Buried deep beneath the desert, Crocodile's brow furrowed.
He had not been in the New World for long, yet he had already slammed into a wall he could not climb. Worse, he could not even scratch it. Every trick he relied on in the Grand Line, every feeling of crushing opponents like dried leaves, had vanished the moment he met this monster.
So this was the New World.
And the ones watching from a distance were not even the main force. They were the second generation of the Hell Pirates, standing there like spectators at a circus, letting an unknown brat stall him into a miserable stalemate.
No one else had even moved.
Humiliation burned in Crocodile's chest.
Challenging Brook now was clearly too early. But if he returned to the Grand Line like this, he would become a joke. He needed a kill, or at least a trophy, something to drag back with him so he could pretend this trip had meant something.
His gaze sharpened. He stared at the second generation watching from afar.
Among them were several girls.
They would be weaker.
A vicious plan sparked in his mind.
He did not hesitate.
"Heavyweight Shalan."
"Desert Diamond Sword!"
In an instant, countless blades of sand exploded outward, sandstorms lashing like whips as they tore toward the spectators.
Yet the second generation did not panic.
If anything, they looked amused.
This Shichibukai was bold, bold enough to challenge a whole ship of monsters alone.
A lazy voice sighed.
"Arara… that doesn't sit right with me."
"Ice Age."
Kuzan swung his arm, and terrifying cold surged forward. The incoming sand blades froze solid in midair. The roaring sandstorm locked into ice, then even the desert behind it began to whiten and harden, swallowed by frost.
Kanna's eyes gleamed.
"Wow, Kuzan. You're getting stronger. Freezing that much desert is insane."
Kuzan exhaled a misty breath, expression lazy as ever.
"Princess Kanna, your Frost Dragon can fight, tank hits, and fly. I'm the one who's jealous."
Kanna gave a soft snort, satisfied anyway.
Hades's smile turned sharp.
"He's made his move, brothers. Fine. Let's cut off his itchy claw."
He had been willing to let Bullet enjoy a clean one on one fight. But Crocodile had crossed the line first.
If he wanted to taste the New World, then they would make sure he remembered the flavor.
Satan laughed.
"Bullet, this one isn't on us. Big brother spoke."
He raised his hand. His Weather Fruit responded instantly. Marco moved as well, his Cloud Fruit spreading above the battlefield. They even borrowed Kuzan's freezing air to build heavier rain clouds, thick and dark with promise.
Bullet's face twisted with fury.
"You're looking for death! Couldn't you just fight me properly? Why provoke them?"
He had been arrogant once too, but this was beyond brainless. Crocodile could not beat any of them, not even close, and yet he was swinging at the entire group.
Hell II's reputation was simple.
They did not do honor.
They did groups.
And every single one of them was terrifying.
Crocodile's voice echoed from inside the sandstorm tornado, trying to sound confident.
"Hmph. No one can catch me in the desert."
But the edge of his voice trembled.
That freezing power was ridiculous, and now they were summoning rain clouds.
His Sand Sand Fruit feared water. He was not like other Devil Fruit users who only feared seawater. Even normal water interfered with his elemental form. If the rain soaked the desert and they found his real body, he would die.
Retreat. Now.
Crocodile shifted within the storm and fled in one direction.
He barely made it a few breaths.
"Too late."
Hades, Osiris, and the others appeared right on his escape route, as if the desert itself had betrayed him. Even in elemental form, he could not escape Observation Haki.
And Hades had developed his Mythical Beast Horned Demon form far enough to glimpse the breath of souls. Under Brook's influence, they had all started pushing techniques tied to the soul.
Hades transformed, the demon silhouette surging forward like a nightmare.
His pitch black claws seized the moving sand.
A burst of blood sprayed out.
"Ahhh!"
Crocodile screamed and dove downward, plunging into the deep desert to hide underground.
Then the rain finally fell.
A heavy downpour hammered the island, soaking the sand, turning the desert into wet sludge. Crocodile's fear sharpened into panic. He did not dare rise.
Mephisto stepped forward, eyes cold.
"My turn."
He activated the Earth Fruit. The saturated desert began to roll and shift, as if the land itself had become a giant hand flipping pages. Observation Haki swept the area again and again, hunting.
They were not searching for a pirate.
They were searching for a rat.
He dared to strike at spectators. That meant he deserved a lesson that would haunt him forever.
Bullet grinned, feral.
"Staying in elemental form burns stamina. Let's guard him to death."
