By now, even though Ronin had never properly explored the ghost ship, he had already formed an accurate guess about its situation.
He could even explain a thing or two about those aquatic humanoids.
Perhaps they were also one of the ghost ship's abilities.
Just like how the ghost ship maintained only a thin layer of Nen no matter how much it absorbed, in order to deceive people, the aquatic humanoids aboard were also a form of misdirection.
They made people discover the ship's existence, then shift their attention onto the aquatic humanoids aboard, thereby ignoring the ship itself. After all, the aquatic humanoids did indeed carry Nen, though it was very faint.
Ging and Kurapika nodded at the same time, clearly agreeing with Ronin's judgment.
Underwater, the Water Shark Bullets continued to be born from Ronin's chakra and kept tearing into the ghost ship.
The vessel slowly began to fall apart under the bites. Its original mournful cries gradually became more urgent.
It seemed it was truly afraid.
But right at that moment, the sea beasts lured in by the ghost ship's sounds finally stopped circling. They suddenly began lunging toward the ship above the ghost ship.
This was clearly another one of the ghost ship's abilities.
Ronin had seen humans who had mastered Nen, and even magical beasts that had mastered Nen. But this was his first time seeing an object that had mastered Nen, and could even set up tactics and attack targets as if it possessed intelligence.
If it had been a small object, Ronin would not have minded keeping it.
But a huge, broken ship?
Ronin had no interest.
So the hand seals he formed changed. They were no longer for the Water Shark Bullet, but for another technique.
Water Release: Great Shark Bullet Technique.
A massive amount of chakra was released the moment Ronin completed the hand seals. In an instant, it created an enormous creature in the sea.
It was a giant shark comparable in size to the ghost ship itself.
The shark opened its mouth full of sharp teeth, swung its tail, and bit toward the middle of the ghost ship.
With a crack, the deck shattered.
The ghost ship stopped pretending. Powerful Nen erupted from its body, and it tried to form an impact by releasing Nen in order to blast away the shark created by the Great Shark Bullet Technique.
But it had made the wrong choice.
The giant shark that had bitten into the ghost ship was not blown away. Instead, it absorbed the Nen the ghost ship released and became even larger.
Crack!
Just as the first sea beast rushed beneath Ronin's ship, a muffled cracking sound came from the sea.
That was the sound of the ghost ship being bitten in half by the giant shark.
At the same time, the approaching sea beast had its head directly pierced by a Nen bullet casually condensed at Ging's fingertip.
It was an extremely tiny, compressed Nen bullet.
The last time Ronin had seen a similar attack was from Frieza in the Dragon Ball manga. That terrifying guy, who had a battle power of 530,000 in his normal state, liked raising his hand and firing these highly penetrating attacks.
The sea beast whose head had been pierced slowly floated upward.
The sea beasts that had been eager to attack moments ago saw the first one die so easily, and immediately changed their target.
Their target was no longer the ship beneath Ronin's feet, but the dead sea beast.
In only a short while, a dark red area appeared on the surface of the sea. The enormous sea beast's corpse also disappeared rapidly.
The sea beasts, still not fully satisfied, looked at the ship as it gradually sailed farther away, but did not chase after it.
Likewise, the ghost ship, now broken into two pieces and completely devoid of Nen, no longer followed them.
The shark created by the Great Shark Bullet Technique had already vanished. Ronin stood by the railing, his face carrying an expression of loneliness born from invincibility.
At that moment, the sea not far away finally stopped looking endlessly empty.
A wall that stretched to unknown distances began appearing on the horizon. It looked even more magnificent than the Great Wall, because it seemed to have been built directly on the sea itself.
Of course, to the people of the Dark Continent, the place where Ronin currently stood might only be a small lake.
"Is that the edge?" Ging sighed in admiration.
That was not a city wall.
It was a continent!
According to Lance, whom they had left behind, around the edge of Lake Mobius existed a ring of land.
It was a mysterious continent where, no matter how one walked, one would eventually return to the place where one had landed.
It was precisely because of the existence of this continent that the Dark Gate guarded by the Gatekeeper existed. It was the only way to cross the mysterious continent and leave Lake Mobius.
As the ship drew closer, that mysterious continent became increasingly clear before everyone's eyes.
Tall, steep, and dangerous.
That was the feeling the continent gave them.
Especially the danger.
That was entirely because countless seabirds lived along those steep cliffs.
From flocks of palm-sized birds flying in groups, to enormous creatures with wingspans of dozens or even hundreds of meters, everything could be found along the edge of that continent.
However, they did not fly toward the ship. Instead, after taking off, they flew up toward the continent above the cliffs, as if that place was their true hunting ground.
At that moment, the towering Dark Gate also entered Ronin and the others' sight.
After all, it was simply too huge, too shocking.
Even from far away, they could feel the sheer size and weight of that gate. A rough estimate placed it at over a hundred meters tall and several dozen meters wide.
Was something like that really something human strength could push open?
The ship continued forward, but everyone could already see the small stretch of land beneath the giant gate.
There were many buildings on that land.
There was also an extremely eye-catching existence.
It was something lying there, yet still looked over ten meters tall. It had a long, pale, elegant neck covered in scales, a noble-looking head, flowing whiskers, and curved horns that pointed straight toward the sky.
All of it proved one thing.
The creature lying on the island was a dragon.
A giant dragon that had appeared as a boss in all kinds of Western films and shows.
The approaching ship made the dragon slowly open its eyes, but it made no sound. It seemed already used to this kind of situation.
The ship docked at the harbor, and the dragon still did not make a sound, as if it were calculating something.
Instead, many half-human, half-beast beings appeared at the harbor.
According to Lance, these half-human, half-beast magical beasts were all servants who served Lord Gatekeeper.
Even the giant dragon Griffin, lying in front of the Dark Gate, was merely Lord Gatekeeper's mount.
"Welcome. Lord Gatekeeper is already waiting in the reception hall. Please follow me."
The one speaking was a magical beast wearing a tailcoat, with the head of a goat and the body of a human.
In Ronin's perception, this being was no weaker than Lance.
It might even be stronger.
"Lord Gatekeeper knows about us?" Ronin was somewhat surprised.
"Of course," the goat-headed magical beast replied as if it were only natural. "Lord Gatekeeper is even fully aware of everything you did on your way here."
Ronin and the others exchanged glances.
All of them became curious about what exactly this Gatekeeper, whom Lance had been so unwilling to discuss in detail, was really like.
~~~
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