The brief pause only gave way to fiercer violence.
Susanoo raised its giant hand again and slammed it down toward Hisoka, while Ronin's real body remained completely sheltered within the huge ribcage.
His hands formed seals, and he unleashed the Phoenix Sage Fire Technique. Fireballs shot out one after another from beneath Susanoo's protection, burning away every strand of Nen Hisoka had left on the ground.
The magician's cloth in Hisoka's hand always moved ahead of him, probing and covering the spot he intended to move to next.
That created huge openings in his movements, but from the hand he had disguised as perfectly intact with Texture Surprise, Nen kept firing into the ground. Whenever danger came, those elastic strands of Nen would yank Hisoka's body into explosive bursts of movement.
Susanoo's attacks were overwhelmingly powerful. If he took one head-on, Hisoka had no way of blocking it without taking serious damage.
But Susanoo's attacks were not especially fast, and that gave Hisoka room to maneuver around it.
That narrow margin disappeared the moment Ronin's Phoenix Sage Fire joined the fight.
If the burning fire hit Hisoka directly, it might not kill him instantly, but if it struck the strands of Nen he used to launch himself around, they would be burned away immediately.
And once Bungee Gum stopped boosting Hisoka's bursts of movement, Susanoo's attacks became the greatest threat on the field.
The referee's voice kept ringing out.
When both of Hisoka's arms finally hung limp at his sides, and his body was drenched in sweat and blood, the referee blew the whistle.
T.K.O.
Susanoo's attacks had allowed Ronin to land enough clean hits to score the full 10 points against Hisoka.
During that stretch, Hisoka had tried one final, desperate assault against Ronin inside Susanoo's protection.
He twisted and bound together a large mass of stone with Nen, reinforced it with Shu, and used stretched, tightened Bungee Gum to add explosive force to the attack.
But when it hit Susanoo, all it managed to do was crack the defensive layer in front of Ronin. It still failed to punch through in one blow or pose any real threat to the man inside.
Even so, the fact that Hisoka had managed to damage Susanoo at all was beyond Ronin's expectations.
Part of that was because this was still Susanoo in its initial stage. Another part was that Ronin had not been outputting chakra at full power.
He had deliberately reduced his chakra output to maintain the fight longer.
That had shrunk both Susanoo's size and its defensive power. If he had used Susanoo at full strength, even Hisoka's fully charged strike should have had no chance of damaging it.
Still, no matter how you looked at it, that charged attack from Hisoka was the strongest blow he could currently produce.
Hisoka could tell as well that Ronin had held back.
Otherwise, he never would have been given time to charge that strike.
From the moment Susanoo appeared, this fight had been unwinnable for Hisoka unless he could somehow outlast Ronin.
Susanoo consumed a great deal of chakra, yes, but Ronin's immense reserves were more than enough to carry him past Hisoka.
When the referee's whistle sounded, fine beads of sweat covered Ronin's forehead, and even his eyes felt fatigued, but overall he was still in far better shape than Hisoka.
Hisoka simply fell flat onto the ring.
His eyes were shining as he stared at the ceiling. His breathing was heavy, but he looked intensely exhilarated.
He had lost.
But he accepted the loss completely. With his current level of offense, he simply could not break Ronin's defense.
Still, if they fought again, he was certain he would find a way to break through.
It just wouldn't be enough yet. He needed to become stronger. Stronger still.
"You can wait a while. Once I've dealt with a few things, I can help fix your arm. I don't want my next opponent to be crippled," Ronin said as he walked over to Hisoka's side.
Susanoo had already disappeared by then, but Ronin's eyes were still in the Mangekyō state.
Because he had known from the beginning that the real key to this battle was not whether he could beat Hisoka, but whether the Zoldycks would strike after he did.
Still, he had already prepared for that. If anything dangerous happened, he would use Flying Thunder God and leave immediately.
Hisoka didn't bother pretending to be polite.
He sat up from the ground. "You're strong. I prepared a lot for today, but it turns out I still didn't have as many tricks as you."
"You were preparing, but so was I." Ronin smiled faintly.
He had taken this fight very seriously from the beginning. Hisoka was strong. He had always known that.
What impressed him even more was Hisoka's on-the-spot adaptability. The way he used Texture Surprise to hide his Nen had even slipped past the Sharingan.
If Hisoka's attacks had been strong enough to break Susanoo's defense, this battle probably would have forced out even more of Ronin's hidden cards.
Hisoka smiled. "I'll challenge you again. I hope you'll still accept when that time comes."
"Honestly, I want to tell you that you won't have another chance, because while you're getting stronger, I'll only grow even faster, and the gap between us will widen with time," Ronin said, blunt and arrogantly. "But next time, I'll still accept. I just hope you can give me some kind of surprise then."
"What an arrogant bastard," Hisoka said.
But if Ronin kept improving at this same rate, Hisoka didn't actually think there was anything wrong with what he had said.
Still, he wasn't going to give up so easily.
Especially since this fight hadn't been without gains. His own ability could still become stronger.
Ronin didn't answer. Instead, he looked up toward the stands.
Because in the vision of his Sharingan, he had spotted a tiny machine drifting slowly toward him. It was about the size of a bee.
If you didn't look carefully, you'd never notice it was mechanical, and it was cautiously probing closer to his position.
Most importantly, there was no Nen on it at all. It was just a machine.
As for "slowly," that was only by Ronin's standards. Its actual flight speed was not slow, but to his enhanced dynamic vision, it looked that way.
A plump figure flashed through Ronin's mind.
Milluki Zoldyck, the second son of the Zoldyck family.
The one skilled with computers, games, and bomb-making.
Boom!
Before it got too close, the little bee-like machine exploded right there above the ring.
Fire burst into view and instantly drew most people's attention.
And at that exact moment, a small figure appeared behind Ronin like a ghost, and a skeletal, skin-and-bone hand shot toward the middle of Ronin's back.