The rain did not stop. The desert continued to soak.
Hell II tightened the net, sealing off the wet zone completely, leaving Crocodile no path to escape.
With Hades's soul sensing guiding Mephisto's earth shifting, they kept turning the sand over, driving him like an animal cornered in a flooded burrow.
Kanna hovered in the air, annoyed.
"If I'd known, I wouldn't have intercepted him on a desert island. Anywhere else, we'd have caught him already. The Sand Sand Fruit is disgusting in the desert."
Someone scoffed.
"Who knew this Shichibukai would be this weak."
They had expected a young monster, a talent like Kaido.
Instead, they found a loud name and empty weight.
Ben Beckman spoke calmly, covering his conscience.
"Maybe he's just an exception. The other Shichibukai are still dangerous."
Hel, the Immortal Phoenix, snorted.
"I don't care about Shichibukai. My target is Navy Admirals."
She tilted her chin.
"Kurt Wagner and Captain John both escaped from the Hell Pirates. Naguri is basically Uncle Chinjao, and Uncle Roger beat him like a stray dog. What's there to fear?"
They were chatting, almost relaxed.
Then Hades's eyes narrowed.
"The sand rat's out."
Forced to the surface by their relentless pressure, Crocodile finally burst from the wet ground.
A green figure shot forward like a bullet.
The first strike was a killing blow.
Pitch black phoenix claws sliced past in a blur.
Crocodile, about to spit some cruel words, saw the shadow and reacted on instinct. His left arm snapped up to block.
The next instant, he was blown backward.
Pain exploded.
His left hand hit the ground, severed cleanly.
"Ahhh! My hand!"
Crocodile's eyes went bloodshot. He lunged desperately toward the fallen hand, as if he could still save it, as if it could still be reattached.
Hel's expression did not change.
"Trash. You dare come to the New World."
She swung again.
Dense phoenix claw blades shredded through the air, completely annihilating the severed hand, reducing it to ruin, and kept rushing forward without losing speed.
Straight for Crocodile.
She did not want to cripple him.
She wanted to erase him.
"As for Shichibukai," Hel's voice was ice, "I'll kill one when I see one. Two if they come in pairs."
--------------
Only after the fight ended did Hell II truly understand why Brook had been so confident about sending them to intercept Crocodile, one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea.
It was simple.
This newly appointed Shichibukai was garbage.
They had expected a young monster with a sharp fang and a ruthless head. Instead, they found a pampered Grand Line bully who thought a Logia meant invincibility.
Without realizing it, the second generation had already reached a level where any one of them could challenge the entire Shichibukai roster alone. Each of them was becoming the new era's spearhead, steadily closing in on the first echelon of the Hell Pirates.
Only Brook still looked at them like children who had not grown up yet.
In truth, they were already terrifying.
People loved to talk about how Straw Hat Luffy defeated an Emperor at nineteen.
Well, Hel, the Immortal Phoenix, had just crushed a freshly crowned Warlord at nineteen too. And Crocodile had never even stepped into the New World before this, he was just a cocky kid who believed his Sand Sand Fruit made him a natural disaster.
Hel's blue flames surged as she came in again.
Crocodile forced himself to swallow the rage of losing his hand, forced himself to think. The moment he sensed her killing intent, he turned into sand ahead of time and barely slipped away from that black phoenix claw that could split metal and crack stone.
Even so, her strike carved a massive fissure into the desert like it was paper.
Shana flinched and instinctively shrank her neck.
Her second sister was more brutal than the brothers.
"Haha, take another punch!"
Bullet dispersed his Desert Giant form and surged forward, his Armament coated fist smashing into Crocodile the moment he reformed. The impact sent the Warlord tumbling across the rain soaked sand, rolling dozens of times like a kicked barrel.
Mud and grit clung to Crocodile's body. With one arm gone and his chest heaving, he looked less like a "Desert King" and more like wreckage.
"I'm angry."
Osiris flew up and kicked him into the air.
In an instant, it turned into a game. One after another, they took turns launching Crocodile around like a ball. If they had not been deliberately holding back, the Shichibukai would have died before he could even remember why he came.
"Hey! Don't kill him!"
Van Augur shouted, finally unable to watch it anymore.
"A Logia is still valuable. If he dies, we lose the fruit!"
"Damn it!"
Crocodile's voice cracked with fury.
His whole body felt like it was being torn apart. The heavy rain soaked everything, ruining his elemental escape. Sand could not stay sand when it was drenched.
