The sea split apart, and all sound seemed to vanish completely.
Beneath that slash, the surface of the ocean disappeared out of thin air.
The severed sea seemed not to have reacted yet, remaining eerily calm, the waters failing to rush back in and fill the ever-widening fissure.
...
Far away from Whole Cake Island, on the distant sea—
The people aboard the ships immediately sprang into action when they saw the crack extending toward them across the ocean, trying to turn their vessels away and avoid it.
But the moment they moved, the attack had already arrived.
The pirate ship, along with everyone aboard it, vanished without a sound.
It was as though a simple drawing had been wiped away by an eraser.
Buzz!
An invisible vibration and sound finally appeared. Everyone who heard it immediately showed expressions of pain.
Then the ocean beneath that slash suddenly exploded.
Seawater surged hundreds of meters into the air before crashing back down, the churning waves swallowing everything around them.
The people and ships that were too close were smashed down by the rising seawater and disappeared into the sea.
Even those at a sufficient distance were not safe.
A tsunami hundreds of meters high was more than enough to send every ship to the bottom of the ocean.
However, anyone capable of entering the New World and reaching this place naturally had some skill under their command.
They could not compare to the five monsters currently on Whole Cake Island, but dealing with some of the New World's natural disasters was still within their ability.
...
On Whole Cake Island—
The four who had avoided that slash all had cold sweat running down their foreheads.
Their expressions were grave as they watched Cyrus lower his blade.
With their Observation Haki, they had naturally seen the power of that attack.
And because of that, they could also estimate what would happen if they were struck by it.
Charlotte Linlin stared at Cyrus with a solemn expression.
That kind of attack was not something she dared to take with her body.
The heat alone from before had already burned her.
The searing pain in her left hand was reminding her of that every moment.
If even Charlotte Linlin, with her "iron balloon" body, thought so, then the other three were even more wary.
If they were hit by that slash, leaving behind a corpse would already count as good fortune.
The Golden Lion floated in midair, his expression heavy.
The ship's wheel embedded in his head was an enormous burden to him.
The longer that wheel remained lodged in his skull, and the older the Golden Lion became, the greater its influence on him grew.
The clearest symptoms were memory loss and occasional bouts of madness.
But right now, the Golden Lion was not losing his mind.
If he suffered an episode under these circumstances, someone really would die.
"You bastard…"
At some point, the cigar clenched between the Golden Lion's teeth had disappeared.
Now, facing Cyrus, he could no longer bring himself to call him "brat."
This man might be the most dangerous opponent he had encountered in all his decades on the sea.
He might even be more dangerous than his old captain.
As for Wang Zhi, he was already regretting this.
When he first came here, he had intended to use the fact that the four of them were gathered together to find an opportunity to negotiate with Cyrus.
After all, the Hunter Guild's development was visibly flourishing.
And with Cyrus as its leader, it was almost possible to judge that in the near future, the Hunter Guild might grow to the same scale as the Marines.
If that was the case, making contact ahead of time could allow him to secure greater benefits.
But the current situation was completely different from what he had imagined.
In his mind, with the four of them present, anyone in this world who encountered them would at least think carefully about the consequences of taking action.
A direct conflict should not have broken out so easily.
Yet now, there was clearly no need for discussion anymore.
Which meant the whole purpose of his visit had gone up in smoke.
If he had known this would happen, he would never have come to wade into these muddy waters.
Would it not have been better to sit quietly on Hachinosu and watch the show?
Wang Zhi gripped his double-edged sword, feeling deeply vexed as he began considering how to withdraw from the battle.
As for what would happen to Charlotte Linlin and the other two?
Although they had once been crewmates on the same ship, the fact that they had barely kept in touch all these years already said plenty about their relationship.
Even back when they were aboard Rocks's ship, they had only been collaborators.
And since it was merely cooperation, then when one no longer wished to cooperate, one could naturally leave.
As for Silver Axe, he raised a hand and touched the massive charred wound on his neck, as well as the scorched hole pierced through his shoulder.
Having truly brushed against the edge of death just now, Silver Axe also no longer wanted to continue.
If he had possessed the resolve to keep charging forward no matter what, then the New World would not have ended up dominated by Kaido, Charlotte Linlin, and Whitebeard.
The four of them stood together, but each harbored different thoughts.
Cyrus, meanwhile, felt somewhat disappointed that his fully charged slash had not produced results.
In his normal state, that strike was indeed not particularly practical.
It was not that its power was insufficient, but rather that it required a charging period.
Against opponents whose strength was lacking, he had no need to use such a method at all.
But against opponents strong enough to warrant it, their Observation Haki was always highly developed.
A move like that, which required him to gather power beforehand, made it extremely difficult to land its full force on the target.
Of course, if Undying Will were activated, a slash of that power could even serve as one of his ordinary attacks.
It was just that, with his current level of strength, activating Undying Will was no easy matter.
Naturally, he could choose to take hits without fighting back.
But he had no particular hobby of getting beaten up on purpose.
Swish!
Flames flashed.
Hundreds of flaming slashes came cutting toward the Golden Lion and the other three from every direction.
Faced with Cyrus's renewed assault, the four of them defended while simultaneously moving to escape the range of the attack.
Cyrus used the flames to shift positions, unleashing hundreds of slashes from all around them in what was nearly the same instant.
The ground controlled by the Golden Lion's power was directly chopped into countless fragments.
Cyrus's figure emerged from within the flames.
The Golden Lion abruptly turned around.
Gripping his two Great Grade swords in both hands, he reversed their direction and slashed toward Cyrus with Conqueror's Haki wrapped around the blades.
'So he really can use it too!'
Cyrus thought as he saw the Golden Lion's attack.
When the Golden Lion had been defeated by Luffy, he had never displayed such a method.
Perhaps it was truly because he had grown old, and the influence of the ship's wheel had caused his mind to deteriorate, making his strength decline far too drastically over the next few years.
Before the two Great Grade blades could reach him, Cyrus's body exploded, bursting into a wide mass of flames.
The twin swords wrapped in Conqueror's Haki swept across and cut the fire apart.
But behind the flames stood Charlotte Linlin's enormous figure, dressed in her pink polka-dot dress.
"Shiki!"
Charlotte Linlin let out a furious roar, only to be struck by the twin blades.
Her body immediately plummeted toward the ground below.
The Golden Lion also froze for an instant.
Then, a clear, radiant blade silently appeared behind him. Taking advantage of that brief moment of distraction, it cut toward his neck.
Smack!
A hand wrapped in Armament Haki seized Cyrus's blade.
In an instant, the sound of burning flesh rang out, and black smoke rose.
Silver Axe blocked it for only a fraction of a second before immediately letting go.
The Golden Lion recovered from his momentary daze as well, spinning around and slashing twice more.
The two Great Grade swords cut across Cyrus's chest and abdomen one after the other.
At the same time, the Golden Lion threw himself backward in a rapid retreat.
Cyrus's severed chest closed back together amid the flames.
Seeing that, the Golden Lion's expression grew even uglier.
This man's own strength was already troublesome enough, yet his mastery of a Logia ability was also this powerful!
How were they supposed to deal with him?
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