"Shut up, Ryota!"
"Don't say another word! I'm begging you!"
Kansuke and Makato lunged forward almost simultaneously, each grabbing one side of Ryota and trying to cover his trouble-making mouth. They were truly scared out of their wits by this pig of a teammate.
Was he blind? Could he not see the miserable end Ryohei and the others met?
Even if the three of them went at it together, how could the result be any better?
"I won't become a coward like you guys!" Ryota struggled violently, his arms flailing wildly as he continued to roar.
His previous fear had long been cast to the winds, leaving only an indescribable indignation filling his chest.
Mamoru watched the three of them scuffling in a heap, feeling utterly speechless and filled with disgust.
What kind of structure did this person's brain have? Where was the difference from a normal person? If it weren't so revolting, he'd really want to open it up and take a look.
"Ryota, wake up!"
"Yeah, doing this will get us all killed!"
Kansuke and Makato couldn't manage to subdue this hot-blooded idiot. They could only offer bitter advice, but the effect was clearly minimal.
"Enough talk! Let go! I'm going to defeat him! To prove myself..."
As Ryota was shouting, his peripheral vision caught Mamoru actually shifting his gaze elsewhere, as if the farce on their side wasn't even worth a glance.
He won't even look at us properly?!
Ryota felt his inner depths fill with desolation, followed by a sudden explosion of nameless fire. From childhood to now, he had never been as angry as he was at this moment. To what extent was this person going to despise them?
Mamoru's attention was indeed not on them. It was only because he saw something interesting, something approaching them at extreme speed.
Rustle! Crash!
Suddenly, the dense thickets on both sides of the path were violently burst open, and two massive pythons with scales shimmering with a cold luster lunged out. One opened its foul-smelling, bloody maw, aiming straight for Mamoru, while the other charged unstoppably toward Ryota's trio.
"You..."
Before Ryota's unfinished boast could fully leave his mouth, the python's maw, large enough to swallow a calf, had already descended. Shadows instantly swallowed the three of them. All the shouting, struggling, and fear, along with the people themselves, were swallowed whole into the python's belly, and the sound ceased abruptly.
The python attacking Mamoru was far less fortunate. Before its head could even fully approach, Mamoru's punch had already met it.
Boom!
With a dull, heavy sound, the fist smashed solidly into the python's hideous head. The massive serpentine body was like it had been hit by a high-speed truck, flying backward violently.
Crack! Snap! Crunch!
A series of explosive sounds of breaking trees followed. In the process of flying back, the python's thick, long body smashed through several sturdy branches one after another. Finally, carrying a cloud of wood chips, it fell into the depths of the dense thicket in the distance, vanishing from Mamoru's sight.
The python that had swallowed Ryota's trio didn't linger for a moment after completing its meal. Its thick body twisted flexibly as it quickly slithered back into the dense thicket along the path it came from, its movements crisp and efficient without the slightest hesitation.
Mamoru watched coldly from beginning to end, with no intention of lifting a finger to save them. He had no obligation to save three people who were irrelevant to him and had even been his enemies.
Moreover, one of them was an "adult Naruto" type fool who had provoked him again and again.
As they say, if you don't have the fate of a protagonist, don't copy the brainless behavior of a shonen manga lead. It's one thing to get yourself killed, but it's another to drag your companions down with you.
Whoosh—
Suddenly, a strange whistling sound came faintly from the distance, rapidly drawing closer.
Mamoru turned slightly to face a certain direction in the forest. His expression was calm, but his tone brooked no argument. "Both of you, get behind me."
"Yes."
Hinata sensed the abnormality and quickly hid behind his back, which wasn't broad but felt reassuring, without a moment's hesitation.
Shino didn't hesitate either. He adjusted his sunglasses and moved silently and quickly behind Mamoru, while the faint sound of insect wings vibrating came from his sleeves.
The sound of the wind entering their ears became clearer and sharper, as if countless invisible blades were cutting through the air.
BOOM!!!
In the blink of an eye, an invisible, violent air current, like a flood bursting through a dam, surged out from the dense thicket directly in front of Mamoru.
The target was unmistakable—it was aimed straight at Mamoru.
This terrifying wind pressure contained destructive power. The shrubs and grass along the way were torn to shreds the moment they made contact, and the solid ground was violently scraped away, leaving a messy trench. The uprooted wood and crushed stones caught in the violent air current were like countless bullets being fired, shooting toward Mamoru in a sky-covering barrage.
The wind pressure, enough to tear an average person to pieces, slammed in front of Mamoru.
However, the expected loud crash of impact didn't occur, nor was anyone blown away or knocked over.
That impressively powerful wind pressure, upon touching a certain invisible field in front of Mamoru, actually vanished abruptly, as if hitting an absolutely insurmountable barrier. Not even a single strand of Mamoru's hair was moved.
The violent wind pressure was blocked by Infinity. With Mamoru's position as the boundary, he and the small area behind him became an absolutely safe domain, while everywhere else bore the brunt of the storm's frantic baptism and destruction.
Had it not been for the two shocking, half-meter-deep trenches blasted into the ground on either side of his feet by the wind pressure, one might have mistakenly thought the shockwave had simply subsided on its own before him.
At this moment, the broken wood and crushed stones that had been carried along by the wind pressure, which should have possessed immense kinetic energy, were all eerily suspended in the air half a meter in front of Mamoru. It was as if time had stopped. They remained motionless, forming an extremely miraculous and logic-defying scene.
Hinata couldn't help but carefully peek half a head out from behind Mamoru. Her face was written with shock and curiosity, her pale eyes staring blankly at this incredible sight.
Mamoru turned his head and, seeing her look of wanting to ask but not daring to, found it a bit amusing. He took the initiative to speak, "Do you want to know how I did it?"
Almost no one who had seen him use Infinity could resist that curiosity.
As he spoke, the storm outside abruptly ceased as if it had never appeared. The debris suspended in mid-air lost the support of the invisible force and fell with a "patter-clatter" into the half-meter-deep trench below, piling up together.
"No... that's not it."
Hearing Mamoru's question, a look of embarrassment from having her thoughts seen through appeared on Hinata's face, and she quickly waved her hands, denying it in a small voice.
"Don't be nervous. When I have time, I'll explain it to you." Mamoru reassured her in a tone carrying a hint of doting.
Immediately, the relaxed look on his face vanished, replaced by a rare solemnity. He raised his head, his sharp gaze shooting toward a large tree not far away.
He said in a deep voice, "But for now, a trouble has come knocking."
Hinata and Shino both felt a chill in their hearts. This was the first time they had seen Mamoru show such a serious expression. It seemed the "trouble" he spoke of was definitely not ordinary trouble.