, someone beside Benkt threw a disk-shaped object onto the ground.
The instant the disk hit the ground, it rapidly unfolded. A dark-green net spread open like blooming fireworks, scattering across the ground as if trying to trap the monster hiding underground.
But before the net could fully fall, a massive snake head appeared behind the person who had thrown the disk.
The snake's mouth snapped shut, leaving only a pair of legs standing on the ground.
Fear flashed through Benkt's eyes, but his hands were not slow. He threw out a round sphere.
The moment the sphere hit the ground, it made a soft sound, and a large amount of smoke erupted, instantly concealing Benkt's figure.
The giant snake turned its head toward the smoke, a hint of confusion appearing in its eyes.
A tail suddenly vanished from far away. When it appeared again, it had pierced straight through the smoke—but hit nothing.
Instead, at that moment, a javelin came flying from nearby. It gave the giant snake no chance to dodge and slammed directly into its head.
Nen and scales shattered at the same time, but the javelin failed to sink in very deeply before becoming lodged in the muscle beneath the giant snake's scales.
"Explode."
Colin softly uttered the word, and the javelin embedded in the flesh detonated like a bomb.
The area where the giant snake's skin had been pierced became a bloody mess in the explosion. That seemed to finally provoke the monster, which had kept its tail hidden beneath the ground the entire time.
The giant snake let out a hiss, and the earth began to tremble, as if some enormous creature was about to burst up from below.
Everyone's expression changed.
Colin hurriedly pulled out a new javelin, but his face looked extremely grim, because even if he threw another one, he didn't think it would be enough to kill the giant snake.
But just then, a spinning sphere of energy shot out from the edge of the forest in the distance, flying straight toward the giant snake's head.
Boom!
An explosion rang out as the snake's head collided with the sphere carrying high-speed rotating wind blades.
The next second, the sphere violently expanded.
Blue Wind Release chakra enveloped the entire snake head. The tremors in the ground ceased, and the swinging tail stopped moving before collapsing weakly toward the ground.
Ronin's figure appeared at the edge of the forest.
And what he had thrown was none other than Wind Release: Rasenshuriken.