The flames exploded with a roar, spreading rapidly outward from the entrance of the ruins.
The vivid flowers quickly turned into charcoal under the impact of the flames, and the ghosts that had flown out from the flowers began rapidly weakening in the fire.
It was completely different from what had happened inside the laboratory earlier.
It seemed that the death of the flowers meant these ghosts had become rootless duckweed.
The momentum they had shown in the laboratory, as if they could even freeze flames, vanished. The fire spread by Searing Migraine was somewhat obstructed, but the effect was minimal.
After all, the released shadow clone had used Searing Migraine while burning through all of its chakra.
Unfortunately, there had not been enough time to complete the perfect version of Searing Migraine with all forty-four hand seals.
Otherwise, the power of the Searing Migraine blooming at this moment would have risen another level.
If one looked down at the floating island from high above, one would see a massive ring of fire spreading across it.
Everywhere the ring of fire passed, all the flowers disappeared. The floating ghosts melted rapidly like ice cream under the blazing sun.
However, this indiscriminate burning also engulfed some of the vines and plants on the floating island.
When Ronin led the others out of the laboratory, only a few large trees still burning remained on the floating island. All the flowers that had rapidly grown earlier had vanished.
Ronin swept his gaze over those trees and stopped paying attention to them.
Although the disappearance of the trees would completely expose the buildings on the floating island, Ronin no longer cared.
Because from the two incidents, he had discovered a problem: the trees on the floating island seemed to be the best nourishment and support for attackers.
The previous cicadas had treated the trees on the floating island as nests.
Now, the flowers blooming across the floating island and the ghosts emerging from them had also been constantly extracting the life energy of those trees.
That was right.
Those beautiful, delicate flowers were drawing the vitality of the giant trees on the floating island to create soldiers of their own.
"These trees are mediocre as camouflage, but excellent at causing trouble," Ronin said as he watched the few remaining large trees turn into charcoal in the flames. A sense of satisfaction rose in his heart.
The destruction of the flowers also caused the ghosts on the floating island to disappear completely.
Even the slower-melting ghosts that left behind some specks of energy were sucked into Blinky as "garbage" after Shizuku walked out of the laboratory.
After the last trace of energy was sucked in, Blinky burped and closed its eyes on its own.
That situation rather surprised Ronin.
"Upgrade," Shizuku said briefly, then said nothing more.
But from her words, Ronin understood everything.
Shizuku had followed him for so long and had also developed her own ability further. He just did not know what direction her development had taken.
Nor did he know what kind of result this so-called "upgrade" would bring.
However, Ronin had no intention of asking too much. Once Shizuku's ability finished upgrading and she used it again, he would naturally find out.
This method of observing, judging, and gathering information was actually more interesting.
Ronin's gaze turned farther away.
One Searing Migraine alone was not enough to burn away all the plants on this vast floating island.
But after the floating island had entered the skies above the sea of flowers, flowers had already grown all over it.
More shadow clones were about to be released as Ronin took out his treasured scrolls, but Ging stopped him.
"Don't rush." Ging raised his hand and pointed toward an area in the distance that had not been burned by the flames.
A ghost was flying toward them, but as it flew, the aura on its body began to weaken. Before it could truly get close to Ronin and the others, its aura had already declined to the extreme. Then, with a pop, it shattered.
At the same moment the ghost shattered, Ronin and Ging both saw a tree in the distance suddenly wither.
Large numbers of flowers near that tree withered along with it.
The cries of giant eagles came from the sky. Those cries were full of anger, clearly because they were dissatisfied that the trees they lived in had withered.
"These ghosts are born by extracting the vitality of nearby trees," Ronin judged.
"Right. But the energy those trees can provide to the ghosts isn't enough for them to reach us," Ging said, a smile appearing on his face.
Ronin put the scrolls away.
Although he had stored a large number of blank scrolls with Shizuku before coming here, allowing him to make scrolls sealed with shadow clones at any time, after arriving on the Dark Continent, the speed at which those prepared scrolls were consumed had still exceeded his expectations.
Naturally, he was happy to save some now.
The distant ghosts, however, did not care whether they could actually reach Ronin and the others. They continued rushing toward them one after another.
The result of this behavior was that large areas of trees on the island began to wither.
After thinking for a moment, Ging assigned some tasks. Everyone began slowly pushing outward according to his plan.
By the time dawn arrived, not a single living tree could be found on the enormous island.
The homeless giant eagles landed on the island again. They cried out in dissatisfaction, but there was nothing they could do.
"If the birth of these ghosts requires extracting the life force of nearby trees, then where does the energy for the massive number of ghosts born from the flower sea below come from?" Ronin asked.
Having gone a whole night without sleep, he seemed somewhat used to it by now.
Since arriving on the Dark Continent, there had been very little time for proper rest.
Although they had not yet encountered a completely unsolvable problem, new problems appeared almost every day.
Even if they were only small problems, no one dared to be careless.
"Underground."
This was the answer Ging and Kurapika gave at the same time.
Because the only remaining place they could think of was underground.
After all, there were no trees in the sea of flowers below for them to absorb from. What kind of energy source could support such a vast flower sea producing ghosts at night?
"Not necessarily," Abaki gave a different answer. "While you were busy clearing the ghosts on the island, I couldn't help much, so I carefully observed the flower sea below."
At that moment, everyone's gaze focused on Abaki.
"I discovered that there are also some special beings in that flower sea. They move between the flowers and feed on the ghosts. Similar to the cicadas we encountered before, they have the ability to conceal themselves. If I hadn't observed carefully and noticed the ghosts suddenly decreasing, I might not have discovered them either."
The situation Abaki described was something Ronin and the others had not noticed before.
After all, just as Abaki said, most of their attention last night had been focused on dealing with the flowers blooming on the floating island.