The Trip Expert's Mission

Bang!

Ron slammed a fist hard into the ground, sending dust flying.

Without a moment's hesitation, he quickly got back to his feet.

Although he had been knocked down once, it had done little damage to his burly, muscular body.

If anything, the damage to his pride was perhaps far worse than the damage to his body.

His expression was stern as he glanced toward Baines. His face gave nothing away, but the meaning in his eyes was clear.

Say one more word, and I'll kill you!

Baines and Black Wolf exchanged a glance, then awkwardly looked away and kept quiet.

They had no desire to court trouble at a time like this.

After all, Ron's strength was plain for all to see.

At least, in Baines's memory, this was the first time he had seen Ron in such a sorry state throughout their countless battles.

"That's a pretty good Nen Ability, but an attack that weak can't pose any threat to me..."

Ron's face was impassive as he calmly watched the Trip Expert slowly get back up and walk toward him again.

His words were mild.

But the tremendous aura steadily growing around him revealed the turmoil in his heart.

Before him, the Trip Expert paid his words no heed.

He had only one goal: to trip his opponent.

Everything else was none of his concern.

The Trip Expert slowly raised his right arm, his Air Cannon already trained on Ron. Staring at him from behind his sunglasses, he fired without another word, ready to fight anyone who challenged him, regardless of life or death.

"Ignoring me? Heh... It's time to put an end to this farce. Next, I'll take you out in one hit!"

Seeing his opponent attack without even a word, Ron's face grew colder still. The instant his words fell—

In the next second, his massive, bearlike figure vanished from where he stood.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!...

Like a tiger charging down a mountain, he rushed at the Trip Expert with unstoppable momentum.

The Trip Expert fired several shots in succession, but Ron dodged them all with ease!

As he moved at high speed, his figure suddenly split into five, attacking the Trip Expert from multiple directions without leaving an opening.

In each Ron's hand was a ferocious bear's head formed from concentrated Nen.

They were like five starving giant bears, unable to restrain their hunger any longer and ready to tear him apart and devour him.

Yet faced with the terrifying, virtually unavoidable attack, the Trip Expert's cool doll face remained expressionless.

He was like a cold, composed killer.

As soon as he noticed that his Air Cannon attacks had failed, he quickly changed tactics.

Faced with the ferocious bear heads almost upon him and the violent Nen surging within them,

At the critical moment, he flicked his arm, sending the Air Cannon mounted on it flying off, then reached into his pocket.

The next moment, the Trip Expert pulled a tiny Miniature Grenade straight out of his pocket.

Seen from a distance, it was a doll holding a tiny, toy-like grenade, facing several burly, ferocious-looking men.

It made for a wildly exaggerated contrast.

Seeing the Trip Expert's unusual move, Ron's rugged face went cold.

He did not waver in the slightest.

No matter what tricks his opponent tried, once struck by this killing blow, all resistance would be futile!

In countless past battles, his fearsome record had proven that outcome time and again.

Without hesitation, his thick, sinewy arms carried Nen brimming with killing intent as all five figures swung their fists heavily at the Trip Expert.

In the blink of an eye!

The Trip Expert's sunglasses glinted faintly, and a cold smile curled at the corner of his mouth.

Boom!

The next moment, heaven and earth shook as sand and stones flew!

With a tremendous boom, an explosion far beyond anything the people present had imagined thundered across the battlefield.

Baines and Black Wolf, standing to one side, stared dumbfounded. Seeing this, the man and wolf did not dare linger and quickly dodged away.

Deep Blue Flame Arcs rampaged across the battlefield, forming a multicolored Mushroom Cloud in the night sky. The surrounding mountains of garbage looked as though they had been leveled.

Smoke billowed and the air shattered wherever it passed.

At that moment, a technological weapon from an unknown civilization made its first appearance in this world, in a manner of speaking.

Facing the immensely powerful Miniature Grenade, the four clones bearing Nen bear heads took the brunt of the blast and quickly melted away in the flame arcs.

