Feitan took up a defensive stance.
Ronin's punch crashed straight into Feitan's raised arms, and Feitan's feet plowed a long trench through the ground.
Both of his arms went numb.
The temperature overhead had been neutralized. The blazing flames and the freezing Ice Moon were colliding with the intent to destroy each other together.
Even after the two forces canceled each other out, the temperature was still low, but as more fire scattered and fell from the sky, it wasn't low enough to cause frostbite anymore.
A little lingering chill like that was nowhere near enough to threaten a Nen user.
But if the other guy liked heat so much, then he'd just make him another one.
With that thought, Feitan—whose rage had not subsided, but instead boiled even hotter after being blasted away by Ronin's punch—erupted with a massive surge of aura once again.
Ronin, however, had no intention of giving Feitan another chance to unleash his ability.
Amenotokotachi instantly targeted Feitan's head, locking his movement in place. At the same moment, Amaterasu flames rose around him and immediately spread onto his body.
But the outfit on Feitan's body had already quietly shifted back to a blazing red. The black flames of Amaterasu burned against it, yet for the moment they couldn't truly threaten Feitan. All they could do was keep consuming the aura pouring out from his suit.
But that was enough.
The immense aura Feitan had released became the perfect fuel for Amaterasu's black flames.
Ronin closed the distance again in an instant. Only this time, instead of attacking directly with his own hands, a massive Susanoo manifested around him.
A skeletal arm wrapped in blood-red chakra reached out and grabbed toward Feitan, who was gradually being swallowed by the Amaterasu flames.
With his head unable to move, Feitan didn't know exactly what was happening, but his hands instinctively shot upward toward his head.
And that very movement made him realize that the space around his head had become as solid as iron—his hands couldn't enter it at all.
But it was also through that movement that Ronin noticed the power in his left eye, the one maintaining Amenotokotachi, rapidly draining for a brief instant.
At that exact moment, Susanoo's giant hand scooped Feitan up.
Amenotokotachi vanished abruptly.
The giant hand hauled Feitan into the air, rose to a high point, and then slammed him down toward the ground.
It was like the Hulk swinging Loki around by the ankle—Susanoo dragged Feitan through a savage round of smashing.
The flames hadn't burned through Feitan's fireproof suit, but the brutal impacts made him cough up blood.
His rage and his injuries both reached their peak in that instant.
But Feitan was no longer capable of giving Ronin any more surprises.
A little blood trickled from Ronin's left eye, but it was nothing serious.
Susanoo collapsed and scattered, while Feitan, still wrapped in flames, fell from the air and hit the ground.
At the same time, the Ice Moon in the sky shattered under the heat and vanished, and the forest finally returned to silence.
But on the trees that had first frozen and then been scorched by the flames, droplets of water were slowly dripping down. Even farther away, the sounds of insects and birds had disappeared.
Maybe they had all frozen to death in that moment of extreme cold.
Ronin stepped forward and looked down at Feitan, who was still covered in the fireproof suit.
"You lost, trash."
The words were simple, but they were enough to make Feitan spit out blood again.
Feitan struggled to get up, only to find that his body was so weak he couldn't rise at all.
The fireproof suit covered his whole body, but it didn't heal his injuries. It only made him look like he was still fine.
In truth, before the suit had even appeared, Ronin's heavy punches had already left him badly injured.
Part of that had been because Feitan wanted to trigger a stronger ability and kill Ronin with it. Otherwise, his injuries would never have gotten this severe.
But now Ice Moon had failed to kill Ronin, and he hadn't even gotten the chance to use his blazing sun. Then Susanoo's smashing had nearly shattered every bone in his body.
Just like Ronin said—
he had lost.
He had lost the one-on-one battle he had always been most confident in, and he had lost it like a piece of garbage, completely overwhelmed from start to finish.
Shalnark's arrangement had probably been the correct one.
Too bad he could never have chosen to avoid this fight.
After all, his ability had never been designed with concern for whether it might drag his comrades into it. That alone had guaranteed his battle with Ronin would be one-on-one.
And now that he had lost, that also meant that even if he somehow survived, the next time he met Ronin, he would lose again.
After all, Chrollo and Shalnark had long since analyzed Ronin's rate of growth.
He would outpace all of them.
Feitan narrowed his eyes and looked up through the black flames toward the sky.
Nice weather, huh?
Not giving Ronin any more chances to mock him, the fireproof suit on Feitan's body suddenly broke apart and vanished.
And in that instant, the flames of Amaterasu fell directly onto him.
So this was the agony Bonolenov had felt when he was burned.
He really wished he could see Ronin burned to death by flames this hot too.
"Too hot?"
"Your throat's so burned you can barely breathe, right?"
"Go on, run if you want. If you can still move, that is."
"Use that proud little ability of yours and get yourself out of this."
The nonstop taunts kept ringing in his ears. Ronin's voice—that was the last thing Feitan heard in his life, words so irritating they made his blood boil.
"You really deserve to die!"
That hoarse scream was Feitan's final cry before death.
The searing flames of Amaterasu completely erased Feitan from the world, leaving not even a trace of ash on the ground.
But in Ronin's open hand, there was still a bit of Feitan's flesh and blood—something he had torn from Feitan's chest during the earlier clash.
Not for any immediate reason.
Only so that if he ever got the chance to use Impure World Reincarnation in the future, he could revive this squinty-eyed bastard and make him work for him.
Ronin stored that bit of flesh in a bottle he had prepared long ago, rolled his shoulders, then cast one last glance at the place where Feitan had disappeared and shook his head slightly, almost regretful.
His final round of taunting had been meant to make Feitan die with enough obsession to trigger post-mortem Nen.
But apparently, it had failed.
At the very end, Feitan had chosen to give up. Maybe he had already accepted that he could never beat him.
"Book."
Ronin casually took out a Magnetic Force card from the card binder he had summoned, activated it with Shizuku as the target, and in the next instant aura wrapped around him and turned him into a streak of light shooting rapidly into the distance like a meteor.
Meanwhile, while Ronin had been fighting Feitan, Shizuku—who had taken Phinks away—pulled out Blinky the moment she landed.
Even so, Phinks's kick landed solidly on Blinky's horizontal handle.
The force of the kick sent Shizuku stumbling backward again and again, but her expression didn't change in the slightest. She kept using Blinky like a shield, constantly blocking Phinks's relentless attacks.
And then, at that very moment, a fishhook suddenly appeared out of nowhere in front of Phinks and lashed toward his throat.
Phinks's eyes narrowed. He halted his step, shot out a hand, and grabbed the fishing line behind the hook. With a burst of force, he yanked it aside just before the hook could tear into the flesh of his neck.
But in that same instant, Neon—with her pink hair—appeared behind Phinks. The pen in her hand, wrapped in Nen, stabbed straight toward his lower back.