He was holding a knife to yoshiki's throat and from that position goaded the 2 to have a 1v1. The 1v1 barely started when Kai showed up with the gun and he tried to sneak up on him while Kai was threatening everyone with the gun but got caught out.
I think it was. It strengthened the morale of Shin's men and weakened the morale of the Han forces. Even if it's just a slight shift that's all you need when the fight is this at this critical moment.
When the first international Shounen Jump contest happened I was also working until the last day and tried submitting my entry about 30 min before deadline, only to see that the entry period already closed already because the deadline was actually in
JST (not specified in the rules anywhere)
Its more or less finished. The author was able to finish all the story he had planned in the time he was given
He has some idea of where the story would go if he continued it but it's not fleshed out all. He says he might come back to this story eventually but first he needs to get a few...
The author also has an afterword. Basically the series had consistent monthly tickets (I'm guessing subs) but overall sub count was low and not growing, so he can't continue it. However he was glad he was given the time to finish the series with what he had already planned. He more or less...
The raw chapters go up to 185. The author was able to finish the story he had planned within the rest of the chapters. I don't know if there will be any more scanlations though.
If you're interested in seeing how the it ends I've summarized the basics: