The Rain Tiger at Will Technique was activated again, and at some unknown point, many more cicadas had appeared on the island.
Everyone got busy again. But every time they finished clearing them out, new cicadas would reappear on the island in less than an hour.
It was as if these things could not be killed off at all.
"We have to find a better solution," Ronin said with a serious expression.
If these things could not be killed off, then there was only one possibility: there were countless cicada eggs hidden on the floating island.
The first method Ronin thought of was to use Great Exploding Water Colliding Wave again and wash the entire island clean. That way, no matter how many insect eggs existed on the island, they would all die.
Once he thought of it, he did it.
After all, this was not the first time the island had been surrounded by Great Exploding Water Colliding Wave.
But two hours after the washing was complete, the cicada cries appeared on the island again. It was still that shrill, half-dead wail.
Ging endured the irritating sound in his ears and raised two fingers.
"Two possibilities. Either they weren't washed away or drowned, or the eggs are coming onto the island again from outside."
"I lean toward the second possibility," Kurapika immediately stated. "If they really hadn't been washed away or drowned, then these cries should have started an hour earlier."
"You mean there's a key factor outside the island causing the cicada eggs to flood the island," Ronin immediately judged.
"We can try looking for it," Kurapika said, not speaking too definitively.
After all, this was only a guess.
"But there's always been nothing in the sky, right?" Abaki said. She usually liked looking up at the sky, so she felt she had some say regarding the situation above.
"Before the rain landed on these giant cicadas, could you have imagined that the source of the sound was on the island?" Ronin asked a very simple question.
"All right." Abaki accepted his point.
But how exactly to handle this matter still fell to Ronin.
If everything was really as Kurapika guessed, then that meant outside the floating island, there was one or more cicadas invisible to the naked eye.
As for what kind of ability and strength the producer had, that was hard to judge.
"The Rain Tiger at Will Technique I released covered the entire floating island, but within that range, I didn't discover any special existence in the air. So if there really is a producer far away from the island, then I think it's most likely beneath the floating island."
Ronin voiced his guess and walked to the edge of the island.
However, at this moment, faint light had already begun appearing in the sky. It was a sign that the sun was about to rise.
But Ronin had no intention of stopping. He took one step forward, and his body left the island. However, he did not fall.
Because the moment he stepped out, he had already used the Ultra-Light-Weight Rock Technique.
"I'll go with you."
Ging and Kurapika spoke at the same time.
"Ging, you stay here," Ronin chose.
Kurapika was not as strong as Ging, but he was extremely sharp-minded. If something unexpected happened, Ging would also be able to keep things under control on the island.
Ging thought for a moment and agreed, though he was extremely curious whether there really was something beneath the island as they suspected.
"Don't worry. If we really find it, I'll take pictures for you," Kurapika said, taking his phone out from his chest pocket.
Ging showed a gratified expression.
Ronin brought Kurapika down with him. Soon, the two appeared beneath the island.
Looking up, they could see that the underside of the island was completely irregular. There was soil, and in some places where the soil had fallen away, the internal metallic structure was exposed.
Especially at the central point directly beneath the island, where there was a massive pipe.
The dark clouds previously created by the island had come from that huge pipe.
And now, Ronin did not even need to use Rain Tiger at Will. At the entrance of the pipe, he could already see sphere after sphere falling out, then slowly floating upward and beginning to drift along the island's edge.
These spheres would only be visible for a short while before quickly disappearing from their sight.
Just like the cicadas on the floating island, they would not reveal their traces unless stimulated by energy.
"There!" Kurapika raised his hand and pointed.
Ronin was somewhat surprised. He had not expected to find the other party's location so easily.
"I'd like to see what exactly this thing is," Ronin said with a cold laugh. He had already brought Kurapika flying toward the pipe.
And as the two approached, the spheres that had been calmly floating out of the passage—the insect eggs—suddenly changed.
Ronin and Kurapika saw nothing, but suddenly felt their bodies being struck.
Ronin was fine, but Kurapika was instantly sent flying backward.
It was the insect eggs!
Ronin made that judgment in an instant. At the same time, one of his hands shot out threads that wrapped toward Kurapika, while his other hand formed seals and moved before his mouth.
Fire Release: Great Flame Annihilation!
Flames instantly erupted from his mouth, covering everything in front of him in a single moment.
Within the flames, Ronin's Sharingan finally captured the insect eggs shooting rapidly toward them.
Kurapika was wrapped up. What had caught him was not a real rope, but chakra threads—or more accurately, puppet strings.
At the same time, the chain on Kurapika's middle finger had also danced around him when he was knocked away, surrounding his entire body.
However, not a single insect egg could pass through the great flames. All of them were burned to ash by the high temperature.
Ronin's movements did not slow in the slightest. He rushed toward the pipe beneath the floating island.
There, no more insect eggs continued falling out. Instead, after the flames passed, an enormous head poked out from inside.
It was not a cicada head as one might imagine. Instead, it looked more like a bat's head.
Huge ears, an ugly nose and mouth, and a pair of wide, protruding muddy-yellow eyes made the thing look extraordinarily ferocious.
A scream erupted from its mouth in an instant, quickly forming spreading sound waves that smashed toward Ronin and Kurapika.
But what Ronin feared was not the enemy appearing before his eyes. From beginning to end, what he had worried about was this thing hiding and constantly launching sneak attacks from the shadows.
Now that it had jumped out, even though it possessed an astonishingly massive amount of aura, it was not that difficult for Ronin to deal with.
However, this time, Ronin did not intend to kill it directly. So the Amaterasu brewing in his eyes was not released. Instead, Susanoo appeared instantly in the high sky and, braving the opponent's sonic attack, reached out to grab it.
~~~