Luffy's voice was tinged with an excited gasp, his skin began to turn slightly red, and fine steam started to emanate from his body.
"Gum-Gum! Water Gun!"
"Bang!"
At this moment, the wet fist stretched and retracted faster than ever before, striking Crocodile fiercely on his back before he could even react!
"Puaah!"
Crocodile suffered a heavy blow, the intense pain causing him to lose his footing, allowing Tomioka to create distance.
Immediately after, Crocodile turned his head, his face full of disbelief, to look at Luffy, who had appeared behind him at some point, "What?!"
Luffy, however, looked at the few remaining water traces on his arm and scratched his head: "This is troublesome, the water is all evaporating."
"Straw Hat!" Robin seized the opportunity, quickly pulling out three small water bottles from her Pregnant and throwing them into the air!
"Good! You've been a great help!"
Luffy saw the small water bottles as if they were treasure, his body instantly teleporting again, flashing into mid-air to catch them.
"Gum-Gum! Usopp's Hissatsu: Water Star!"
"You…!!!"
Under Luffy's speed, Crocodile was drenched, the water soaking his clothes and making it difficult for him to fully turn to sand. An unprecedented sense of humiliation had completely driven him mad.
"Die! Desert Spada!"
He transformed his arm into a sand blade and plunged it into the ground! A terrifying sand slash erupted from the ground at a speed imperceptible to the naked eye, striking directly at Tomioka in front of him!
"Water Breathing, Eleventh Form: Dead Calm."
Tomioka's mind calmed, entering a state of still water.
Everything around him seemed to slow down in his eyes; he saw it clearly. The trajectory of the sand slash beneath the ground, the angle at which it burst forth.
His nichirin blade moved with it, seemingly slow, but in reality, it had already met the Desert Spada erupting from the ground.
"Clang—!"
The violent impact made Tomioka take half a step back, but he steadily parried this insidious and powerful blow!
"Luffy!"
"Water Breathing, Fourth Form: Striking Tide!"
Tomioka once again swung his scorching nichirin blade, once again meeting the pitch-black armored defense in front of him, though it didn't achieve a particularly effective result.
But he noticed that the opponent's defense could only partially cover his body; it couldn't be done completely.
"Oh!" Luffy understood, and his figure disappeared again.
Crocodile had no choice but to focus all his attention on the front, using his Haki-covered golden hook to firmly block Tomioka's high-temperature slash.
He dared not be distracted in the slightest; the pressure this samurai exerted on him from the front was too great. He could only try to use sand to deal with Luffy again.
However, Luffy had already appeared in mid-air behind him.
"Gum-Gum Gatling!!!!!!!!!"
A storm of punches, like countless heavy hammers, furiously pounded on Crocodile's already drenched back!
"Puff! Wah ah—!"
Crocodile's body trembled violently; he wanted to maintain his Haki defense from the front, but the terrifying impact from behind immediately shattered his defensive stance.
As the frontal resistance slackened, Tomioka's slash followed!
Under the pincer attack, Crocodile lasted less than three seconds before he could no longer maintain his balance and defense.
"Impossible…"
He let out an unwilling roar, his entire body brutally flattened by Luffy's wild punches, face-down, he slammed heavily onto the ground, creating a shallow crater, completely losing consciousness, embedded there.
"Yay!!! We defeated him!!!"
Luffy excitedly raised both arms, letting out a cheer of victory.
Cobra stared blankly at the scene before him. The culprit who had almost pushed his country to the brink of destruction now lay there like a pile of mud. He murmured, as if unable to believe it: "He really… did it…"
Tomioka let out a long, hot breath, the marks on his face slowly fading, but the nichirin blade in his hand remained crimson, radiating residual heat.
A strong sense of fatigue washed over him; activating the marks and using the nichirin blade to counter that unprecedented Haki was a huge burden on his body.
He leaned on his sword, breathing slightly.
"Long time no see!!! Tomioka!!!"
Luffy, however, cheered as if nothing had happened, immediately pouncing forward, wanting to give Tomioka a bear hug.
Tomioka instinctively extended his hand, pressing it against Luffy's chest, blocking him.
"Too close."
"Long time no see."
His voice was hoarse from the battle, but his tone remained calm.
The moment their palms touched, Tomioka felt the strong, pounding heartbeat beneath Luffy's chest, like a drum, and the abnormally high body temperature radiating through his clothes.
Even more noticeably, thin wisps of white steam were still emanating from Luffy's body.
This state… it seemed similar to when he activated his marks.
However, no patterns appeared on Luffy's skin, and he seemed to control this state more freely than Tomioka, without any signs of fatigue.
"Luffy, your body…"
Tomioka withdrew his hand, looking at Luffy.
"Oh! This!"
Luffy looked down at his still steaming body, a triumphant and excited smile on his face.
He pointed to his body and loudly declared: "I saw it back in Small Garden, Tomioka, you were all steaming!"
Luffy then continued to gesticulate wildly: "I was thinking at the time, if I make my body hotter, can I become stronger? So I just tried it out!"
He mimicked Tomioka, taking a deep breath and stomping his foot hard, "I didn't expect it to actually work! I became super fast all of a sudden! And my strength felt stronger too!"
Luffy put his hands on his hips, puffed out his chest, and announced: "Hmm! Let's call it Gear Second!"
Tomioka looked at the excited Luffy in front of him, silent for a moment.
"It's very dangerous."
Tomioka could feel that this method of forcibly accelerating blood flow likely placed a more direct and intense burden on the blood vessels and heart than the consumption caused by the marks on the body.
"Hehe, it's fine!"
Luffy grinned widely, showing two rows of white teeth, "As long as I can defeat that Crocodile bastard!"
Just then, a hurried footsteps approached.
Smoker and Tashigi arrived at the battlefield, panting. Tashigi looked at Crocodile, deeply embedded in the ground and motionless, and covered her mouth in surprise, saying:
"Straw Hat really… defeated a Seven Warlords of the Sea…"
"Smoker!!!"
The cigar in Smoker's mouth trembled slightly. He grunted, his gaze complex as he swept over Tomioka and the still lively Luffy.
He had to admit that these two individuals before him now possessed the genuine strength to defeat a Shichibukai.
"I'll let you off this time,"
Smoker said somewhat unhappily, then began to scan the already messy courtyard, "But, have you seen a woman wearing a white coat and a white cowboy hat?"