Ronin looked at the mass of aura and instantly understood the Ant King's method of attack.
If he couldn't get close to attack the enemy, then he would use long-range attacks without triggering his own reactive Nen.
Judging by how crude that aura sphere was, this was clearly a choice the Ant King had made by instinct.
Amenotokotachi vanished, and Water Release: Water Formation Wall activated instantly.
The aura sphere slammed into the water that had appeared out of thin air and exploded, but it also hid Ronin's figure behind the mass of water.
A trace of seriousness flashed through the Ant King's eyes, but in the very next second, the ground beneath his feet turned into mud.
It was Earth Release: Swamp of the Underworld.
In the manga, this was the technique Jiraiya used to attack Orochimaru's summoned giant snakes.
At this moment, though, Ronin was not using it with the aim of attacking the Ant King, but rather to alter the terrain.
It was a test.
The "Limitless" layer around the Ant King's body would only activate after he was attacked.
So if Ronin activated an ability without any intention of attacking the Ant King, would it still trigger the opponent's reactive Nen?
After all, the other party's ability was not the real Limitless technique.
The Ant King had not expected the sudden change beneath his feet. For the first time, his body's movement changed, and his foot sank directly into the mud.
But Ronin's Sharingan saw everything clearly.
The instant Swamp of the Underworld formed, there had indeed been a brief moment where it started to shrink. But in the next moment, when the Ant King's raised foot came down, that shrinking vanished.
In other words, even though Ronin had done his best to make the Swamp of the Underworld non-offensive when he cast it, the Ant King's Nen still judged it as an attack and automatically triggered.
But that trigger disappeared the moment the Ant King took an active step toward the swamp.
Ronin's eyes lit up, and a thought formed in his mind.
All attacks could not approach the Ant King—but in that process, if the Ant King actively approached something, then his passive defensive Nen would fail.
This was a classic double-edged sword.
The greater the benefit brought by the vow, the harsher the restriction brought by the limitation.
To maintain a nearly perfect reactive Nen ability, he himself had to remain in a defensive state of mind, with no thought of taking the initiative to attack.
That happened to perfectly match the Ant King's situation while he had still been inside his mother's body.
At that time, the only thing he needed to guarantee was absolute safety.
But now that he had been born, he needed not only safety, but also the ability to attack proactively.
And that clashed with the Nen he had set up while still inside the mother body.
With the Ant King's talent, if he were given enough time, perhaps he could find a way to make up for this shortcoming—or rather, this flaw in his ability.
But right now, what the Ant King lacked most was time.
Ronin had arrived far too early.
The swampified ground could not truly restrain the Ant King, and the Ant King's attacks didn't need to get close—or rather, they could not get close to the target at all.
So after stepping into the swamp, the Ant King released aura from beneath his feet, blasting himself free. At the same time, more aura spheres quickly appeared in his hands.
Those spheres shot out from his hands like bullets, flying straight toward Ronin.
Ronin's response was extremely simple. He alternated between Water Release and Earth Release. Earth Release constantly reshaped the terrain, while Water Release precisely intercepted every single aura bomb.
At the same time, while Ronin and the Ant King were locked in an intense exchange, the other two Chimera Ants also launched attacks toward Ronin.
However, behind them was an overwhelming swarm of spiders, and in front of them, people appeared to block them the instant they attacked.
Mascher's attack method was almost identical to the Ant King's.
No.
More accurately, the attack method Mascher used was the very one the Ant King was now imitating.
Large numbers of aura bombs flew from Mascher's hands, spreading out in an encircling pattern as they swept toward the Chimera Ant with lion-like features.
At the same time, in the shadows, a figure quietly flashed past, slowly approaching the lion Chimera Ant's shadow.
As for the monkey-like Chimera Ant on the other side, it was forced back directly by a sudden explosive launch of javelins.
Ever since entering the cave, Colin had remained in a state of readiness.
The moment Ronin gave the order, he completely ignored Benkt's thoughts and directly unleashed his ability, targeting the monkey Chimera Ant with an attack.
Back outside the cave, Colin knew very clearly that if Ronin had not suddenly acted, both he and Benkt might have been injured by the giant serpent's counterattack, and the team might have suffered even more casualties.
So he owed Ronin a favor.
Now that Ronin was willing to take on the Ant King himself, Colin didn't mind going all out to help Ronin hold back—or even kill—that disgusting monkey-type Chimera Ant.
The retreating monkey was immediately met by giant spiders lunging forward to bite it.
But the monkey was extremely agile. As it twisted and dodged, its hands moved at incredible speed, tearing off several massive spider legs in succession.
Each time it ripped off one of those sickle-like spider legs, it hurled it back like a javelin toward Benkt's team.
Its target was not only Colin, but everyone who had intruded into the cave.
And judging by its actions, it clearly intended to use the spider legs to probe the team for weak points, then gradually break them apart from those weaknesses.
At that moment, Benkt no longer had the leisure to think about anything else.
Two small balls quickly appeared in his hand. He threw them to the ground, where they burst into a cloud of white smoke. The smoke enveloped the squad, instantly cutting off the distant monkey Chimera Ant's line of sight.
Instinctively spreading its life energy into the smoke, the monkey Chimera Ant still could not detect any human presence inside.
A suspicious look flashed through its sharp eyes, but then the corners of its mouth split open. It redirected the bloody spider leg in its hand and threw it straight toward Ronin.
At that exact instant, a javelin shot out of the smoke and arrived before the monkey in a flash.
Alarm surged through the monkey's heart. As it twisted aside to dodge, its claws brushed against the javelin.
A powerful force knocked the javelin off course, but at the tail end of the javelin, there was now something like a circular disk.
The instant the javelin passed by the monkey, the disk exploded. Blue lightning spread along the metal javelin and directly onto the monkey's body.
In just an instant, the monkey's sparse fur showed signs of scorching.
But its eyes turned savage. The claw that had touched the javelin grabbed it directly, and as it turned, it unleashed its strength, hurling the javelin back in the direction it had come from.
Yet in that same instant, the monkey heard a scream.
It came from the lion.
It turned its head in disbelief and saw that, somehow, a dagger had stabbed into the lion's neck.
As blood sprayed out, the lion raised its claw and slammed it down toward the ground.
But what it struck was soft earth. Under the eruption of tremendous force, all it managed to do was splash up a large amount of mud.