The underground shelter was undoubtedly sturdy in its construction.
Yet, under the impact of Morrow's Emission Nen wave, it was pierced through layer by layer as if made of paper.
This strike represented power nearing the pinnacle of Emission.
Even after being blasted deep into the underground shelter by such a terrifying Nen wave, the King only suffered minor scratches on his crown and several parts of his body.
To the King, such negligible damage was practically no different from being completely unscathed.
Lying on his back on the cold floor of the shelter, his eyes reflected the neon green glow that was drawing closer.
Having already gauged the power of his opponent's Nen wave with his own body, the attack descending from above now held no fear for him.
In this situation, the King even had the leisure to recall Morrow's countermeasure that had blasted him here.
From the very beginning, he planned to strike me down to this place.
The King sensed clear calculation in Morrow's earlier offense and defense. From Morrow's profligate expenditure of aura in his attacks, he could confirm that his opponent had long known of this underground space.
Such meticulous planning to drive him here surely had some scheme behind it.
Just as the King reached this preliminary conclusion in his thoughts, the Deceptive Shooting Star, plummeting down the tunnel, struck his body squarely.
Boom!
A fluorescent green light instantly engulfed the King's body. The energy contained within exploded, sending violent shockwaves surging through the space like a bursting dam.
The shockwave, propelled by energy, slammed the King like a solid iron fist into the cracking ground.
Only when the explosive energy dissipated, and numerous small rocks fell from above, did the stirred dust, with nowhere to go, spread like mist around them.
Yet the King remained unharmed, merely embedded in the ground.
Morrow's gaze pierced through the swirling smoke and dust, settling on the King's consistently unchanged, superhuman aura output.
Two Emission attacks, powerful enough to smash through bricks, had failed to produce any substantial effect.
This demonstrated just how exaggerated the King's aura output defense was.
Although Morrow had mentally prepared himself, he couldn't help but feel frustrated after personally verifying it.
After all, his current level was Lv.97, just a few steps away from the peak of humanity.
This also indicated that even if he reached Lv.100, it would likely still be insufficient to breach the King's defense.
The more critical issue was that the King needed only one direct hit to kill any human Nen user.
Only Netero, with his 100-Type Guanyin Bodhisattva, could exchange blows with the King in direct combat.
For any other Enhancer, forget about fighting head-on, they wouldn't even survive a single strike from the King.
Of course, if one were cheating, that would be a different story.
Only a conditional mechanism-based ability like "Stellar Collapse" can deal with a monster like the King.
When the numerical gap is too large, make up for it with mechanics.
Stellar Collapse could bypass even the defense that the 100-Type Guanyin Bodhisattva couldn't breach, directly inflicting fatal damage to the King's soul.
The only difference was satisfying the stringent constraints.
Star Mark... sacrifice.
After meeting the prerequisites to activate Stellar Collapse, Morrow directly sacrificed the Star Mark.
Earlier, to create advantages for his teammates and now to blast the King into the underground shelter, he had already consumed a portion of his potential aura.
Since conventional methods couldn't break the King's defense, the sooner he activated Stellar Collapse, the more efficiently he could utilize every bit of his potential aura.
As Morrow sacrificed the Star Mark, a cluster of ghostly blue flames suddenly appeared out of nowhere on the King's left arm.
This time, it didn't land on a harder-to-ignite area like the forehead or chest; his luck was relatively average.
While luck sometimes mattered, what ultimately decided victory was always hard power.
After activating Stellar Collapse, Morrow didn't continue suppressing the King with Emission attacks. Instead, he leaped down without hesitation, plummeting straight toward the underground shelter.
In theory, he could rely on Emission's long-range offensive capabilities to fully suppress the King while gradually igniting other areas' Accretion Charges.
But reality was, with only human-level potential aura, it was utterly insufficient to sustain such a luxurious tactic.
Unless he possessed bottomless potential aura like Youpi.
Or if he reduced the conversion output rate of his Emission attacks while the King lay in the pit without resisting.
Such a thing was, of course, impossible.
Facing the King, who had a strong desire to attack, the only way to reliably meet Stellar Collapse's conditions was through direct combat.
