Chapter 92: Killer Spirit Gun! The Third Bomb!
Ross, tanking behind the shield, was becoming increasingly convinced that the Byakko was Uvogin's spiritual predecessor in some past life. Despite every outward appearance of being a demon who charged blindly and thought with his fists, the instant the four Split-body Demon Beasts were destroyed, the Byakko made a very quick and very clear decision.
Turn around. Run.
He even dropped to all fours like something had regressed in him, abandoning the upright stance entirely and charging back into the castle on all four limbs at full speed, which left the attacking party blinking at the empty arena for a moment.
The gap between this and his earlier behavior was enormous.
"Hey, wait for me!"
Seeing a BOSS actually flee mid-fight, Yusuke blew straight through Ross's shield perimeter and there was absolutely nothing to be done about it.
"Could be a trap."
Kuwabara, who had retracted his extended Spirit Sword, once again broke from Yusuke's mental pattern and showed a wary look instead. He had apparently been in enough situations with the tactical-retreat-that-was-actually-an-ambush to recognize the shape of it.
"Half right. Not a trap. More like a field-effect ability of some kind."
Ross put away the shield and followed after Yusuke's retreating back.
As they went deeper into the castle, the temperature climbed noticeably with every step. By the time they reached the end of the lit tunnel, the heat was hitting them full in the face.
What they found was lava. A massive, intensely active lava pool, large enough in scale to make you wonder whether the entire castle had been built on top of a live volcano.
Rising from the lava were dozens of enormous stone spikes, nearly uniform in size, scattered across the pool like pieces dropped randomly on a game board, with at least three meters between each one.
And in the very center of that lava game board, standing on the central spike, was the Byakko, who had arrived well before them.
"Ha ha ha ha! Welcome to Byakko's Domain! My game room! What do you think? Decent view, isn't it!"
He laughed arrogantly, as though the person who had just fled the fight without a word had been someone else entirely.
Honestly, Ross had a certain respect for that. That level of shamelessness was something he was pretty sure he could never match in this lifetime.
Kuwabara squinted carefully against the heat, then knocked a piece of debris loose with his Spirit Sword and dropped it into the lava below. It melted in less than a blink. Human flesh wouldn't last any longer.
The Byakko kept laughing. And then Yusuke started laughing too.
"Ha ha ha ha ha! You stupid oversized cat! How is this any different from making yourself a fixed target!?"
Yusuke genuinely believed the Byakko had just done something dumber than anything he himself would do. And since the Byakko had already broken the one-on-one arrangement, there was nothing stopping him now.
He raised his right hand. Spirit energy began gathering at the tip of his right index finger.
Facing Yusuke openly charging up in plain sight, the Byakko, who had just apparently made himself a stationary target, felt the corners of his mouth start to curl upward without him fully intending it.
Yusuke noticed the expression. His own grin faded. He raised his arm and took aim.
"Spirit Gun!"
A Spirit Gun at least twice the size of the one he had fired two months ago at his floor-200 debut went screaming toward the Byakko.
The Byakko watched it coming, growing rapidly larger, and did not dodge. Did not move. Just stood there, like he planned to receive it with his body directly.
But in the instant before contact, Yusuke's gun-finger snapped into a closed fist.
The Spirit Gun detonated from the inside.
Not impact. A full Nen energy explosion, reaching out in every direction.
The blast swallowed the Byakko whole.
"Ro! Made this one just for you. Thought I'd give this big dumb cat the honor of being first."
Yusuke turned and started gloating at Ross.
Ever since the floor-200 match where his Spirit Gun had been deflected twice in a row, once by Gido's Tornado Tops and once by Ross's dodgeball-style receiving technique, Yusuke had filed that away. Behind Ross's back, he had gone to Genkai and worked on a series of small adjustments suited to how he fought, one piece at a time.
If the Spirit Gun carried the risk of being deflected, then use that expectation against the opponent. At the right moment, detonate it from within. The direct-hit impact would be gone, but the Nen energy explosion would land nearly in full. Nothing to deflect. Nowhere to redirect it.
All it took was injecting a small amount of Manipulation-type Nen into the Spirit Gun in advance.
Technically difficult for an Enhancement type. Yusuke was stubborn enough about it that he eventually pulled it off anyway.
What Yusuke didn't know was that this Killer Queen Spirit Gun, changed because of Gido and Ross, had completely blindsided the Byakko.
The Byakko had seen plenty of Emission-type users before. Most of them liked using energy blasts. Yusuke had fired the biggest, most powerful energy blast the Byakko had ever seen in his life, but at the end of the day it was still an energy blast, still had the same fundamental nature. And that was exactly the kind of enemy Byakko loved most.
Because that kind of energy blast was absolutely delicious to him. Absolutely irresistible.
The Byakko's constitution was unusual. He could eat other people's Nen, absorbing external Nen temporarily into his body, even using the stored Nen to briefly amplify his own physique to some degree.
The prerequisite, however, was zero-distance contact with the Nen ability itself.
And Yusuke had detonated his Spirit Gun before contact. Pure Nen energy explosion. No object to absorb. Just force.
The stone spike platform under the Byakko's feet shattered. The Byakko had no time to react at all before the blast threw him directly into the red-hot lava pool below.
"GRAAAAH! GGKHH! HARRGH KRAAH! SKHGH!"
The struggle lasted only a few seconds. The lava swallowed him. The pool returned to still, every ripple gone.
Byakko: engulfed.
"...He's dead already?"
Kuwabara peered around, looking for any trace of the Byakko.
"No. Not yet."
Ross said it flatly.
"How do you know?"
Hiei, who had quietly cracked the Jagan Eye open under the pressure of Ross's information deal, scanned the room and asked with a sideways look.
"Because my arrow hasn't moved."
Ross pointed to the Navigation Arrow he had just released.
The Byakko was unquestionably the kind of target that triggered both item draws and chip drops. Since neither had activated, it meant he wasn't dead. This mechanic was unreliable for ordinary units, but for reading the life or death state of a BOSS, it was quite accurate.
"...He went deeper along the lava pool."
Hiei said, and was already gone, flickering between the stone spikes with easy, weightless speed.
Yusuke and Kuwabara watched him go, and both arrived at the same realization at the same moment.
If they wanted to follow, they were going to have to play hopscotch on a boiling lava pool.
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