The pain and injury from the bullet were secondary. What truly drove Bonolenov into despair was the black flame that instantly erupted from the wound.
He desperately poured Nen into the injury, trying to redirect the black fire onto his aura, but it was useless.
He suddenly lifted his head and looked toward the person in the crowd who had fired the shot.
It was a young man with short pale blond hair, but what stood out most were his scarlet eyes.
Because Bonolenov recognized those eyes.
Scarlet Eyes.
Kurapika.
The name flashed through Bonolenov's mind in an instant, and in that same moment, the flames spread completely out of his wound.
At first, Kurapika had not been aiming for Bonolenov.
But he hadn't expected Ronin to hit Bonolenov with an Amaterasu at the very last moment.
When Bonolenov fled with the black flames still on him, Kurapika knew this was his chance, so he used Magnetic Force to follow Bonolenov all the way to Andoniba.
Even then, Kurapika didn't recklessly approach him.
Instead, at the most critical moment, he dealt Bonolenov a fatal blow.
Trapped in the burning flames and no longer able to remove them from his body, Bonolenov completely snapped.
He wanted to drag down the one who had destroyed his last hope and take him to the grave with him.
But it was useless.
Because the moment Bonolenov took his first step, Kurapika already had a spell card in his hand.
Return.
It could only take him back to the starting point not far from Andoniba, but even that distance was already beyond Bonolenov's reach.
He would be burned to death by the flames long before he ever caught Kurapika.
Kurapika had no intention of asking Bonolenov anything. His scarlet eyes simply watched Bonolenov as he sank fully into despair and madness.
Bonolenov let out one final, miserable laugh, and with the countless holes in his body, he became the center of the most horrific scene ever seen at the gates of Andoniba.
He was burned alive by the black flames.
Nen could resist the flames slightly, but only enough to slow down his death and stretch out the agony longer.
But Bonolenov wasn't ready to die.
Right up until the very last second, he never stopped searching for some possible chance to survive.
And because of that, he ended up suffering the cruelest torment of all.
Kurapika was deeply satisfied by Bonolenov's death. It might have looked cruel, and Bonolenov's desperate will to live had been genuinely shocking.
But none of that changed the fact that when Bonolenov died, Kurapika felt a deep sense of release that came only from revenge.
He had not killed Bonolenov alone, but this time, he had taken part in it.
He hoped his parents and his clansmen, wherever their spirits now rested, could see all of this. With Ronin's help, he had grown tremendously and had even become someone capable of standing on his own.
Tears scattered as he turned away. There was no exhilaration from revenge on his face—only resolve.
…
Bunzen was a stretch of dense forest.
It wasn't especially famous, but it was still a rare training ground, because there were quite a few monsters nearby with an A-rank acquisition difficulty.
In Ronin's view, even B-rank monsters already had the strength of fighters on the 200th floor of Heaven's Arena.
A-rank monsters were the kind that even average Nen users would avoid at all costs.
But in Greed Island, none of those powerful monsters were designated cards. They could only be sold for money after defeat, or used to trigger quests.
Ronin and Feitan landed right in the middle of that forest.
There were no monsters nearby, and no "audience" either—just the occasional sound of insects chirping and birds calling.
"So you picked this place as your grave?" Feitan opened with the first attack, verbally. "Gotta say, you've got decent taste."
But from the Ken he maintained around his body, and from his stance, it was obvious that the moment Ronin showed an opening, Feitan would attack without hesitation.
"So confident?" Ronin smiled faintly. "You know, I've already figured your ability out."
It was bluffing—but only halfway.
How much power Feitan's ability could unleash depended on how badly he got hurt in the fight to come.
The reason Ronin considered Feitan dangerous was because he had a strong suspicion that death itself might trigger the strongest possible version of Feitan's power.
After all, death had to count as the ultimate injury.
And with someone as extreme as Feitan, there was no way he would die without his Nen ability erupting, or without some obsession left unresolved. He would absolutely believe that once he unleashed his Nen, it would guarantee a killing blow on his enemy.
It was a dead loop.
The best way to deal with Feitan was to kill him instantly—but doing that risked triggering the strongest form of his ability.
But if Ronin didn't kill him outright and instead left him gravely wounded, Feitan could still unleash an ability of tremendous power.
And even if Ronin endured that, should he kill him afterward?
Killing him then might still trigger post-mortem Nen and unleash a terrifying attack.
If he didn't kill him, Feitan, even in a critically injured state, might recover enough over time to build up power and erupt a second time.
Still, Ronin had already come up with his own way of fighting Feitan.
"Heh." Feitan let out a contemptuous laugh. One-on-one, he feared no one.
"You want me to make the first move?" Ronin smiled slightly, almost gentlemanly. "Didn't expect your size and your courage to be directly proportional."
That line seemed to hit one of Feitan's raw nerves. In that instant, a chilling killing intent burst from him.
At the same time, his figure vanished from where he stood.
A faint curve rose at the corner of Ronin's lips. He didn't use any ninjutsu. Instead, he burst forward with speed as well, and the instant Feitan appeared at his side, Ronin threw a killing punch straight at him.
Feitan chose to dodge.
He could feel that the force behind Ronin's punch was no weaker than Uvogin's Big Bang Impact.
This guy was a complete monster.
But Ronin's Sharingan could see every movement Feitan made, and every subtle flow of aura through his body.
So when Feitan moved, Ronin adjusted with him, keeping up the pressure and chasing him down relentlessly.
Feitan had been the one to attack first, but the moment he closed in on Ronin, everything reversed. In an instant, he went from attacker to defender.
His thin sword stabbed again and again, but every strike was narrowly and precisely avoided by Ronin, who answered each one with another deliberate, crushing punch.
Less than a minute had passed since the fight began, yet Feitan already felt a suffocating frustration building inside him.
Because every time Ronin's fist could have hit him, Ronin would subtly shift the angle at the last moment and let it pass by instead.
It felt as though Ronin was deliberately avoiding the chance to injure him.
Does this bastard really know what my ability is?
The thought surfaced in Feitan's mind without him even realizing it.