Yellow sand continuously gathered, and a huge sand giant stood towering before Barro. Its massive fist of yellow sand had already smashed toward Barro in midair.
“The spirit of the Sandora River is angry!!”
“No, that face… It’s that bstard Crocodile! That bstard is back!!”
Not far away, the natives living in Alabasta had already seen the monster formed by S-Crocodile. It was not as though they were blind. In this unobstructed desert, the giant’s figure could be seen clearly even from a great distance.
Those at a suitable distance could even make out the expression on its face. S-Crocodile’s genes came from a Lunarian and Crocodile, so after it grew gigantic, it naturally made the people here think of Crocodile, who had stirred up trouble and plotted against the entire country two years ago.
“That guy actually broke out of prison? Could it be that he still hasn’t given up on this country?!”
“Why does it have to be when His Majesty and Her Highness have both gone missing… Hurry to the capital and report this! We can’t let that guy destroy our homeland again!”
Thanks to the ill repute Crocodile had left behind here back then, a disturbance began spreading outward from the center of the desert. Combined with the various beasts that already lived in the desert, a mass flight also began in the desert.
Although it was enormous in size, this kind of attack had no way of hitting Barro at all. And when the World Government’s people tried to retreat, they encountered a new unexpected situation.
“Shadow Thorns!”
Countless black spears suddenly rose from the ground. Many of the agents, who had already been affected by Barro’s attack, had no time to react and had their bodies pierced through by the shadows on the ground.
“You World Government b*stards… You completely ruined all the hard work I’ve put in lately!”
At some unknown point, Moria had already arrived at this sand dune. Although his body was now gradually developing into a spherical shape, the movement speed of his shadows had not been affected by it. With Doppelman technique, he could still move very quickly.
Moria’s strength had indeed fallen a great deal compared to his peak, but it also depended on what sort of enemy he was facing. Fighting opponents at the level of the Shichibukai or above was strenuous, but dealing with others was a different matter.
“I spent so long gathering those shadows, and now they’re all gone! It’s all the fault of the weapon you made using that crocodile b*stard!”
When S-Crocodile had just activated the Isle-Isle Fruit’s ability to form its body, it had unintentionally drawn in many things on the island, including the underground palace where Moria had been living.
Yellow sand, the palace, and rocks were all swept away by the activated ability, and even a huge pit appeared in the ground. As sunlight spilled onto those pirates who had lost their shadows, their bodies became as if they had been scorched, and before long they turned into ash.
Once the original bodies died, the shadows naturally dispersed as well, and Moria’s zombie army lost its power source. That was what led Moria to follow the traces of the battle here.
“That guy… Gecko Moria? Why is he here too? Is he in league with this Lunarian?”
If they had encountered Moria alone, none of these CP agents would have been afraid. After all, one of the original purposes behind developing the Seraphim was to replace the Shichibukai. If they could not even deal with a fallen former Shichibukai, then the Seraphim would have no reason to exist.
But the problem was that Barro was also in front of them. With Moria appearing at a time like this, the situation was completely different.
And on this chaotic battlefield, there were even people carrying out sneak attacks from the outskirts.
“What’s going on? What’s attacking us?!”
“That guy is invisible! Look at the footprints on the ground!”
Although Absalom himself was not strong, the Clear-Clear Fruit made his presence extremely faint. He was also very good at fishing in troubled waters.
Rumble!
The ground churned again. The earth beneath the agents’ feet suddenly rose, and S-Crocodile wrapped all of them inside its body. Because CP0 had given it the final order to protect them, S-Crocodile was doing its utmost to accomplish that objective.
While protecting them, S-Crocodile also raised its foot and stomped at Absalom and Moria below.
“Doppelman!”
By switching places, Moria escaped the opponent’s attack range through an exchange with his shadow, and he brought Absalom out together with him.
“S-Crocodile! Prioritize dealing with the guy in the sky! We can handle Moria!”
S-Crocodile said nothing, only clapping both hands upward. The two massive hands seemed to strike their target dead on, but in the blink of an eye, the arms made of sand were dyed with a touch of orange-red. Under the influence of the high temperature on Barro’s body, that sand had already melted the instant it approached him.
Seraphim possessed the ability to use Haki, but S-Crocodile’s capabilities were insufficient to coat his entire body with it. In the span of a single dodge, Barro blasted a large hole through his body, though it failed to strike S-Crocodile’s true body.
Even Koby, after exploding with power, could shatter the original Devil Fruit user, the Corrupt King’s arm made from an island, so it was even more reasonable for Barro to punch a huge hole through this giant’s chest.
