The three monkeys, first in the path of the blast, vanished the instant the shockwave was about to reach them.
Chrollo had canceled the Nen beasts.
At the same moment he finished turning a page. His figure flickered and reappeared farther away.
A teleportation-type ability.
Ronin remained fully protected inside Susanoo. Even a point-blank detonation had failed to shatter the third-stage armor; a blast at this greater distance was nowhere near enough to move it.
The real threat now came from the continuous rain of stone pillars falling from above.
Susanoo's free arm smashed them one after another, yet the pillars seemed endless. Even as they shattered, more kept descending.
Susanoo was being driven downward into the earth.
The kinetic force carried by each pillar was the cause.
The Sharingan tracked Chrollo's movements until the rising ground finally blocked the view. The teleportation itself came as no surprise. Chrollo had already displayed a similar ability in the original timeline. Since Ronin's objective was to eliminate him, every technique the man might possess had been reviewed in advance.
What still made no sense was the purpose behind Chrollo's earlier sequence of actions.
With Susanoo active, even if the three monkeys had managed to close the distance, they should never have been able to strip any of Ronin's senses. Chrollo did not waste effort on meaningless moves. Something had been overlooked—or never considered at all.
Ronin replayed every frame of the battle from the opening exchange. Nothing stood out. That left only one possibility: the reason lay inside Bandit's Secret itself.
Chrollo had turned a page early, and the ability obtained at that moment had never been used.
What was it?
Predictions flashed through Ronin's mind while his hands already began forming seals at high speed.
The pillars themselves did not concern him.
The present situation was actually advantageous. Kurapika had still not appeared. Noise this loud could not have escaped his notice. Continued absence meant only one thing: he was waiting for the right opening.
Ronin trusted Kurapika's judgment completely. That same understanding told him that once Kurapika moved, the Troupe members involved today would pay a price. The available targets were limited—Hisoka, still hidden somewhere, and Kortopi, who would eventually have to lift himself into the open air.
The final seal locked into place. Chrollo and Machi had already vanished from sight.
The portions of Susanoo still exposed continued to take the residual force of Franklin's explosion. Fine cracks were spreading across the armor. It would not last much longer.
Franklin's life-fueled detonation had carried respectable power. That was the extent of Ronin's evaluation. In pure threat level the man ranked even below Nobunaga. Nobunaga at least required calculation. Franklin's self-destruction could be turned into a weapon against his own side.
Before the residual shockwaves could finish the work, Ronin dismissed Susanoo of his own accord.
He dropped low and pressed both palms flat against the earth.
Earth Style: Rising Earth Spears.
Faced with the expanding blast, Chrollo's only priority was to exit its radius as quickly as possible. Machi shared the same thought. Chrollo used the teleportation. Machi was yanked backward at speed by her own Nen threads.
Simple retreat alone was insufficient. The falling pillars still provided cover against the main shockwave. Even after they shattered, flying debris would remain a problem. Chrollo's solution was to resummon the three large monkeys as disposable shields. Pierced bodies meant nothing more than a modest expenditure of Nen.
Both Nobunaga's rapid death and Franklin's suicide had fallen completely outside Chrollo's expectations. Franklin in particular had never discussed the idea with him. Had the intention been known earlier, Chrollo would have engineered a far better opportunity no matter the cost.
Through gaps in the pillars and the fading explosion, however, he saw that Susanoo had vanished once more.
In that case Franklin had not died for nothing.
If they could close to within a certain range of Ronin, the original plan could still be completed.
At that exact moment Chrollo's pupils contracted. The ground beneath his feet changed without warning.
Sharp earthen spikes erupted in a dense, patternless barrage and drove upward toward both of them.
Judgment was instantaneous: pure area-of-effect attack, no predictability.
Only one option remained.
While still accelerating her retreat, Machi sent Nen threads flying from both hands. One set wrapped the nearest falling pillars; the other locked around Chrollo. The taut lines snapped taut under her strength and yanked both of them into the air, clear of the rising forest of spikes.
The three monkeys left below to intercept debris were not so fortunate. In a single breath the rock spikes punched through their bodies. With a series of wet pops the constructs scattered and vanished.
Chrollo's book had already turned to a fresh page. Since the combination of teleportation and Nen beasts could not currently deliver the monkeys next to Ronin, direct pressure would have to force an opening instead.
The earlier plan had been straightforward. Allow the three monkeys to approach within a set distance, then immediately teleport them so they would materialize at Ronin's side. The teleportation worked on Nen beasts as readily as on himself—after all, the beasts were formed from his own aura and therefore fell inside the ability's coverage. That was the kind of combination two simultaneous abilities made possible.
The limitation was absolute: ten meters.
That was the maximum range of a single jump.
Previously the monkeys had never managed to close inside that window before the fire dragons carried them away. Franklin's detonation had only increased the distance further. Immediate delivery was no longer possible.
Changing strategy had become the only remaining choice.