Ronin's Swamp of the Underworld didn't only cover the area where the Ant King was.
As for Vanessa's ability, he had already gotten a clear understanding of it during their earlier exploration of the underground city.
So he naturally knew that even if the ground turned into mud, it wouldn't affect Vanessa much. But that sudden transformation would definitely have an unexpected effect on the lion Chimera Ant.
As for Mascher—
with that mid-to-long-range attack style of his, there was no way he would step into the area covered by the swamp.
And everything played out just as Ronin had expected.
The sudden change in the ground barely affected Vanessa, who was hiding inside the shadows. Instead, it gave her an opening to assassinate her target.
So while the lion Chimera Ant was resisting Mascher's aura bullets, Vanessa slipped from the shadow cast by those bullets into the lion's own shadow.
Then, before the lion noticed anything, she rose directly from his shadow and drove a single strike into his carotid artery.
As for the lion's instinctive counterattack after being wounded, Vanessa had already slipped back into his shadow.
As long as his attack couldn't enter the shadow, or instantly erase it, there was no way he could threaten her.
Mud splashed everywhere. The lion Chimera Ant clearly hadn't expected such a sudden turn.
Blood sprayed from the wound in his neck like a fountain. His eyes had already turned blood-red, yet he showed no intention of stopping the bleeding at all.
Instead, he raised his head and let out a deafening roar. At the same time, he noticed the change in his own shadow.
Hidden in the darkness, Vanessa sensed something wrong. Her gaze swept across the gushing blood, only to see that the blood had miraculously begun to coagulate.
Could it be that this lion wasn't an Enhancer-type Nen user, but a Manipulator or Emitter instead?
Vanessa tightened her grip on her dagger, but she didn't dare leave the shadow. The lion's blood-red eyes were fixed firmly on his own shadow in the mud.
Mascher's aura bullets kept exploding against the blood, blasting apart the blood the lion had sprayed out. But that scattered blood quickly flowed backward into the air again, forming something like a large net around the lion and protecting him.
Vanessa also noticed that none of the blood had lost its connection to the lion Chimera Ant. It was all still linked to the wound she had opened in his neck.
This situation made it look as if her attack had actually helped trigger the lion Chimera Ant's Nen ability.
It was probably a Manipulation-type ability.
He controlled his own blood for both attack and defense.
But had this ability existed from the start, or had the lion Chimera Ant adapted after her attack and created it on the spot?
Vanessa's mind raced, but she quickly identified the key point.
The wound.
What would happen if she cut off the connection between the blood and the lion?
In the distance, Mascher hadn't expected the lion Chimera Ant to block his aura bullets with splattered blood.
His cooperation with Vanessa had long since become seamless. The aura bullets he had fired earlier were meant to help Vanessa approach the enemy more easily and complete the assassination.
But now, if Vanessa stayed inside the enemy's shadow, it might actually become dangerous.
Because the enemy had already discovered her inside his shadow.
There were plenty of ways to force Vanessa out of a shadow. As long as he found one, then once Vanessa was forced into the open, she would absolutely not be a match for that lion Chimera Ant in a frontal fight.
Mascher stopped attacking.
No—more accurately, he stopped firing those aura bullets that could be launched rapidly. Instead, he began gathering aura.
A large amount of aura appeared in his hands, then quickly rose above his head. But unlike the spherical masses of aura he had formed before, this time the aura began compressing above him.
In just a few breaths, it had formed a disc-shaped mass of aura above his head.
The disc began spinning, making a sharp hissing sound. That cutting edge was so intense that even from a great distance away, the lion noticed it instantly.
If aura bullets couldn't break through the enemy's blood defense, then he would shape aura into a sharp wheel and cut through that defense instead.
When the aura formed into a spinning disc like a chainsaw, Mascher suddenly twisted his body and hurled the disc-shaped aura mass straight toward the lion.
Ronin saw Mascher's movement. At the same time, he also noticed that the Ant King had seen it as well—and rapidly completed an imitation.
Ronin had seen this ability in Dragon Ball before.
It was the Destructo Disc.
Although Mascher's version was rougher and thicker, it had already taken basic shape.
The lion Chimera Ant's gaze sharpened, but a smile curled at the corner of his mouth, because he had already thought of a way to break through both of his opponents' tactics.
His body suddenly sank faster.
As long as he sank into the swamp, his shadow would naturally disappear.
And the person hiding inside his shadow would have nowhere left to hide and would be squeezed out.
As for that incoming aura slash, even if it could break through his blood defense, so what?
Wasn't it still aimed at him outside the swamp?
But the lion Chimera Ant's thinking was clearly too simple.
Because in the very next second, his sinking body suddenly stopped.
In fact, his entire body got stuck.
And the one responsible for all of this was Ronin.
His fight with the Ant King had never been fully focused, so both of them had also been watching the battle between the lion and Mascher.
Unlike the Ant King, who could only steal-learn Mascher's ability but couldn't help the lion Chimera Ant directly, Ronin was the one who had created that swamp.
He saw through the lion's move with a single glance.
So the instant the lion tried to dive down, Ronin directly canceled the ninjutsu. The ground that had been turned into swamp mud rapidly returned to normal the moment his earth-nature chakra vanished.
But that still wasn't enough.
Susanoo appeared around Ronin's body to block the Ant King's attack, and the moment one of Ronin's hands touched the ground, he activated Earth Release: Moving Earth Core.
The effect of Moving Earth Core was simple: it allowed Ronin to control any shaped section of earth within a certain range, making it rise or sink.
So the instant the lion Chimera Ant's body got stuck, the ground beneath him suddenly shot upward.
And that abrupt rise directly exposed the lion's body to the incoming "Destructo Disc."
With a wet slicing sound—
the blood trying to intercept it couldn't stop the disc at all. The moment they touched, the disc pierced straight through.
Even the lion Chimera Ant's powerful body failed to withstand the slash. It was cut cleanly apart from the chest.
But the instant his body split, the blood spraying from his chest tried to glue his body back together.
A figure emerged from his shadow.
It was Vanessa.
A long blade of aura extended from the dagger in her hand.
With one strike, she directly severed the Nen the lion Chimera Ant was using to try to rejoin his body.
At the same time, she kicked the lion Chimera Ant in the head.
The burst of force sent the part of his body carrying his head, half a heart, and one arm flying away.
~~~
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