Crocodile's arms had already transformed into sand — increasing the surface area for contact while still retaining full limb functionality.
With his left arm clamped tightly around Cobra and his right around Robin, his lower body twisted into a sandstorm-like tornado, keeping him aloft as he hissed downward, sliding from the top floor of the palace all the way to the ground floor with a rustling roar.
He skimmed over the antique and magnificent hall, about to exit through the grand palace doors — but stopped abruptly when he saw the torrential, unrelenting rain outside. His brow furrowed in displeasure.
"I'll go get an umbrella."
Sensing Crocodile's difficulty, Robin took the initiative to suggest.
Crocodile promptly released her.
She landed lightly on the floor — and a pair of hands caught her mid-fall, preventing injury.
Her Paramecia – Hana Hana no Mi powers had activated, conjuring multiple arms to shield herself.
But before she could rise and leave, the palace gates were suddenly pushed open by a group working together.
The King's Army poured in.
After witnessing that black ship plummet from the sky, destroy the palace's top floor, and then dive inside, they had abandoned all concern for the rebel army outside in order to rush in and protect King Cobra.
Koza, too, had not been idle. He had halted the fighting, demanding that King Cobra be brought forth.
When he had led his forces into the city, he had not intended to fight the royal army to the death — he had wanted to talk to Cobra.
But then someone in the royal army had suddenly fired on him, and from there, negotiation had been impossible.
Looking back now, everything seemed far too strange.
Moments ago, it had been a sky full of yellow sand — and then, suddenly, a torrential downpour. Then a black ship fell from the sky. Too many bizarre events in succession.
Since the downpour had thrown both sides of the conflict into confusion, Koza had seized the opportunity to declare a truce, giving the royal army time to enter the palace to protect Cobra.
When the soldiers burst into the hall, they saw their king in the grasp of the "Shichibukai hero" Crocodile — and froze in bewilderment.
What was going on?
Why was Mr. Crocodile here?
Had he rescued the king from an attacker?
"Get out of here, now!"
Although Cobra had just endured inhuman torture and was physically weak, his mind was still clear. He knew that these soldiers had no chance of stopping Crocodile — to attack would only end in complete annihilation. Therefore, he did not call for help.
"Fall back to the square and await orders! That's an order!"
The royal soldiers hesitated — but they weren't blindly obedient. At last, they realized something was wrong.
Crocodile wasn't protecting the king — he was holding him hostage!
The realization hit them at once, and they all raised their guns, aiming the black muzzles at Crocodile.
The commander bellowed:
"Crocodile! Release His Majesty at once!"
Cobra's anxiety mounted.
"Run! All of you, run! Don't worry about me! I still have value — they won't kill me!"
But generations of loyalty to the throne kept the soldiers rooted where they stood.
Crocodile had been watching coldly — and then suddenly let out a low, hoarse laugh.
He laughed for two reasons:
First, at the foolishness of these men, so unaware of their own limits.
Second, at the irony of his carefully plotted scheme — nearly twenty years in the making — collapsing due to a chain of unforeseen accidents.
But perhaps it was for the best. He no longer needed to wear the mask. His ultimate goal was the Poneglyphs, after all.
That meant that everyone here… was an obstacle.
The soldiers seemed to sense the dry, frigid hostility in the air, a chill crawling down their spines.
Crocodile's killing intent spilled out like a feral beast. His expression twisted into something ferocious, his fur coat billowing with the wind, grains of sand visibly gathering around him.
Shhh—
A crescent-shaped sand blade formed, and in an instant he slashed toward the royal army!
Bang bang bang… In fear, the soldiers fired simultaneously!
But the bullets passed harmlessly through the sand, failing to destroy the blade's structure.
In the blink of an eye, the sand blade swept through them.
They weren't cut in two — but the moment they touched that terrible sand, the moisture in their bodies was sucked dry. They stood frozen for a few seconds before collapsing like withered husks.
With a single strike, Crocodile had slain all of these loyal guards.
He drew the sand back, leaving almost no trace behind — a killing without a mark.
Cobra was both shocked and grief-stricken, but utterly powerless.
Three years of drought in the kingdom, and he had never realized it was Crocodile's scheme from "Rainbase."