And not wasting even the slightest bit of potential aura.
In gaming terms, Morrow had to ensure that every point of mana consumption yielded results, so he could defeat the final boss before his mana was depleted.
But there was one more crucial condition...
Morrow landed steadily in the spacious underground shelter, his Nen shattering into a sky full of stars, while red phantoms manifested above his shoulders.
At that moment, the King leaped out from the deep pit, bringing up a shower of rubble.
He glanced at the rootless, temperatureless flame that had suddenly appeared on his left arm, then swept his gaze over the dense star points connected by red threads around him, finally fixing on Morrow's face.
"Your advantage should lie in mid-to-long-range suppression. Why interrupt your offense and even abandon that advantage?"
From reading books to immersing himself in board games, this process had fully awakened the King's learning ability. It also made him subconsciously ponder over various matters, seeking the underlying logic and answers.
This habit of probing essence had long been integrated into every judgment he made during confrontations.
Faced with the King's seemingly pointless inquiry in a life-or-death battle, Morrow naturally remained silent.
Why abandon this advantage? To win this life-or-death battle, of course.
Morrow calmly regarded the King's explosive display of temperament.
The stringent constraints of Stellar Collapse were partly because, after activating the ability, the exact number of ignitions required couldn't be precisely determined.
Morrow had to gradually explore and calculate this during intense combat.
On the other hand, the gradual ignition of Accretion Charges, this ability phenomenon, would often alert the target.
And the target might discern the true nature of Stellar Collapse based on this phenomenon.
To overcome these difficulties, Morrow had no choice but to forgo Emission's advantages and adopt a high-intensity close-quarters combat approach.
The benefit of this was that he could grasp at any time, even control, the accumulation count for each Accretion Charge area.
Just like when he used Stellar Collapse to defeat Neferpitou, he had to ensure that the ignition counts for other Accretion Charge areas had also reached the critical point before igniting the second cluster.
This way, he could drastically reduce the target's thinking time, thereby greatly increasing the probability of meeting the ability's conditions.
However, it wasn't surprising that the King found this approach puzzling.
He simply didn't know that Stellar Collapse's very purpose was to provide Morrow with an upward option to forcefully carve out a chance of victory when facing enemies that even enhanced Shooting Star couldn't resolve.
This was also why Stellar Collapse's prerequisite was implanting a Star Mark, followed by one attack from Deceptive Shooting Star.
Only by aligning with the ability's underlying logic while integrating clearly defined needs into the Vow and Limitation mechanism could the power of Nen be fully realized.
Morrow always adhered to this principle.
Even though the upgrade reward of Etude of Love granted by Tree Rings imprint could significantly reduce the difficulty of developing Nen abilities, he still constructed abilities based on his Nen type compatibility, rather than pursuing unrealistic fantasies.
This was the fundamental reason he could always efficiently leverage the tactical value of his Nen abilities.
Now, although the King's hardware strength surpassed any previous formidable foe Morrow had encountered, in the face of Morrow's sufficiently complete ability system, this strength was essentially no different from that of previous adversaries.
Morrow remained silent, merely channeling his high-spirited battle intent into his aura.
Seeing that Morrow had no intention of answering, the King didn't press further. Shrouded in turbulent energy, he assumed an offensive stance.
Whoosh!
With a sharp sound like willow branches cutting through air, the King's figure abruptly moved, closing in on Morrow in an instant.
Without any skills to speak of, his thick-knuckled palm, infused with overwhelming energy, thrust straight toward Morrow's chest.
For the King, a perfect being forged by plundering countless genes, hunting and attacking methods were always simple and brutal.
That was, to tear the prey apart head-on with absolute power.
The King's swift assault scattered the surrounding dense star points and tugged at Terpsichora's numerous Nen strings, causing them to tighten and tremble. This controlled Morrow into a backward leap and sidestep, creating ample evasion space.
The palm thrust aimed directly at him naturally missed.
But in the next instant, the stinger behind the King lashed out like a venomous snake, aiming for Morrow's neck.
