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Chapter 454
🕑 Added 2025-03-27 16:05:01 +0000 UTCChapter 454
“Separate!”
The woman and the young man exchanged a glance and darted off in opposite directions.
Natsu went after the young man.
Sasuke pursued the woman.
Ron also headed in the woman’s direction.
Both members of the Four Beasts were fairly strong. However, the tracking-type Nen tool was in the woman’s possession. She glanced over her shoulder at Sasuke and Ron, her expression growing more grim by the second.
“Why did you choose me?
“Do you think I’m stronger? Or did you figure out I’m the one carrying the tracking tool?”
She felt Ron closing in, and despair welled up inside her.
“Never thought things would end up like this.
“He still had so many hidden abilities. To kill the Three Hounds, he probably didn’t even go all out. There’s no chance for me to win now.
“What do I do?”
She pulled out her phone, intending to call Oster, but Ron gave her no chance. He raised his hand.
“Nen Bullet!”
A shot of concentrated aura streaked toward her position, forcing her to dodge. She even dropped her phone in the scramble. There was no time to retrieve it.
Suddenly, lightning flickered around Sasuke. In the next moment, his speed surged, and the distance between him and the woman shrank rapidly. She clenched her teeth.
“Click!”
It sounded like a switch being flipped. Two pieces of metal fell from her body with a dull clang on the ground. Freed of that weight, her speed spiked at once.
Ron’s brow lifted.
“So she was wearing extra weights?
“Going into battle without removing them…maybe they served some sort of a Vow for her Hatsu?”
As Ron passed by those discarded metal plates, a thought occurred to him, and he sent them into Sumas’s space.
At that moment, inside Sumas’s space, both the young man and the middle-aged man were trapped—one in a desert zone, the other in a grassy zone. Those areas were completely separate and fully under Ron and Sumas’s control. The two captives lacked the power to break through the spatial barriers.
Initially, both men stayed on high alert. When they realized no one else was around, they relaxed just enough to catch their breath, then began scouring for an exit. But after a long search, they found nothing. Ron had given them no door—no way out. Their walkie-talkies remained functional but useless: electromagnetic waves couldn’t penetrate that space.
Eventually, both men stopped to conserve energy. They knew this was only the beginning; Ron wouldn’t just lock them up and forget about them. At some point, he’d come to interrogate or kill them, so keeping some strength in reserve seemed wise.
“Spatial abilities… To pull this off is quite impressive.
“He has a flame-type Nen Beast, a fog-type Nen Beast, a defensive Nen Beast, one that swaps positions, and now this power that traps me here.
“This guy is terrifying. If all these abilities are genuinely his own creation, and he’s this strong at his age, what level of talent is that?
“Reaching S-Class might be child’s play for him.”
That thought gave the middle-aged man mixed feelings.
As an A-Class Nen user, no one fails to yearn for that threshold into S-Class. But in reality, very few ever cross that line—so few that it’s almost negligible. The entire Saheilta Union doesn’t have many of them.
Within the Four Beasts, this middle-aged man alone knew Oster’s secret.
Their attack on Ron stemmed from something about that village. Oster had done extensive preparations there, all for a single purpose: Oster had been stuck at A-Class for far too long. Compared to him, Oster was even closer to S-Class, always just one step away.
Without achieving S-Class, Oster would remain merely a minister. The royal family’s legacy continues, the nobility endures, but once a minister dies, that’s generally the end; there’s little for his descendants to inherit.
That wasn’t enough for Oster’s ambitions. He wanted far more. Achieving S-Class was the best path. First, it would grant him a longer lifespan—S-Class Nen users typically live far longer than normal people, barring specific exceptions like the disease afflicting the Kurta Clan. Netero lived past a hundred (even without Nitro rice), and Maha Zoldyck was even older. Linne, too, was similar in that regard.
Moreover, by becoming S-Class, Oster could manoeuvre himself into becoming one of the great nobles, like Geruna, thus carrying on his family line. That was Oster’s goal. Until he succeeded, he couldn’t let anyone discover his plans—so once Ron saw it, Ron had to die.
Then, when Gegus turned into a monster, Oster gleaned some critical information from him. Whatever piece was crucial seemed to be in Ponzu’s possession—and Ponzu was with Ron. That gave Oster yet another reason to target Ron.
The middle-aged man felt complicated about it all. He had no chance of ever reaching S-Class. Oster was doing all sorts of bizarre things trying to break through that wall.
But for Ron, it might all come effortlessly. The gulf between people truly could be huge.
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Meanwhile, Natsu had already caught up to the fleeing young man. His method was simple: he abruptly halted, clapped his hands together, and shouted:
“Position Swap!”
This ability worked not only on allies but on enemies, too. The young man instantly appeared where Natsu had been, and Natsu reappeared in the young man’s place. The shift caught the young man entirely off guard, but Natsu was ready for it and reacted first.
“Fire Dragon’s Horn!”
Flames blazed across Natsu’s entire body. Like an arrow loosed from the bow, he hurled himself at the young man with punishing force.
“Boom!”
The young man dodged aside at the last second. However, Natsu shifted direction midair by sheer force of will.