Baroque Works had infiltrated every level of the kingdom, and he had failed to root them out.
And today's civil war… all the more so.
Even now, faced with slaughtered soldiers he longed to save, he was helpless. The shame made his heart ache.
Crocodile spared the corpses not a glance and turned toward Robin — only to realize she had already slipped away at some point, never intending to fetch an umbrella.
As expected, that woman was unreliable. He gave a cold sneer.
No matter — he still had Cobra to guide the way.
He shed his fur coat, holding it over his head to shield from the rain, and set out.
But before he could step outside, a figure crashed down, blocking the doorway.
Beneath a tricorn hat, the writhing tendrils of a strange face came into view — Davy Jones.
"We have a debt to settle."
His deep voice rumbled as he strode toward Crocodile, boots squelching from the rainwater.
Crocodile, irritated, replied coldly:
"What do you want? A billion Berries? Two billion?"
"If it's money, you can always steal more," Davy Jones said, gray-blue eyes glinting. "But once a contract is broken, it can never be made whole again."
Why did he care so much about contracts and deals?
It all began with his love-and-hate entanglement with the sea goddess Calypso.
Later, he met "that man" — who not only broke his oath, but stabbed him through the heart — deepening his hatred for oath-breakers.
Betrayed and deceived time and again, he had sworn never to let anyone trample on an agreement with him.
If such a thing happened — the offender would pay the price!
"Crocodile, you have a choice: die here and now, or serve aboard my ship until the day you die. Pick one."
Crocodile narrowed his eyes, a fire of rage flaring in his chest at Davy Jones' words.
He flung Cobra aside, sand clinging to him like a yellow cloak.
His grand ambition had first taken vague shape after losing to Whitebeard, gained its outline when he witnessed the Pirate King's execution in Loguetown, and became crystal clear when he learned of the Ancient Weapon, Pluton.
He believed that to contend for supremacy over the seas, Pluton was indispensable.
For three years he had meticulously orchestrated this civil war to obtain it.
And now Davy Jones wanted to barge in and ruin everything — demanding he serve aboard his ship until death?
This man didn't even know what the Ancient Weapons were, nor how perfect and foolproof Crocodile's plan had been — all for the sake of some so-called alliance contract.
Most pirates broke their word as a matter of course.
He was doing nothing different from the majority of pirates — yet Davy Jones was hounding him relentlessly.
Not even willing to accept money as compensation — instead insisting on humiliating him into servitude?
Impossible.
Crocodile erupted. A frenzied sandstorm blasted outward from him, shredding everything nearby.
Anything caught within — flesh, stone, porcelain, glass — was pulverized as if wrung dry.
But Davy Jones stood unmoved, like an anchor driven into the seabed. Several thick, slick tentacles extended from his back, spearing into the ground and hooking into the bedrock, keeping him anchored against the storm.
He raised his left arm, and from his own flesh a black staff erupted, topped with a crab-claw-like hook.
Lifting the staff high, he called — and outside the massive breach in the palace wall left by the Terror Ghost, the rain twisted as if alive, gathering into several water columns. They merged into a single, luminous, swollen water sphere.
Crocodile's face darkened. He dispersed the sandstorm and turned to fly deeper into the palace.
At that moment, the water sphere obeyed Davy Jones' will — exploding into countless water arrows that chased Crocodile like his own shadow, catching up within seconds.
No matter how fast he tried to turn into sand, he couldn't escape the endless rain of water arrows.
Soon, his sand began clumping from saturation, unable to scatter. It returned to his main body against his will.
He could no longer become sand — could no longer fly — and plummeted to the floor, rolling twice before coming to a miserable stop.
In that moment, he was as fragile as an ordinary man.
Panting, Crocodile looked up — and saw a shadow falling over him like night itself.
Davy Jones leapt into the air, his right arm sheathed in flowing water — and even coated in Armament Haki!
As the fist slammed into the side of his face, all of Crocodile's thoughts condensed into a single feeling — fear.
Natural enemy?
Like seawater… is he my natural enemy?
Boom—
Crocodile was hurled away, smashing through the stone wall that bore the portraits of the kingdom's past monarchs, and was buried beneath a cascade of rubble and dust.
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