Six and Seven fused in front of Razor the instant the ball left Ronin's fist.
The new beast wore 13. Both arms crossed to take the hit. They lasted about a second. The arms came apart. A hole opened in the chest.
The throw lost most of its teeth on the way through.
Razor was already behind it, hands locked in a volleyball bump. He lifted.
The ball went up. The force that sent it also put Razor several meters into the outer court.
Leather punched through the fortress ceiling and vanished into morning air.
Razor looked at his swelling wrists and gave a tired smile.
"That's a lot of power."
"You too."
Ronin thought of Hisoka. Bungee Gum on that ball and the bump would never have sent it into the sky. The wrists said Razor could still have eaten the hit. Call it more than a hundred thousand in aura. A real heavyweight.
The pirates on the sideline stared. Their captain had just lost a one-on-one. Neon was already cheering.
"I lose," Razor said. "We'll leave town. That was the deal."
NPC work, executed clean.
Ronin let the tension drop. Beating Razor in a straight match put a number on the last few months of training that no amount of mountain bosses had managed.
He did not stay to talk. The pirates packed and walked. The original NPC reappeared with the dawn and put Plot of Beach in Ronin's hand—the specified-slot card that had been the ugly one to get.
The island noticed. People started saying his team could clear.
Genthru was one of them.
He hated the thought. He had also stood in front of Ronin once, which meant he knew what a straight fight looked like. Unless he planted a bomb on the man, there was no path. Getting close enough to try had felt like leaning over a hole with no bottom. One wrong read and the ending would not be a loss. It would be a funeral.
The hesitation did not last. Years of setup. Hundreds of billions. He was not handing that pile to anyone. He had to see Ronin again.
Ronin left the fortress turning a different problem. Clear the game and he could take one card out with him. Which one. He was also sitting on ninety-three cards. Six short. Those six lived with Genthru.
Nickes had died after the last mess, cause of death unexplained to anyone who mattered. The bomber was obvious. No one had a real name to hang on him. With Nickes gone, the old group's cards had all drifted into one pair of hands. Faster than the manga version, where Genthru had needed bombs to make people sign. Murder had been simpler.
That was why Ronin was going to him.
The clones were already gone. The card in his hand was Accompany.
Genthru would know Plot of Beach had changed owners. Wait, and the man would come hunting. Ronin was done waiting.
Accompany fired. Target: Genthru.
They landed inside a ring.
Everyone Genthru could still call was there. Binders open. Ready.
Ronin read the formation in one look.
Spell cards went up on their side at the same time.
He had seen this play. He had used it on a Troupe trio—spell cards first, empty the binders after.
He smiled.
His own hand held spell cards. A shield. A necklace at his throat.
Holy Water went down as their spells landed. Ten blocks against attack spells.
The shield was Shield of Faith. Specified slot. S-rank. Fifteen copies on the whole island. Raise it and every movement-type spell in a twenty-meter radius around the holder died.
The necklace was the Paladin's Necklace. Worn, it reflected spell-card effects and stripped spells off any card it touched.
He had come dressed for a runner.
Holy Water, the necklace, the shield—all of it was there to keep Genthru from leaving.
Genthru had come dressed to gamble.
He had a spell card too.
Leave.
He knew he could not win the fight. A trap like this would also put him on Ronin's list. The plan was simple. The team strips the binders. He steps out of the game. The cards had already moved. No one inside still connected him to Sub and Bara. As long as those two held product, he still had a board to play.
He had not planned on Shield of Faith.
Leave went dead in his hand. He backed up. Get outside the twenty meters and the card would work again. Light caught on the triangle lenses.
Ronin saw him moving through the spell fire.
Even without the extra gear, Genthru's people were not taking much. The cards were not in Ronin's binder. They were in Shizuku's. The ring was also too thin. Nothing like the crowd he had used on the Troupe.
Holy Water would have been enough by itself.