A violent shock wave instantly swept over everything nearby.

Ron's real body was also flung dozens of meters away by the blast. His clothes were in tatters, and his exposed skin was covered in burns.

But his powerful Nen protected him.

Although he looked rather miserable, the actual damage done to this powerful fighter was extremely limited.

In the distance, the dust thrown into the air gradually settled.

"Pfft!"

Ron slowly climbed to his feet, his face expressionless, and spat out a mouthful of saliva mixed with dust and blood.

He had no time to dwell on the fact that he had been knocked down again. His mind was rapidly replaying everything that had just happened.

Even though his opponent's explosive move had exceeded his expectations,

For a powerful fighter like him, tempered in real combat, analyzing the state of a battle at every moment was ingrained in his bones. His gaze was cold as he pondered.

There was no doubt about it!

That had been an utterly unavoidable suicide attack!

Was that thing he pulled out just now a grenade...?

It was just an insignificant-looking little thing, but that kind of power was a bit much, wasn't it...?

The Trip Expert's sudden bomb attack had caught Ron off guard and sent him tumbling again, while also giving him quite an eye-opening experience.

As expected, no Nen user's ability was to be underestimated.

At the same moment, far across from Ron, in a sunken pit,

The Trip Expert looked even worse.

After taking the Miniature Grenade's explosive blast at close range, he had been unable to escape the laws of physics and had suffered serious damage.

One arm and one leg had been severed clean off, black smoke rose from the wounds, and he was covered in soot and dirt.

But he paid it no mind.

Even severed, his mechanically modified limbs caused him no pain. To him, the target was all that mattered.

He had only one mission on this trip: to carry out his employer's instructions.

Trip his opponent three times!

Not one time fewer would do!

The night breeze swept gently across the field as the two stared at each other from afar, both intent on taking the other down.

A battered doll man against a burly, muscular brute.

It was a thoroughly bizarre sight.

In the distance, Baines and Black Wolf, who had run back from who knew where, watched the scene with involuntary respect.

"Awoo..."

Black Wolf sat on his haunches, his sleek black fur dancing in the wind, and let out a soft howl.

"Yeah... This guy really is strong..."

Beside him, the blond-haired Baines replied, a complicated look in his eyes.

It was unclear whether he meant Ron, the Trip Expert, or the guy behind the Trip Expert.

But one thing was certain: neither of them dared underestimate the little doll before them any longer.

Even if... his opponent had only managed to fight Ron to a precarious draw by relying on props.

Baines's thinking was simple. He needed to know nothing else; he only had to use Ron as a benchmark.

This was Ron, who had fought his way out of countless piles of corpses!

If he and Black Wolf had been hit by a bomb with that kind of power, they would probably have been doomed.

Their thoughts naturally had no effect on the two combatants.

Both sides now had only one goal, and the battle was about to begin!

Far away, Ian lay weakly on Uvogin's back, his little face pale.

The group raced onward, but as they ran, they glanced at Ian from time to time, Feitan and Chrollo included.

They simply could not imagine how this guy had created something so... hard to describe, or perhaps astonishing was the better word.

After seeing those giant sculptures, they felt for the first time how limited their understanding of the world was.

What was more, Chrollo, who liked reading, even found himself doubting the world a little.

Did gods... exist?

Or did the world's books record only the knowledge of ordinary people?

Chrollo's thoughts were in a slight jumble.

Ian, meanwhile, lay quietly on Uvogin's back, recovering his strength as quickly as he could. He had not thought that far ahead; he had only tried every way he could to hold off their pursuers.

Suddenly, his expression froze.

The fluctuation of Nen returning to him told him

that the Trip Expert had been defeated...

"What a shame. He wasn't the Trans-Dimensional Trip Expert, after all, and I haven't drawn any powerful props so far. I can only hope the next thing can hold them off a little longer..."

Ian muttered under his breath.