The giant snake had been a nightmare for Benket's team from the moment it appeared. It had already killed several members in rapid succession.
Ronin had been following the group from a distance. He hadn't come all this way just to watch them get wiped out here. In his eyes, Benket's people had already done their job by drawing the snake out into the open.
So when Colin's javelins proved insufficient to finish the creature, Ronin stepped in.
The moment the Wind Style: Rasenshuriken detonated, it turned the air into a massive meat grinder. In a single instant the giant snake's head and most of its upper body were shredded into a bloody pulp. Chunks of flesh and dark blood rained down from the sky.
Benket's surviving teammates were caught completely off guard, but every one of them exhaled in relief. The pressure the snake had put on them from the second it emerged had been crushing.
Then they saw who had thrown the attack.
Benket's expression darkened.
In that single moment he understood exactly what had happened. His team had been used as bait.
But how had Ronin pulled it off?
Benket was certain this area had already seen combat before they arrived. The scorched trees still smoldering along the path and the scattered ant corpses made it obvious that Ronin's group had pushed through first. That was exactly why Benket had charged in without hesitation—he had planned to use Ronin's team the same way.
Both sides knew the score. Still, Benket couldn't bring himself to show open hostility. After all, Ronin could have stayed hidden and let them die. Instead he had come out and finished the snake.
Technically, Benket owed him thanks.
Ronin simply gave Benket a distant nod, then turned his full attention to the cave behind the ruined team.
Even though the Queen was no longer visible, that ominous feeling had grown stronger.
Benket followed Ronin's gaze to the cave entrance. He didn't immediately order his people forward. Instead he gathered the survivors and quickly took stock of their losses.
Ronin, Maschur, and Vanessa stepped out of the treeline at the same time.
The two groups came together but didn't merge. Everyone's eyes stayed locked on the cave.
Above the entrance, the cliff face was riddled with smaller holes. Ants could be seen moving inside several of them. Yet none of them showed any interest in coming down. It was as if they were deliberately allowing the intruders to enter the cave.
"You got here first?" Benket asked, breaking the silence. "What exactly is going on here?"
Ronin nodded. "We reached this area before you, but we never made it inside the cave. The snake stopped us."
Benket didn't fully believe him.
Still, the only signs of battle he could see were the massive gouges left by the snake. There were no other traces of fighting. If Ronin's group had actually entered the cave, the situation would be far more chaotic than this quiet standoff.
Benket had a strong feeling that whatever waited inside was at least as dangerous as the snake—maybe worse.
Was it still worth going in?
He hesitated. His team had already come this far. Turning back now would feel like a waste. And in ruins like these, the greatest rewards usually sat behind the greatest risks.
He glanced at his surviving teammates. Most of them gave him small nods. Their minds were made up.
Ronin had no intention of using Benket's group any further now that they had reached the cave. He simply started walking toward the entrance with Maschur and Vanessa.
The whole time, one question kept circling in his mind.
When his shadow clone had thrown the kunai at the Queen, what had actually stopped it?
Through the Sharingan he had watched the weapon shrink smaller and smaller the closer it got, until it vanished completely.
It reminded him of something.
In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean, there was a Stand called Green Baby whose ability made anything approaching it shrink. The closer you got, the smaller you became—halving in size every time the distance halved, shrinking toward infinity.
A similar concept existed in Jujutsu Kaisen with Gojo Satoru's Infinity.
More accurately, it was an ancient paradox first posed by Zeno and later recorded in the Zhuangzi:
"Cut a foot-long stick in half every day, and it will never be exhausted, even after ten thousand generations."
If the Queen's power worked on the same principle, then attacking her directly would be nearly impossible. Any threat that approached her would shrink smaller and smaller until it could no longer touch her.
But was that even possible here?
The ability felt spatial in nature—most likely an Emission-type technique. And any ability that was actively constructed would have a weakness: it consumed the user's aura.
This was a pure counter-type Nen. It activated automatically the moment an attack came close. If that was true, then the real question became whether constant, unrelenting attacks could drain the Queen's aura reserves completely.
There was one glaring problem with that theory.
From everything Ronin had observed, the Queen herself didn't seem to know how to use Nen. It didn't look like an act.
Yet aura was clearly radiating from her body—especially from the swollen abdomen.
That meant the most likely source of this automatic, intercept-type defense wasn't the Queen at all.
It was whatever was growing inside her.
The next Ant King.
How strong would that unborn King's aura be? While they tried to grind it down, would the King actually be born?
And once it was born… how powerful would it become?
Ronin thought of Meruem—the Ant King born in NGL. That creature's strength had already been far beyond what he could handle at the time.
But this situation was different.
Judging by the guardian ant they had just killed—the giant snake—the Queen here was producing something much weaker than Meruem.
The real danger wouldn't be raw power.
It would be the ability itself.
An intercept-type power similar to Infinity would make most conventional attacks useless. Unlike Gojo, however, this Ant King wouldn't be able to use that defense both offensively and defensively at the same time. If it wanted to attack while keeping the counter active, it would have to actively control the ability.
Otherwise the same shield that protected the King would also protect its enemies.
The thought made Ronin's blood stir.
He was almost looking forward to the new King being born.