“Child, no matter what you experienced in the past, everything is different now. We share similar blood. Being controlled by these people is not wise.”
“Stop being stupid! That thing isn’t human at all. It’s a biological weapon made by the World Government. It only acts according to orders. It can’t understand what you’re saying at all!”
Barro was still trying to say something, but Moria’s voice came from afar. In terms of being a shut-in, Moria’s understanding of the sea was not much better than Barro’s.
But before he took action, Crocodile had given him a temporary crash course, and with Absalom beside him, Moria had not been completely cut off from the world.
In any case, Barro was already fighting these things, so he did not mind casually reminding him.
“A weapon…”
Barro’s expression darkened. Back then, Shayna and Arceus had poured a massive amount of information into him in an extremely short period of time, and the information he carried also recorded intelligence about the sea over these years. The Seraphim were among them.
It was just that Barro still found it somewhat difficult to acknowledge this world. He found it hard to accept that the once-flourishing race had declined to such a state today.
Barro had always hoped to meet other surviving Lunarians on the sea.
It was because of that wishful thinking, combined with Barro’s unfamiliarity with the appearances of the first generation Shichibukai, that he had developed a different mindset.
He could even see anger in S-Crocodile’s eyes when Moria shouted the word “weapon.”
“If you don’t want to get caught in this, then stay far away.”
A slightly mechanical voice came from Barro’s body, and Moria also felt a sense of crisis in his heart. Perhaps his strength had already fallen to rock bottom, but his ability to flee for his life had not regressed.
Moria took Absalom and fled into the distance, while a heat wave also came from behind him. That scorching aura could not even be compared to a desert at noon. When he looked back, only a dazzling mass of bright light remained where the giant had originally stood.
And near S-Crocodile, the oxygen content was gradually becoming scarce.
“Breathing… S-Crocodile! Break out quickly!”
“Oxygen will burn in this environment. Before it is completely exhausted, if you want to take in enough oxygen, you have no choice but to increase your breathing rate.
“But this place is already filled with my toxins. Unless you possess the same bloodline as me, all of your resistance is futile.”
Barro, who had still been on the outside just now, had already charged into the sand giant’s body. A strange red light flashed in his eyes. That was an ability brought by his embodiment of Iron Moth’s ability. His mechanized vision allowed him to see more things, including the controller in CP0’s pocket.
Poisoning plus oxygen deprivation—CP0, stacked with negative buffs, had no way to resist Barro at all. They, along with the controller, turned into flying ash. And the moment it disappeared, S-Crocodile’s movements also stopped.
Due to Vegapunk’s marvelous settings, the Seraphim had a strange hierarchy of authority.
Five Elders > Vegapunk himself and his satellites > Sentomaru > authority chip holders. With the authority chip destroyed, and no one else nearby who could give orders, Barro had also killed all the agents, causing S-Crocodile to lose its protection targets.
This resulted in S-Crocodile having neither a controller nor a mission objective, so it directly entered a crashed state and began rebooting.
“I will control this desert, and then become king of the world!”
S-Crocodile, seemingly having completed its reboot, suddenly issued its own declaration. This was also the result of Vegapunk’s marvelous actions. These Seraphim were extremely similar to the original Shichibukai in personality, and even had identical preferences.
“Forget becoming king of the world. Come with me now.”
Before its declaration could even finish, it was slapped by Barro, then forcibly carried away by him. Only Moria and Absalom remained where they were, staring blankly at the huge block of glass he had left behind.
“Worororo, King, this former tribe chief of yours has quite different ideas from you.”
“Boss Kaido, what are you talking about?”
“He encountered a Seraphim made by the Marines in Alabasta, but after defeating that Seraphim, he didn’t destroy it. Instead, he wants to… Mm, I suppose ‘enlighten’ that Seraphim would be about the right word.”
On Onigashima, King had just found Kaido when he heard such bizarre words.
Experience and personality created completely different lives. Faced with the same thing, even though they shared the same bloodline, they made entirely different decisions.
Barro had experienced the glory of the Lunarians and had also witnessed the beginning of the Lunarians’ decline toward its end, but the childhood experiences of him, who had died in battle, were not as tortuous as Shayna and King’s.
When King and Shayna saw creations like the Seraphim, only anger remained in their minds, and they wanted such things to disappear from the sea completely.
But Barro was different. Aside from his initial anger, he also saw the “human” emotions in the Seraphim’s eyes, as well as the fact that they were also products of control, so Barro wanted to reverse the Seraphim’s thinking.
He wanted to make the weapons the World Government had created with their bloodline to serve itself become sharp blades stabbing back at them, making them reap what they had sown.
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