Under the influence of the high temperature, the moisture in the clay was rapidly dried out. Having lost its original properties, the clay puppet was torn to pieces in just a single exchange.
Shaking off the scattered chunks of clay on his body, Holed’em slightly lowered his stance, the tail behind him swaying left and right to distract his opponent’s attention.
“Roar!”
With a lion’s roar, Holed’em suddenly leapt forward, his teeth wrapped in flames as his gaping maw lunged toward Prince Grus’s shoulder. Queen had only ordered to capture them alive; he never said they had to be in one piece.
Although Prince Grus used Soru at the last moment to create distance, he still failed to completely evade Holed’em.
“Beast Soru.”
Dropping to all fours, Holed’em also used Soru, forcing Prince Grus to roll several times in a sorry state before barely dodging the attack. It was only with Bogard’s assistance that he managed to catch his breath.
Afterward, Prince Grus slammed his shoulder hard against a nearby rock, forcibly snapping his dislocated joint back into place.
“Armament Haki, Observation Haki, Rokushiki, Ability Users… just how many things do these guys know?!”
“This is the New World. As the strongest pirate crew, isn’t it normal for their elites to know all this? You’re still too young in the end.”
Bogard’s hat had long since been lost somewhere; he had followed Garp across the world for many years and survived countless battles, earning himself a distinguished military record.
He had faced even more dangerous situations than this before, but such a disparity in forces was a first.
For them, Haki was already a basic skill. Even if one couldn’t master advanced Haki, basic defense and danger perception were no problem.
On top of that, with the systematic training methods provided by the traitor Who’s-Who, there were quite a few pirates who had mastered parts of Rokushiki. Of course, the most troublesome were the countless Ability Users.
The Blessed Ones possessed extremely powerful abilities. The combination of Isuka and Sasaki had already left Bogard at a loss. Bastiodon’s thick facial armor formed an indestructible shield, while Scizor’s twin pincers became a pair of sharp spears.
One offense, one defense—even a veteran Vice Admiral like Bogard couldn’t break free. If the battle between Prince Grus and Holed’em hadn’t gradually moved closer to their battlefield, it would have been difficult for him to assist at all.
Apart from the formidable power of the Blessed Ones themselves, the artificial Devil Fruit users had also caused them endless trouble. In nature’s evolution, species are constantly born and go extinct.
For the continuation of their kind, they each evolve different abilities to adapt to the harsh environment.
The camouflage skin of chameleons, the scales of moths, and all kinds of biological toxins.
The wings and talons of hawks, the claws and fangs of tigers and leopards; when these abilities became part of the human body, they unleashed even greater power.
“Little girl, surrender. You’re no match for me. You heard it too, our orders are to capture you alive. If you get hurt, it won’t feel good.”
Briscola tidied his hair, as if trying to appear more gentlemanly.
He was pursuing Hibari. As a sniper, Hibari wasn’t suited for direct combat to begin with. She relied on special Flower Bullets and the like to support her teammates. Once an enemy closed in, there was almost nothing she could do except run.
“Briscola! Don’t pretend to be a gentleman looking like that, you’re about to scare her to tears!”
The surrounding pirates treated Hibari like a mouse in a cat-and-mouse game, viewing her as prey already in their grasp as they watched her struggle powerlessly.
Crack!
A whip crack rang out, and the rocks on both sides of the ground seemed to be driven by some force as they rolled up and closed in on Briscola.
The flexible whip then coiled toward Hibari, dragging her to a relatively safe spot.
“Sister Kujaku…”
“Watch yourself. I don’t have time to take care of you.”
Kujaku swung her whip again, but instead of striking the enemy, she lashed at her own limbs. Using the power of the Whip-Whip Fruit, she drove out her body’s potential, stimulating the hidden strength within to face an even more brutal situation.
“I’ll die… if I can’t get away… I’ll really die…”
Helmeppo’s mind was already on the verge of collapse. The endless sea of pirates had long exceeded his psychological limits. He was only holding on by sheer will.
But at times like this, the more afraid one was, the closer death drew near.
“Stay down!”
An armadillo burst out from the ground, the firearm in its arm already locked onto Helmeppo. But at that moment, a shockwave punch came roaring in from afar.
“Galaxy Divide!”
Garp’s punch temporarily resolved Helmeppo’s crisis and opened up another path for them.
“Don’t just stand there like idiots, keep running! You are the future of the Marines! One day, pirates will tremble at your names!”
“Garp-san, stop saying things like that on your own. I already said it, you’re not allowed… to leave! Ice Wall!”
Kuzan pointed forward with a wave of his hand, and a towering wall of ice rose from the ground, completely sealing off SWORD member’s path to the sea.
“Kuzan, you—”
“Giga QUEEN!”
