BOOM!
Countless thick, black-red tendrils snapped shut like a colossal net, instantly crushing every wisp of air within a hundred meters.
Deadpool was gone.
In his place stood a swirling sphere of tendrils, blades, and writhing flesh.
In Prototype, this move was called "Grave Spike Slaughter," but after Mordred twist and the addition of Armament Haki its destructive power now eclipsed the original.
"Is that your last line?"
Abel stood at the storm's heart, his expression still cold as ice.
He hadn't dodged.
Or rather, in this space sealed by tendrils, there was nowhere to dodge.
He simply raised his left hand.
The void trembled.
A massive tower shield, black as ink and etched with eerie runes, materialized in his grip.
The shield slammed onto the ice.
CLANG!!!
Tendrils hard enough to pierce steel rained upon the tower shield.
The dense impacts blended into one roar, like a thousand pile-drivers pounding beside the ear.
Sparks flew, flickering light across the frozen plain.
On the distant warship, Smoker clenched a cigar between his teeth, smoke wreathing his grim face.
With that density… an ordinary Vice Admiral would be turned into a pincushion in a heartbeat.
Vergo stood beside him, his knuckles white around his bamboo staff.
Watching the wild tendrils, a flash of hunger and fear glinted deep in his eyes.
Was this the power his young master wanted?
A pure engine of slaughter… the black-red tendrils that could punch through battleship armor didn't bounce off the shield.
They detonated.
Like thousands of balloons filled with acid and high explosives bursting at once.
SPLAT!
The iron-hard tendrils dissolved into a sky of viscous black-red slime that sprayed in every direction.
"Damn it!"
Kuzan, who had been watching with his hands in his coat pockets, paled.
Where the black droplets struck, the ice hissed.
Ancient permafrost melted like butter on a hot pan.
Worse, the rebound hurled a reeking black shower straight toward the Marine ranks behind.
"Fall back NOW!"
Kuzan roared.
He jerked his hands free, compressing frigid air.
Most of the liquid froze into black shards that clattered to the ground.
But some got through.
A dozen drops slipped past the half-formed ice wall and landed among the panicked Marines.
"Agh! What is this stuff?!"
A young Marine Lieutenant slapped at his shoulder in terror.
A single drop, no bigger than a fingernail, clung to his uniform.
"Don't touch it!"
Smoker bellowed, sprinting forward.
The change was instant.
The drop writhed like a living parasite, burrowing through the fabric the moment it touched.
"It burns! It itches! Help Captain Smo"
The Lieutenant's scream cut off.
His pupils dilated; the whites of his eyes flooded with pitch black.
Crack! Crack!
Bone-shattering pops echoed from inside him.
Under the horrified stares of his comrades, the Lieutenant's body ballooned grotesquely.
His uniform split.
His skin turned corpse-gray, thick veins writhing like earthworms beneath the surface.
"Ron? Ron, what's wrong?!"
A sailor beside him reached out instinctively.
ROAR!!
The thing that had been Ron snapped its head around.
Its jaw had split to the ears, rows of shark-like fangs gleaming.
This was a new variant born of the Blacklight virus fused with monster cells the Spine Gorgers.
SQUELCH!
Blood sprayed.
The sailor lost half a shoulder and his neck in a single bite.
"Tasty… power… more…"
The zombified Ron gurgled, chewing his comrade's flesh.
With each swallow, his muscle fibers bulged anew; spikes of bone burst through his elbows and knees.
"Snap out of it, damn you!"
Smoker's eyes blazed; his jitte smashed toward the monster's skull.
THUD!
The blow, heavy enough to shatter stone, was caught one-handed.
Though the creature's forearm snapped, black muscle fibers coiled, re-setting the bone in two seconds.
"So this… is infection?"
Nearby, Vergo adjusted his shades, a feverish glint behind the lenses.
Too fast.
From contact to mutation to combat-ready in under five seconds?
And the power spike… the boy's Doriki had been maybe fifty; now it had jumped tenfold!
THUNK!
A wet impact rang out across the chaotic deck.
Smoker's smoke-form froze mid-lunge.
His eyes widened, his pupils shrinking.
Before him, the freshly mutated Ron covered in jagged bone extended a single jet-black finger.
With surgical precision, it pierced the throat of a sailor trying to sneak-attack.
"Rokushiki!"
"Impossible…"
Smoker bit down so hard his cigar nearly snapped.
The sailor clutched his neck, gurgling like a broken bellows, and collapsed.
Three seconds later, the corpse convulsed.
Dead eyes refocused whites now swallowed by ink.
ROAR!
The new zombie roared, seized the nearest stunned comrade, and sank its teeth into the man's carotid artery.
"Open fire! Fire!"
"Monster stay back!"
BANG BANG BANG!
Gunfire erupted across the deck.
Panic spread faster than the virus.
But despair struck when the mutated Lieutenant Ron didn't soak up bullets like a normal zombie.
His body twisted like a paper scrap in the wind.
Rounds skimmed his bone spurs; only a few struck flesh.
"Rokushiki: Paper Art!"
"He's dodging bullets!"
"The thing still knows techniques!"
Amid terrified shouts, Ron vanished.
A shattered footprint was all that remained on the plating.
"Rokushiki: Shave!"
The next instant, he stood behind the machine-gunner.
Talons sheathed in barbs sliced the heavy barrel and the gunner's torso in half like tofu.
Blood fountained.
Hot crimson splashed across nearby Marines.
"Aaaah! Blood in my mouth!"
"Help! I don't want to die!"
Chaos exploded.