Close call!

Ren had explained to them what he felt with his observation haki.

They were surprised when all of a sudden that 100 A rank people had entered the gate before them in some way that they weren't discoverable.

And then he told them these A ranks had all been massacred, and not killed. He stressed the fact that he felt their bodies were dismembered and torn apart.

He also made sure to warn them about the energy he could feel around the boss monster.

From then on all of them took a few minutes to discuss if they were going to move forward against a boss monster that can casually deal with a 100 A ranks. Something none of them there can do… Maybe Ren if he was given support by the rest, but it would take him a long time to beat them…

So, and as expected of them as heroes, the moment the orc boss had stopped to focus, Ren and co burst forth at great speeds going toward the monster.

*Grah*

The orc monster had been standing in position, just soaking in the red energy that was strengthening its body.

It understood that this red energy that was like a cloud moving around its form was something good for it even if it didn't know what it was.

And it also managed to understand that if he killed those people it would increase.

So, it didn't hesitate and even though eating them didn't help in that, and just killing them was enough, it still filled its stomach with their delicious flesh and crunchy bones. It was a full course meal in the eyes of monsters.

Then as it concentrated on getting stronger, possibly breaking through to the SS rank… It suddenly opened its eyes.

New ants had entered its sensory range. And it was very close to finishing its upgrade.

*GRAH*

It growled, almost sounding as if it was annoyed.

'Take this…!' Ren attacked at that moment.

He was a bit surprised as he saw the monster watching him and the rest, already aware of their presence. But it was expected from a monster that rank.

He was the first to attack among them, as he had jumped way above the head of the monster, then with his spear spinning in his hands at a very high speed vertically, he sent continuous air blades that had his wind energy, haki, and monstrous strength for more speed.

*Shiing* *Shiing* *Shiing*

Not giving the monster any time to react, Kakashi had attacked at the same time as Ren. And the two same shadow clone copies of him from before took their positions with him to attack at the same time.

'I have a bad feeling…' Kakashi as he ran at the monster had this thought. But his steps weren't at all hesitant.

The monster was huge in size, but at that moment he didn't care and charged it up after doing some hand seals.

[Lightning release: Purple electricity]

Except this time, the electricity was purple instead of blue. It was a technique he had created by himself.

His second clone and third clone finished their seals at the same time. The first one shot a large number of fire attacks shaped like dragon heads at the monster, while the third one conjured a dragon made out of water.

His jutsus shot at the orc monster, whose appearance was highly intimidating.

Still, none of them faltered and stayed focused. They had dealt with S ranks so far and this was just another one.

Although that red energy surrounding it was a bit weird and had them on guard against it.

Yamato attacked at the same time as them.

Since her time with Ren, one stat had increased, and surprisingly the skill that increased for her was the ability to use ice, as such she became more used to it and had a new range of abilities present.

She struck the empty air in front of her with full strength, and it resulted in a shockwave full of ice construct exploding which turned into a huge wolf that ran forward in the air, the ground below it freezing as it followed after it.

This left only Robin, who didn't bother to create her giant limbs directly on the monster since it was a rank higher and she would only end up hurting herself.

Instead, she created them around the ground and they quickly sprung forth trying to stop the monster in place for it to take all their combined attacks.

And then when the attacks were about to reach she let go of her technique, as the pain in her limbs would be felt by her.

But surprising them all there, the monster didn't even lift its hands.

It just stood there, its mouth stretching to show almost a human-like expression. It was smirking at them.

*Gruahh* *Gruahh*

It even made a funny sound as they heard it.

Then immediately after their eyes widened as they saw something completely unexpected.

"What the hell?" Yamato was even vocal about it.

Ren's slashes that would cut apart skyscrapers were easily taken care of.

The red energy surrounding the monster acted as a sort of barrier.

Then as the slashes made contact with the red energy they were split.