Before Garp could even finish his sentence, Queen’s fist had already reached Garp’s face. The power of Giga Impact was compressed within his arm, and coupled with the momentum of his massive weight, he swung at Garp while the latter was distracted.
“Honesty Impact”
The two fists collided, and the resulting wind pressure once again blew away numerous pirates, clearing the battlefield around Garp. After a brief stalemate, it was still Queen who was sent flying backward. Suffering from the recoil of Giga Impact, Queen’s body finally crashed down at the edge of the island.
However, Garp himself couldn’t help but take two steps back. At the moment his balance faltered, Hancock and Kuzan’s attacks arrived one after another.
“Perfume Femur Magna!”
“Ice Saber!”
Boom!
At the instant he lost his balance, Garp gave up trying to stabilize himself. Instead, he let himself fall and slammed a punch into the ground below.
The dust kicked up blocked the line of sight, and the resulting tremor disrupted the movements of the other pirates, even causing cracks to appear in the ice wall Kuzan had created earlier.
Using the recoil from his punch, Garp launched himself into the air, avoiding Hancock’s kick in the process.
After smashing Page One from midair down into the ground with a punch, a fresh scar from Kuzan’s slash appeared on Garp’s face, and he once again engaged Kuzan in battle.
“My first lesson, when an old man and a baby are trapped on an island full of beasts, and your ship can only take two people away, what should you do? Kuzan, do you remember your answer?”
“I would kill all the beasts so everyone could be saved.”
“Hahaha, that brat’s answer was to sacrifice himself and let the old man and the child live, but that’s not the answer.
When you don’t have that kind of power, the one you should abandon is the old man. He doesn’t have many days left anyway. The young should live on with the child!”
Kuzan and Garp continuously exchanged punches, their clashes producing thunder-like sounds even under the clear sky.
“Garp-san, are you saying that you’re the old man? But that kind of thinking isn’t wise at all. Are these young people really worth you betting everything on?”
“Maybe. Kuzan, do you remember why you became a Marine? People should try to save humanity’s future. Compared to an old man like me, they have a far greater future ahead of them!
Honesty Impact”
Kuzan crossed his arms to block Garp’s punch, but his gaze became even more resolute.
“Garp-san, for this question, I already have a new answer.
Life is equal, and that equality shouldn’t be limited to humans alone. Outsiders have no right to casually kill the island’s native inhabitants. I don’t want to abandon anyone, and I don’t want… to harm others either.”
“So you’ve found a new goal, Kuzan.”
“The sea can cloud one’s vision. Only by stepping out of the fog can you see the light of the lighthouse. Garp-san, if you intend to stop me, then I won’t hold back.”
After all, this process would never be pleasant. Ice Time!”
High in the air, Kuzan no longer worried about injuring others. His elementalized body released powerful currents of freezing air in all directions, seemingly intent on completely sealing Garp in ice.
“Galaxy Divide!”
His punch stirred up a violent gale, and Garp used the flow of air to keep Kuzan’s cold from drawing near.
A new attack was already brewing on Garp’s fist, but a sudden change erupted on the battlefield below.
From within the earth, Dobon burst out of the ground. However, his target wasn’t stronger Marines like Bogard; it was Koby.
Dobon didn’t know what the point of this was, but it was Who’s-Who’s decision, so he simply cooperated. It just seemed that Who’s-Who hadn’t explained the consequences of this move to him.
Garp’s figure appeared in front of Koby, an ice spear still lodged in his back. To save Koby, Garp had even temporarily abandoned his defense against Kuzan.
“Who’s-Who, you set me up…”
【Use your strongest defensive measures. Don’t underestimate him.】
Who’s-Who’s earlier arrangement was now fully revealed. If Dobon had known that the tactic was for him to take a punch from Garp, he would never have agreed to it. But there was no turning back. The arrow had already been released.
Garp’s punch shattered his Protect barrier, then struck him with undiminished force.
Just before Dobon lost consciousness, Who’s-Who finally appeared in his field of vision.
“Now!”
At the moment Garp struck Dobon to protect Koby, Who’s-Who also burst out from the ground.
Boom!
In the next instant, Who’s-Who followed in Dobon’s footsteps. The steel claws on the front of his arm were snapped, yet a triumphant grin spread across his face.
A smear of black had appeared on Garp’s abdomen. The broken steel claw had not disappeared. It had pierced into Garp’s stomach.
“Hero Garp? That’s all you amount to—hahaha! Cough… cough…”
Who’s-Who coughed up several mouthfuls of blood. Garp’s punch had churned his organs, and he even felt as if seven or eight ribs in his chest had been broken. But he had completed his attack, successfully leaving a deep wound on Garp.
Just from this one strike, he knew that he had already gained enough from this operation.
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