Watching three of his siblings fall in rapid succession left Perospero momentarily dazed. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. How many years had it been? When had the Charlotte family ever lost so many members? Even during his clashes with other Yonko crews, he had never experienced the consecutive deaths of three high-ranking officers.
"Are you spacing out on me? More-More: 30x Speed!!!"
Seeing the momentary flicker of hesitation on Perospero's face, Dimitri knew his chance had arrived. With a sharp crack, he stomped the ground beneath him, exploding into a sprint. His speed was nearly invisible to the naked eye; he appeared before his opponent like a teleporting phantom.
Instantly, the three-meter-long fanged blade in his hand swung downward, howling with the force of a violent gale.
"Oh no!"
The fierce wind slapping against his face jolted Perospero back to his senses, his expression twisting in alarm.
BOOM—
A split second later, the fanged blade slammed viciously into Perospero's chest. Fragments of purple candy and a spray of blood splattered into the air. Perospero didn't even have time to cry out before he was sent flying back as a dark blur, crashing into the ruins of a building and sending a massive plume of dust spiraling into the sky.
"Perospero-nii!"
Mont-d'Or's eyes bulged, his gaze locked in horror on the dust-choked ruins.
"Where are you looking…"
Rock barked a savage laugh. His arms morphed into heavy, wide-caliber cannon barrels aimed directly at Mont-d'Or in mid-air. With a singular, thunderous roar and a flash of fire from the muzzles, two sizzling high-explosive shells screamed toward their target.
KABOOM—
Raging flames erupted in the air, instantly engulfing Mont-d'Or. The ambient temperature spiked, and a brutal shockwave rippled outward. A moment later, a charred and smoking Mont-d'Or plummeted from the black clouds, slamming into the ground with a dull thud.
…
Central Street, Unzan Port.
"Today is the day you die, and the day the Big Mom Pirates fall! Sables!!!"
A roar of pure fury echoed through the city.
A swirling tornado of sand tore into the cityscape. It spun with terrifying velocity, growing larger by the second until it transformed into a skyscraper-sized pillar of grit. The wind howled like the roar of a primal beast, a violent vortex that devoured the sky and choked out the sun, casting the world in a twilight of apocalyptic gloom.
The sandstorm raged, its razor-sharp gale scouring the air. The grit whipped against Katakuri's face, stinging his skin. He frowned, whispering to himself, "A troublesome Logia user!"
He pressed a palm to the ground. The earth instantly turned to mochi; the ground for hundreds of square meters surged like a tumultuous sea. The landscape tilted, casting a massive, sky-blocking shadow as if a tidal wave were rolling forward.
Mochi-Mochi no Mi: Awakening – Flowing Mochi!
RUMBLE-RUMBLE—
The massive sand tornado slammed into the tidal wave of mochi with a thunderous clash. The shockwaves tore through the sky, shredding trees and leveling buildings, while hundreds of people were swept helplessly into the sky.
Suddenly, a figure appeared, seemingly ignoring the winds exceeding 50 meters per second, and closed the distance to Katakuri in a blur of movement.
"This level of physicality..."
A crimson glint flickered in Katakuri's eyes. A second later, his expression shifted.
"Rankyaku: Heavy Axe!!!"
A dark, iron-willed figure emerged from the chaotic storm, leaping high into the air. He raised his leg, bringing it down in a brutal, cleave that hit like a descending thunderbolt.
BOOM!
The steel-hard foot slammed into the ground, causing the earth to shudder and shatter. Countless winding fissures spiderwebbed outward, stretching for over a hundred meters in the blink of an eye.
A powerful shockwave erupted, kicking up a massive wall of dust. Katakuri burst backward out of the haze, but Zephyr followed his movement, stepping forward to deliver a crushing punch.
Katakuri instantly transformed into a mass of pale, yellowish mochi, slipping past Zephyr's fist and reappearing behind him. Zephyr's punch, however, shattered a ten-meter-long brick wall dozens of meters away, sending another cloud of debris into the air.
Katakuri's upper body coalesced behind Zephyr. He thrust his right arm forward, murmuring coldly, "Burning Mochi!!!"
The front half of his arm morphed into mochi, compressing rapidly until steam hissed from the surface. It exploded forward like a bazooka, slamming into Zephyr's back.
WHOOSH—
Zephyr didn't even have time to grunt before he was blasted forward, crashing into the ruins of a high-rise building dozens of meters away, triggering a massive shockwave and a cloud of debris that reached the heavens.
"Finally learned your lesson, you troublesome old man?" Katakuri panted slightly. His severed right arm liquefied and began to regrow.
"Desert Girasole!"
A cold voice suddenly cut through the howling sandstorm.
Katakuri's feet felt unsteady. He glanced down to see that the ground beneath him had turned to shifting sand, expanding into a vast, terrifying desert basin.
The sand flowed, rapidly sinking inward; it was a nightmare of quicksand, designed to swallow life itself!
But Katakuri acted as if he had anticipated it. He vaulted into the air, clearing the pit, and shot his arm out to snag the window frame of a half-collapsed building nearby. With a rapid contraction, he launched his body toward the structure.
Mid-flight, his eyes glowed with a scarlet hue. He suddenly kicked out, his leg elongating and hardening into a pitch-black pillar as he pirouetted in the air.
Just then, the swirling sand in the air condensed into Crocodile's upper body. He swung a massive, crescent-shaped sand blade, intending to cleave Katakuri in two. But his vision suddenly darkened as he saw a pitch-black, metallic column barreling toward him.
Before Crocodile could react, BANG! Katakuri's kick connected dead-center. Crocodile felt agony surge through his entire body; his internal organs trembled, and he spat a mouthful of blood.
Crocodile expected to be blown away, and was already preparing to turn his body into sand to disperse the impact, but he discovered, to his horror, that his body was stuck to the metallic pillar. No matter how much he struggled or tried to turn to sand, he couldn't detach himself completely, a part of him always remained bound to the strike.
"Die!"
Katakuri barked coldly, slamming his massive, metallic-leg pillar downward.
BOOM—
The earth groaned, shattering and collapsing. Rocks flew like shrapnel as deep cracks raced outward, and a circular shockwave expanded, throwing up a sky-high wall of dust.
Moments later, Katakuri landed on the ruins of the building and retracted his leg, leaving behind a devastated crater where Crocodile lay buried under rubble.
"Rankyaku!"
Before Katakuri could steady himself, a blue-white, half-moon slash whistled through the air, shearing the high-rise he was standing on clean in half.
BOOM!
Katakuri leaped into the air as the building split, crashing into the broken street below with two deafening roars, sending up yet another wave of dust and pressure.
Just then, Katakuri's vision blurred. A humanoid shape, crackling with arcs of lightning, seemed to materialize from thin air right in front of him.
In an instant, Katakuri's face drained of color. He gasped in shock, "Ene..."
———————
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