"Wood Style: Hobi Technique!"
Luo Chen lifted a hand and pointed. A wooden shield shaped like a tusked demon face rapidly condensed, enclosing him within.
The giant sand blade slammed into the demon-faced shield, only managing to shave off some wood splinters.
Onigumo snorted coldly. His eight longswords, coated in armament, slashed down consecutively like a torrential storm.
The wooden shield quickly developed a series of cracks.
Just as it was about to shatter, several wooden vines rose from the ground, silently winding toward Onigumo's ankles.
Although his gaze was focused on the shield, it was as if he had eyes on his feet. He leaped up abruptly, dodging the entangling vines.
At that moment, the final slash landed. The demon-faced shield around Luo Chen disintegrated, revealing his figure.
A large number of wooden shield fragments shot toward the mid-air Onigumo like throwing knives.
Onigumo's use of the Eight-Sword Style was superb. Each longsword seemed to be controlled by a peerless master swordsman, accurately and flawlessly shattering all the shield fragments.
Luo Chen's eyes were cold. He activated the Flying Thunder God marks on the shield fragments.
His figure abruptly vanished.
The next moment, he appeared out of thin air on Onigumo's left side.
Crocodile, seeing this move for the first time, was clearly startled.
But Onigumo had obviously received intelligence from Smoker beforehand and had his Observation Haki active at all times.
He was caught slightly off guard by Luo Chen's teleportation, but not to the point of being in danger.
He controlled a longsword with his hair and slashed to his left.
Luo Chen's figure vanished again.
Using the shield fragments around Onigumo's body, he appeared on the right side and threw a punch.
CLANG—
Onigumo's pupils constricted in shock. He barely managed to lift the longsword on his right to block it.
Luo Chen continuously activated the Flying Thunder God Technique.
Of the dozens of shield fragments shot toward Onigumo, he had placed a Flying Thunder God mark on all of them.
In an instant, it was as if Luo Chen had split into dozens of bodies. It was impossible to tell the afterimages from the real person. They crowded around Onigumo, attacking simultaneously.
Seeing this, the expression on the airborne Crocodile's face was extremely grave.
His Observation Haki had degraded from lack of use.
If he were in Onigumo's place, he would have been instantly defeated by Luo Chen's rapid teleportation ability.
Onigumo was also under immense pressure.
Luo Chen's teleportation was too fast. There was almost no pause between each teleport. It could almost be seen as attacking from dozens of angles at the same time.
Onigumo pushed his Observation Haki to its limit, even overloading it, to capture Luo Chen's attack trajectories.
His eyes were now filled with a dense network of red blood vessels, a result of his brain processing too much information in an instant.
In a flash, a shower of sparks and a barrage of loud bangs erupted around Onigumo. Each spark and bang was a collision between Luo Chen's fist and a longsword.
Suddenly, the loud clashes of fist and blade ceased.
In its place was the dull thud of a fist slamming into flesh.
Onigumo's figure was sent flying backward as if shot from a cannon.
He plunged his sword into the desert sand, his legs plowing two trenches in the ground, to stop his retreat over ten meters away.
The corner of Onigumo's mouth was swollen, and blood dripped down his chin.
Luo Chen looked at him and sneered, "That's just the first punch. We need to settle our score properly."
Framing him, slaughtering hundreds in Cocoyasi Village, Genzo's death, and Nami's injury just now.
Today, he would settle all these hatreds with Onigumo's life.
Onigumo's face was extremely grim. He looked at Crocodile again and questioned angrily, "How long are you going to watch?!"
Luo Chen's strength far exceeded his expectations.
Onigumo had already determined that he could not take down Luo Chen on his own and might even be defeated.
In the desert, Crocodile was very strong. If they joined forces, they could definitely defeat Luo Chen.
Crocodile revealed a mocking smile. "Since you're asking me, I might as well help you."
He raised his palm and quickly condensed a small sandstorm, which he threw at Luo Chen.
The sandstorm rapidly expanded in the air, turning into a giant sand tornado tens of meters high in the blink of an eye.
The yellow sand in a thousand-meter radius was affected by the wind, converging around the eye of the storm.
Nami, Robin, and the others hiding behind Luo Chen grew nervous. If Luo Chen couldn't block it, they would all be swept up and torn apart by the sandstorm.
Luo Chen looked up and glanced at Crocodile in the air.
Speaking of which, Wood Style should be considered a counter to the Sand-Sand Fruit.
Anyone who had received a compulsory education knew that planting trees was one of the effective ways to prevent desertification.
Luo Chen clapped his hands together.
"Wood Style: Deep Forest Bloom Emergence!"
From beneath the sand, a large number of trees grew rapidly, causing a huge bulge in the ground and overturning the yellow sand. In the blink of an eye, they condensed into a forest barrier.
The tens-of-meters-high sand tornado slammed into the forest barrier and was instantly stopped in its tracks, unable to advance an inch.
The tornado let out a shrill howl, as if in anger at its inability to break through the forest barrier.
Crocodile's face turned a little ugly. This Woods-Woods Fruit user was indeed something of a counter to him.
Seeing the sandstorm slowly dissipate, Onigumo cursed and charged into the forest of giant flowers with his sword raised.
"Luo Chen, get out here!"
He angrily swung his longsword, unleashing a series of sharp slashes.
Wherever the slashes passed, the giant trees were cut down at their roots.
"So eager to kill me, Onigumo? Now I'm also very curious about your relationship with Captain Nezumi."
Luo Chen's figure walked out calmly from behind a giant tree.
He waved a hand, knocking one of Onigumo's slashes aside, which hit a distant tree and exploded.
Onigumo said coldly, "Captain Nezumi? Isn't he the just Marine who was killed by you? As a Marine Vice Admiral, it is my duty to kill a villain like you to avenge him."
Luo Chen couldn't help but laugh out loud.
For Onigumo to be able to say such nonsense without laughing was a talent in itself.
"Onigumo, do you smell the fragrance of the flowers in this forest?" Luo Chen asked with a smile.
Hearing this, Onigumo subconsciously took a couple of sniffs, and his expression changed drastically.
'Is there something wrong with the pollen?'
He had actually smelled the floral fragrance before Luo Chen had asked, but he hadn't paid it any mind. After all, none of the previous intelligence reports had mentioned anything about a fragrance. Onigumo had just thought that the giant flowers on the trees were a personal quirk of Luo Chen's.
Luo Chen flicked his wrist, and more than ten throwing knives shot out, glinting coldly.
Onigumo wanted to block them with his longsword, but as soon as he lifted his arm, it fell limply back down.
His hair, which had been wrapped around six longswords, also reverted from its Life Return state, turning back into ordinary strands of hair as the swords fell to the ground.
Onigumo's expression changed drastically. "Your pollen is poisonous!"
A feeling of paralysis spread throughout his body, and he completely lost control of it.
In a battle, this was absolutely fatal.
Especially when facing an opponent like Luo Chen, who had the ability to teleport.
In a daze, the hair on Onigumo's entire body stood on end. He was so terrified it felt as if his scalp was about to explode.
He roared in panic and fury, "Crocodile, save me!"
[Reviews - Power St0nes - Comments are highly appreciated to keep me going.....(+50 chapters) patre0n.c0m/talecrafter]