However, Starlight Convergence's star points were scattered in every nearby space. The moment the King's tail showed signs of movement, Morrow read the information.
Without any surprise, guided by Terpsichora, Morrow leaped back again preemptively, creating distance.
The King's stinger struck empty air.
Meanwhile, during his backward leap, Morrow swung his palm toward the King from a distance, releasing an air palm that struck the King's left leg just as he was about to step forward and exert force.
A light pat sounded.
The energy control burst like a balloon, only causing slight ripples on the King's aura output.
Naturally, there was no damage, nor did it hinder the King's stepping motion.
Pushing off with his left foot, the King charged at Morrow again, his retracted right arm springing forward once more.
But at that moment, Morrow launched another air palm, striking the King's right hand.
Two consecutive attacks precisely targeted the King's limbs just as they began to move.
But the King's aura defense was too strong; both strikes failed to cause even the slightest hindrance.
Yet this was precisely the illusion Morrow wanted to create.
He aimed to make the King form the perception that "the opponent wants to hinder my offense," thereby overlooking the true intent hidden beneath these seemingly ineffective interceptions.
The King indeed didn't pay it any mind, shattering the air palm with his formidable presence and delivering another oppressive attack to Morrow.
Such straightforward assaults, at this stage, posed little threat or even pressure to Morrow, who possessed Starlight Convergence・Cosmic Choreography.
With a seemingly effortless shift of his body, Morrow easily dodged the King's onslaught, while still having the capacity to launch another palm strike at the King.
Again, it struck a limb just showing signs of movement, again causing no damage or hindering the King's offensive momentum.
But it quietly accumulated one count toward igniting an Accretion Charge.
The King could clearly sense Morrow's attempt to delay his offense, and thus naturally assumed that Morrow needed to complete an "energy accumulation" step to enhance his attack power.
So, to completely destroy this intent, the King's attacks grew faster and faster.
Yet none of his powerful, heavy strikes managed to hit Morrow even once.
Moreover, while evading his assaults, Morrow always found openings to counterattack.
His reactions are swift and precise, flawless... as if playing a game of "speed chess" without needing to think, yet every move is accurate.
In dozens of exchanges within the blink of an eye, the King had failed to touch Morrow at all.
The reason he can do this... The King's peripheral vision quickly scanned the star points connected by red threads around him, then he expressionlessly looked at the red phantom above Morrow's shoulders.
During the intense exchanges, he had tried attacking the red phantom and Nen strings, intending to disrupt Morrow's "speed chess state" this way.
But whether it was the red phantom or the Nen strings, they were in an unselectable state, completely impervious to external interference.
In that case... a glint of sharp light flashed in the King's eyes as he thought to himself, I'll memorize every move you make relying on those Nen strings.
His experience and gains from board games allowed the King to quickly find a way to break the situation.
By remembering the correlation between the Nen strings' tautness and trembling movements, he could predict Morrow's bodily actions one step ahead.
This would allow him to seize the initiative and increase the probability of his attacks landing.
The shifts in the King's combat strategy couldn't escape Morrow's notice.
In this confrontation, the King, solely focused on increasing offensive intensity, completely failed to realize... his control over aura was too intuitive; in the flow of energy, his intentions always revealed themselves slightly faster than his physical movements.
Too shallow... in a way, you're easier to deal with now than Neferpitou.
Morrow detected the King's tactical shift but had no intention of using In to conceal Terpsichora's presence.
Because it was meaningless.
And he could see that the King was a typical offensive player with a strong desire to attack.
So even in tactical thinking, he would subconsciously lean toward an offensive tone, failing to notice the real issue.
For instance, after her offensive failed, Neferpitou quickly realized that her aura flow had exposed her attack intentions and trajectory.
But the King, with his strong desire to attack, would only consider how to penetrate Morrow's evasion space faster and more accurately.
I'm not Netero.
In the new round of offense and defense, Morrow thought to himself.
The King could use his straightforward combat methods, backed by an extremely high tolerance for error, to carve out a crack in Netero's 100-Type Guanyin Bodhisattva.
But that wouldn't work here.
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Bonus chapter @1800