The top part of the slashes which wouldn't touch the monster were cut off from the lower halves that were dissolved by the red energy.

Those cut parts proceeded past the position of the monster and left huge and deep gashes on the ground. It was enough to showcase their power.

But the red energy easily took care of them.

Yamato's ice attack similarly was stopped and shattered by the red energy, and except for a shockwave that exploded behind the monster, nothing happened.

Next, the jutsus of the two clones of Kakashi reached the monster, and the same thing happened.

The red energy dissolved them completely.

Everyone was shocked at that moment.

And Kakashi who had purple lighting on his hand reached closer to the monster, and then like a blade he had the electricity expand before he tried to cut at the monster.

The moment his lightning blade touched the red fog surrounding the monster, the top of it was cut off.

'What!' Internally he was shocked about this development, and hurriedly retreated.

But the monster now having taken their attacks understood that they were quite strong.

As such it waived its giant veiny hand and swatted at Kakashi who had gone near it.

'Damn it, it's very fast!' he cursed, and when the hand struck his form, fog spread around and he replaced his body with a log, as he escaped very far back.

"Watch out, everyone this isn't a regular S rank," He warned them.

Ren nodded as he landed on the ground.

"The monster is only at the peak of S rank, the problem is that red energy, it's giving me bad vibes…" As the most adept at sensing things, Ren's words were taken seriously by all of them.

And even Yamato backed him up.

"My instinct is warning me against that red energy," She was born with a trait that changed her to the oni race, like her father, and coupled with her beast of legends transformation, her instinct was even more on point.

Kakashi didn't bother to play around anymore.

"Everyone, bring out your trump cards," He told them before a huge amount of energy was felt from his body.

[Eight inner gates: Gate of opening: Release!]

This gate releases his mental inhibitions allowing his body to perform even more drastic actions than before.

It was a technique of a very dear friend of his, and it was a bit unfortunate that he couldn't open the other gates and only the first level.

Ren's eyes widened before he forgot about that for now.

'This guy is trouble…' He looked back at the monster.

The wind surrounding his body started to pick up in speed as the surrounding turned windy. His hands blackened and so did his spear.

'And I can't let him hurt my friends!'

Yamato entered her hybrid form, and similarly sent a discreet look at Robin. Her transformation due to getting stronger was very quick.

She was having second thoughts about her. Maybe they shouldn't have let her enter the gate, that way she wouldn't have been in danger now.

Robin knew her own strength and could feel them worry about her, so she just bit her lips in frustration.

And then something instantly happened.

*Boom*

The red fog entered the monster completely, and its body kicked at the ground destroying it and reaching Robin instantly.

It had noticed how everyone was emitting worried feelings and discreetly looking at Robin.

Not to mention it felt that she was the weakest link.

*Gruahh*

Its hand reached to grab her and squeeze her until she explodes, a smirk of cruelty adorning its face, but the monster found it suddenly lost feeling in its hand.

*??*

It looked at it and saw a huge wind spiral spinning at a very fast speed and it cut off its arm that was about to catch Robin.

The pain caught with it suddenly.

*GRAAHHHH*

And with pain came deep anger that this ant managed to hurt it.

*Fwishh*

*Bam!*

The spiral after cutting off the arm continued on to the ground and gouged it leaving a big crater before it was lodged into it, finally showing to be Ren's spear.

Ren had used his wind and all other abilities to prevent the danger he had felt at that moment with his observation haki. He threw his spear as it turned into a spinning blade. And since it had his all thrown into it managed to cut the arm off.

Following after him, Yamato inhaled a deep breath of air before she launched a beam of ice at the monster, not missing the opportunity.

The ice beam hit it and its form started to crystalize from the bottom up.

Kakashi used the lightning element which he was the most proficient in and sent various lightning hounds at the orc.

It was being frozen due slowly from the legs up, so it couldn't dodge the lightning.

*GRAHHHH*

It was electrified and the smell of slightly burned skin reached their noses.

