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Ronin twitched his nose. A faint metallic tang of blood lingered in the villa's air. Someone had tried masking it with heavy aromatherapy, but the smell refused to disappear completely.
Two possibilities explained something this hard to hide.
Either a bloodbath had just gone down.
Or bloodbaths happened here on the regular—and another one had taken place right before they arrived.
Ronin's gut said the second option.
The villa was dead silent. Not a single servant anywhere. The butler led them into a wide banquet hall.
The room was packed with grotesque art—twisted human faces frozen in agony and despair. A long dining table dominated the center.
An old man sat at the head.
He carried himself with aristocratic elegance, but his skin was unnaturally pale. Paired with that long silver hair, the whole man radiated cold menace.
His sharp eyes swept over Ronin's group the moment they stepped inside, openly aggressive.
It felt less like greeting guests and more like an old count staring down at peasants on his land.
The completely empty table made the message crystal clear—this wasn't hospitality.
"Outsider. Killing Spence made you feel pretty proud of yourself?" Ryan looked down from on high, voice dripping superiority. He had expected more work to lure them into his territory. Things had gone surprisingly easy.
Maybe Spence's incompetence had made them underestimate how strong the Elders really were.
At least Ryan knew he was no idiot like Spence.
"Your trump card the people hiding outside the hall?" Ronin asked, gaze sweeping the room.
His En picked up movement the second they entered—more than twenty people, all wrapped in thick, dense Nen.
Terrifying number. But the closer he focused, the more he noticed every aura felt strangely similar, all pointing straight back to the old man at the head of the table.
A few possibilities came to mind.
One: Ryan was a Manipulator controlling a large group of ability users.
Two: Ryan and the crowd outside were cooperating in some kind of composite Nen ability.
Three: everyone out there were just clones—scary-looking, but ultimately weak.
The first was most common. Ronin immediately thought of Illumi—needles for control. Controlled ability users naturally leaked both their own aura and their controller's.
The second was the most dangerous. Composite Nen could produce insane effects. The one burned into Ronin's memory was the Ninth Prince of Kakin—his ability could literally swap souls after landing a hit.
If Ryan's power worked like that, Ronin was already preparing seals to grab Kurapika and the girls and teleport them out instantly.
The third possibility he dismissed outright. If they were all fakes, Ryan wasn't worth worrying about.
Ryan answered quickly.
Thick metal shutters slammed down behind the walls around the banquet hall—just like the ones he had used to trap the other Elders' reinforcements earlier.
Sleeping gas began pouring into the room at the same time.
The butler beside them immediately tried to sidestep and create distance the second the gas appeared.
He didn't get far.
Kurapika's chain shot out and wrapped tight around him.
At the exact same moment, Shizuku conjured Blinky.
"Suck up all the poison gas in the room," she said flatly.
Switch flipped.
Powerful suction erupted from Blinky's mouth. The sleeping gas that had just begun spreading got vacuumed straight in like it had a mind of its own.
Ryan, who had already slipped on a gas mask, didn't seem particularly surprised.
The gas had never been the main attack anyway. Its job was attrition. Even if it failed to reduce their numbers, it had forced them to reveal abilities and burn stamina.
Not bad.
Besides, two of them were already masked. The gas wouldn't have touched them anyway.
Ronin shifted his gaze from Ryan to the doorway they had entered through. His En showed even more people gathering there.
Right then the iron shutter over the doorway lifted, revealing the only exit.
Ronin gave it one indifferent glance before looking back at Ryan.
"Is this all you've got? Just cheap tricks?"
Even as the words left his mouth, Ronin vanished from his spot.
He didn't need Lightning Style. With his current strength, pure Enhancement speed alone was terrifying.
Ryan's pupils shrank the instant Ronin disappeared.
He ripped off his mask, mouth opening wide, and sprayed a mouthful of fresh blood toward where Ronin reappeared.
Every drop expanded rapidly in mid-air, swelling into fist-sized blood-colored tumors.
Faced with that disgusting attack, Ronin gathered chakra in his mouth, formed the seals, and exhaled a massive flame straight ahead.
Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique!
Scorching heat engulfed the blood tumors, carrying the ones that hadn't been instantly charred straight toward Ryan.
The moment Ryan saw the flames, his expression finally changed.
He threw himself sideways to dodge the inferno.
But the second he moved, Ronin appeared right beside him.
Ronin's fist was already cocked back in Super Break Fist stance as he slammed it toward Ryan's body.
The Great Fireball had been nothing but a feint!
BOOM!
His fist smashed into a massive blood vessel.
The vessel burst apart, spraying blood everywhere. Ronin instantly pulled back, putting distance between them.
He stared in surprise at where Ryan had been standing.
In that spot now stood a gigantic, slime-like blood-red creature.