"I'll kill you all!"
"Hmph. Still talking big after getting turned into a toy?"
Kanna stepped in, her ice covered fist driving into his ribs.
Crack.
Three ribs broke at once.
Even Beckman's eyelid twitched. If this kept going, Crocodile was going to die out of sheer stubbornness.
He moved.
Seastone cuffs snapped around Crocodile's remaining wrist in a clean motion. The moment the cuffs locked, Crocodile's strength collapsed, his Logia slipping away like a dream.
Beckman originally planned to have Hel, the ship's doctor, stabilize him.
Then he saw her expression.
Cold. Flat. Like she was looking at something she would rather burn than heal.
Beckman could only force a bitter smile, crouch down, and start bandaging the idiot himself, just to keep him from bleeding out.
"That's it?"
Satan, still controlling the heavy rain, sounded genuinely disappointed.
"I didn't even get to counter his sandstorm. A little rain and he's finished. This Sand Sand Fruit user is pathetic."
"You overestimated the Shichibukai," Hades said calmly, "and underestimated us."
They had the best bloodlines, the best teachers, the best resources, and Devil Fruits that were top tier even by New World standards. Comparing them to a rookie Warlord who had just made a name for himself in the Grand Line was almost insulting.
Mephisto laughed.
"Someday, we'll take all those Shichibukai off the board for Father. They're just a bunch of washed up pirates."
For now, Brook's standard for them was clear. Beat vice admirals. Beat Shichibukai. Admirals were not their lane yet.
If they had admiral level strength already, Brook would have declared war on the World Government long ago.
A sharp voice drifted over.
"Brook wants to clean up the Shichibukai, but aside from this idiot, the others are hiding in the Grand Line and won't even step into the New World."
Moria was there, looming taller than ever. He was already five or six meters high, towering over most of the group.
They wanted Kurt Wagner. They wanted Captain John. They wanted Naguri.
But Brook forbade Hell II from entering the Grand Line.
Otherwise, they would have already snuck back just to start trouble.
"That's enough. We're done here."
Hades gave the order.
They took Crocodile and left.
No one bothered with Crocodile's crew. No one bothered with his ship. Baroque Gustav was ignored like junk on the shore.
Terrified and leaderless, Crocodile's men fled into the New World on their own, their captain captured and dragged away like a trophy.
And the news detonated across the seas.
Crocodile, the so called Desert King who had rampaged through the Grand Line, had been beaten like a dog and captured by Hell II.
Civilians and pirates alike finally realized something.
The Seven Warlords of the Sea did not look so terrifying anymore.
The World Government's elders raged. They cursed Crocodile as worthless and immediately stripped his Shichibukai title, but the damage was already done.
They had been slapped in public.
Their brand new Warlord lineup had been broken by a young monster from the Hell Pirates.
What did that make the World Government's "balance of power"?
A joke.
Before the Shichibukai system even fully filled its seats, it had already started losing members. The World Government's authority cracked further, and more and more nations began to feel it.
The New World's Hell Pirates were something the World Government could not control.
In the past, Roger had used his own death to ignite the Great Pirate Era because he had no propaganda machine. He had to use the Navy's execution stage to broadcast his dream to the world.
But the Hell Pirates were different.
They had their own voice.
Whatever they wanted the world to see, the world would see.
So the headline did not end with Crocodile's defeat.
It grew.
The Hell Pirates openly placed bounties on the Seven Warlords of the Sea and on every Marine officer above Rear Admiral.
The World Government had tried to freeze Warlord bounties.
Now the Hell Pirates announced, with a grin, that they would do the punishing themselves.
The most terrifying part was the number.
Even the admirals had bounties, three hundred to four hundred billion Berries each.
Public trust in the World Government and the Navy plummeted like a stone.
The world trembled. People could feel it in their bones.
A war was coming.
The chaos also fed the Revolutionary Army's growth. Under Dragon's careful concealment, the World Government still had not officially labeled them a major threat, even as their influence spread like roots under soil.
Then, half a year later, another piece of news tore through the New World's front section, the waters of the Edd War.
A Devil Fruit said to carry the power of a god had appeared.
The Word Spirit Fruit.
At a small auction, underworld brokers and CP agents recognized it immediately. The bidding did not last long. The room turned into a slaughterhouse. The fight escalated so violently that the World Government and the Hell Pirates both caught wind of it almost at once.
Now both sides wanted the same thing.
End it fast.
Move faster.
And seize that power before the other side could even blink.
.....
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