With Ronin's group of three taking the lead, Benkt also led his squad into the cave.
No one knew how deep that pitch-black cavern stretched underground. Vanessa habitually pulled a lighting stone from her pocket and tossed it out.
The light it gave off wasn't especially bright, but it was enough to reveal everything inside the cave to Ronin and the others.
A foul stench drifted up from below. Ronin took out a gas mask and put it on.
It wasn't because he was worried about poison gas, but because he knew exactly where that smell came from.
Chimera ant nests were built from a mixture of excrement and mud. Although this nest didn't follow the usual structure, there were still plenty of things here that made a person's stomach turn.
And besides those things, they could also see a large number of corpses.
Spider corpses.
From the dark brown drag marks left on the ground, it was clear that the spiders had been dragged up from somewhere deeper in the cave.
As for the place where the spiders had been processed, Ronin's group of three didn't split up to investigate. However, their expanded En was enough to let them know there was a sizable space in a side branch of the cave.
The feedback from En told them there was still a lot of residual spider aura in that space, though it was already extremely faint.
There was also a tall figure in that space. The other party seemed to have noticed Ronin and the others entering, but showed no intention of leaving and continued doing whatever it was doing.
Benkt and his team entered the cave behind Ronin's group.
The lighting stones on the ground saved them a lot of trouble. Unlike Ronin's group, once they discovered there was an enemy in the side chamber, someone from the squad slipped over to investigate.
Soon, sounds of fighting came from behind them, but Ronin didn't care.
They followed the passage inside the cave downward for about a hundred meters before the scene before them finally changed.
A faint light came from below, and at the same time, rustling sounds echoed from that direction.
The giant ant that had previously met Ronin's shadow clone near the cave entrance appeared before them once again.
Only this time, it was sitting on a throne.
That's right.
A throne.
It was a dazzling, golden chair embedded with numerous glittering gemstones.
And behind the throne stood two towering trees.
There were many pulsing fruits hanging from the trees, but judging by their size, they still seemed to need some time before ripening.
Even so, they could already tell that these giant trees were the same kind they had discovered beneath the buildings in the underground city—the kind of trees capable of giving birth to monsters.
Presumably, all the monsters that had appeared in the central ruin space before had been born from these two trees.
But what made Ronin's gaze turn serious was that near both trees, he sensed powerful presences.
They were beings with roughly the same aura quantity as the giant serpent they had encountered outside.
Ronin had wondered before: normally, there shouldn't have been only one Royal Guard ant. He had even imagined that what the queen was carrying in her abdomen might not be the Ant King, but another Royal Guard ant.
"You cannot stop me."
A clear voice reached Ronin and the others.
At the same time, things finally began appearing near the large trees on both sides. Judging by how they emerged, they looked as though they had burrowed up from underground.
But Ronin's group of three had been down in the underground city, so they understood better than anyone that the area behind the trees was likely the connection point between the underground city's cavern ceiling and this monster nest.
Maybe the spiders aren't the enemy.
That thought surfaced in Ronin's mind.
As large numbers of spiders appeared, his steps quietly shifted backward.
"Heh. Weren't you here to kill me? I smell a familiar scent on you. I don't know what happened to your clan, but from the moment you failed to guard the entrance and allowed humans with that special smell to enter this place, you were already unable to stop the rise of our race!"
Those words, carrying both mockery and smugness, rang in Ronin's mind.
Ronin's brow lifted slightly, and a thought formed in his heart.
Had the other party recognized him as a member of the Kurta Clan?
Thinking that, Ronin simply removed his mask and revealed his crimson Sharingan.
When the big-bellied ant queen on the throne saw those eyes, obvious confusion appeared in her expression.
With the Sharingan's powerful observational ability, Ronin accurately caught the subtle change in expression on the giant ant's face—something nearly impossible for an ordinary human to notice.
But in the next second, Ronin activated his ability without hesitation.
Black flames appeared out of thin air. Yet the instant they emerged, they began showing signs of shrinking, and they failed to descend directly onto the ant queen's body as Ronin had intended.
That special, Limitless-like ability had triggered again and displayed its overwhelming effect.
But in the next moment, the shrinking of the flames vanished, and they suddenly surged, burning straight toward the ant queen.
The reason lay entirely in Amenotokotachi.
The initial activation of Amaterasu had merely been Ronin's way of triggering the opponent's reactive Nen.
And once that ability had been triggered, it was Amenotokotachi's turn to shine. Ronin chose to directly freeze the entire stretch of space in front of the ant queen.
In Jujutsu Kaisen, the key strike Sukuna used to break through Limitless was a spatial slash.
In other words, spatial abilities were the key to breaking the opponent's ability—and Ronin just happened to possess such an ability.
So he tried it without the slightest hesitation.
For the first time, panic appeared on the ant queen's inhuman face. But in the next second, an arm pierced straight through her abdomen.
At the same time, the spreading flames landed on the ant queen's body.
However, a massive amount of blood sprayed from her, directly blocking the flames. And in the instant Amaterasu's black flames were obstructed, a figure covered in green mucus used the ant queen's ruptured belly to sweep the flames aside and shot out.
"No! It's not time yet!"
The ant queen let out a shrill scream, but what filled that scream most was concern for the being that had just emerged from her belly.
Ronin's gaze sharpened. He turned his head and immediately locked onto the figure that had separated from the queen's abdomen.
It was a green monster with two arms and two legs. Its face looked more like an insect's, while a long tail extended from the area around its rear.
Overall, it had none of the domineering presence of Meruem, who had been born in NGL. Instead, it looked more like Cell from Dragon Ball in his first form.
It looked more like a fusion of insect and beast than a human.
The moment the green Ant King separated from its mother's body, Amaterasu's black flames completely engulfed the ant queen.
In less than five seconds, the queen—her belly ruptured, able only to scream, yet with both eyes still fixed on the green Ant King—was burned by the black flames until nothing remained.
Mascher and Vanessa appeared beside Ronin.
And beside the green Ant King, two other figures appeared as well. Both possessed some human traits, but their overall forms leaned far more toward beasts.