Why are the royal guards so powerful?

Question

In the latest episode 85, Pitou easily killed Kite even though Killua said Kite is as strong or stronger than a Nen Master. I thought chimera ants had nen similar to that of humans. How come they are so strong?

Answer 1

Before the royal guard was born, the chimera ants became aware of humans with 'excessive life force' (a.k.a. nen) and the queen ordered them to hunt down any nen users that were in the area for her consumption. We know that there were hunters in the country at the time, like Ponzu and Pokkle's group etc. We can assume that the queen consumed these hunters and the royal guard inherited the nen abilities.

The rest of the chimera ants are receiving (as of episode 85) their nen abilities the regular way - through the "baptism" which awakens nen in a person. This is how most humans acquire nen abilities, as was probably the case with Kite.

The overwhelming strength of the royal guard can be attributed to:

• They are born able to use nen, unlike human most nen users who are "baptised". This gives them an advantage because their understanding and ability to use nen is innate, not learned through years of training and study.

• Chimera ants are insects by nature and are usually brutal, savage, and cruel. This leads to more menacing battle auras, which can hinder the fighting ability of a human opponent if the aura is intimidating enough. For example, Pitou's aura was menacing enough to scare away Gon and Killua.

• Chimera ants also have the properties of any animals or humans that were eaten. This means that any member of the royal guard is going to have incredibly fast animal-like reflexes, the intelligence of the best humans, and the strongest muscles between animals/humans.

The combination of these means that the royal guard is going to be significantly stronger than most average hunters.

Kite was also at a disadvantage because he lost his arm protecting Gon and Killua before he fought Pitou.

Answer 2

Since Pokkle didn't get eaten before Pitou was born, and since he is mentioned as the first "rare human" they've encountered, the Queen shouldn't have eaten any humans with Nen-abilities before conceiving the Royal Guard. Out of Pokkle's group, none of the four members were eaten by the Queen and there has been no mention of other "rare humans" before the Royal Guard was conceived.

How they still managed to be born with such strong Nen-powers is a mystery, since, as they say themselves, the "rare humans" are worth 1000 normal ones. So just to achieve the level of a normal Nen-user, the Queen would have to eat 1000 normal humans, and for the Royal guard to be dozens of times stronger than that, she would have needed to consume close to a hundred thousand humans for each of the Royal Guards.

The population is certainly big enough to provide that many, but given the time she had to eat that much, and subtract all the food that went to make the foot soldiers, captains and squadron leaders, not to mention the King himself, there is no way she had the soldiers to procure, let alone eat, that vast amount of humans.

Answer 3

I think that the reason why the royal guards were so powerful was because one, The chimera ants evolve at a rapid rate and considering the amount of time for the chimera ants to evolve to the rate of pitou, it should be an easy feat.So, in conclusion, pitou is as strong as she/he is because pitou had lots of time to evolve and is at near the pinnacle of evolution only underneath the king.