The monster felt even more anger at that.

"Charge ahead" Yamato yelled as she gathered ice energy in her Kanabo.

Ren and co didn't want to miss this chance as such they all tried pursuing the monster.

Doing their best to capitalize on this opportunity.

Ren didn't bother going after his spear since it would be bent out, he just grabbed another one from inventory and used the spear and started to spin it, before he used (Ventus) to create a huge tornado and sent it at the monster.

Kakashi seeing this decided to use lightning and water with that attack, combining with Ren's tornado to create a stormy tornado that slammed into the monster.

*Bam*

The monster was lifted off of the ground and then slammed onto it as hard as possible.

The wind blades cut into its skin and shredded it apart as the lightning charred its flesh.

And then as it was wet, Yamato attacked by creating a huge icy wolf that had very sharp crystal fangs, and the wolf bit into the orc's shoulder before the monster started to get frozen.

*GAARGHHH*

The fangs that bit into it further made it feel deep pain.

But then all of a sudden, as the monster was bleeding and feeling pain, it started to writhe on the ground, its arms wiggling wildly.

Something was happening to it…

"Wait! Back off everyone, back off!" Kakashi called everyone to do so, and they stopped their attacks.

The ground shook at its every step, and then the arm that was cut off turned into red energy before it was swallowed into its body.

When it did, its shaking stopped for a second, before the monster abruptly roared as loud as it could.

*Roar*

Then, its form started to swell and then shrink in various parts of its body, its glowing blue runes spread all over its body turning off and fading before glowing again and repeating this situation.

"What is happening to it?" Robin asked Ren who was near her.

"It seems like it is about to explode or something," He replied as he was frowning his eyebrows.

Something strange was happening, and they thought it was about to explode or something, as such they retreated even further back and waited to see what was happening.

The red energy was once again released hiding its form from their eyes, but it was just for a second, as in the next, the energy disappeared and they could no longer see where the monster was.

"Watch put everyone!" Ren yelled loudly. He could sense danger.

Ren was standing in front of Robin, meanwhile Yamato was near Kakashi.

But at this moment no one seemed able to react, except for Ren who using his observation was able to slightly predict something and turn his eyes to the left, catching the giant blurry shape of something about to swat him aside.

He could see a bit, but couldn't dodge.

'Fuck!' He cursed internally and considered for a second if he was going to die.

The feeling he felt from the monster that was about to hit him exceeded the S rank.

Then just as the hand was about to hit him, time seemed as if it had stopped, as Ren heard a sigh.

"How can someone like him, so weak, make me feel like that?" The new addition seemed to mutter to herself.

And then the hand of the monster stopped as if it had hit a wall.

Shockwaves exploded from the impact and Ren and Robin's hair was blown by the wind.

Still, the person didn't seem to feel a thing. Rather the monster was the one whose hands were ruptured and injured by the wind from the shockwaves as it was being held in place.

"To think a weak S ranked monster can increase to SS rank so easily…" She muttered, and Ren heard her, his eyes widening.

'No wonder I couldn't react at all…!' He now understood what had happened.

Ren opened his closed eyes and looked at the person.

'Iris Heart!'

She was still wearing her dominatrix latex suit and right now had her left hand spread and gripped at the right hand of the monster who had swung at Ren.

She casually held the hand and stood there, as if the monster wasn't SS rank as she said. But having seen the monster's newfound speed, he was sure it was true. And he could feel it was stronger anyway.

"You're my stalker!"

*******************

-Please vote. The voting can help the fanfic grow up and reach more audiences.

-Special thanks to *"Arun"* ; *"Carl Steelhammer"* ; *"ShadowFangus"* ; *"Coby"* ; *"HaiiroOokami"* ; *"John Dunkley"* and *"Ahmed"*

-Read advanced chapters ahead of the public release:

https://www.p.atreon.com/ThighsSeeker