"Watch out!"
The group cried out in horror, heads snapping upward.
A colossal, black, wolf-headed dreadnought hovered in the sky directly above them. Its massive hull blotted out the sun, casting a suffocating shadow over the forest.
Yet, the primary source of their dread wasn't the ship itself, but the young man descending slowly through the air. Dressed in a greatcoat emblazoned with a black-and-white wave pattern and sporting distinctive gold earrings, he radiated an aura so intense it felt physically stifling.
"Golden Ring Aeridar…"
Looking up at the man, Malha's face contorted, his presence turning even more frigid and ominous.
Aeridar locked eyes with the black-haired man below, the one in the black cloak with a centipede tattoo on his right cheek and four claw scars on his left. "I've spent quite some time looking for you, Malha-sama!" Aeridar said softly.
"A monster... young, yet fully matured," Ryūkawa Jiku muttered. His muscles coiled like springs, his hand gripping the hilt of Kagekimaru Kunimitsu. He was focused, drawing breath to build the momentum required for an Iai (Quick-Draw) strike.
"Ryūkawa Jiku, descendant of the legendary Dragon-Slaying Samurai, Ryuma. Since this is our first time meeting, I hope you'll both be kind to me!" Aeridar landed on the grass. Despite the ferocious grin on his face, he offered a slight, mockingly aristocratic bow.
After years of shadow-warfare and proxy battles, the three leaders were finally face-to-face.
CRACK-BOOM!
A bolt of lightning tore through the sky, the flash nearly blinding.
"Doesn't look like anything special to me."
The lightning coalesced into a human form. Enel stood there, arcs of electricity dancing across his skin, casually twirling his golden staff as he sized up the two targets.
"Thunder God Enel…" Malha's expression darkened even further.
Click.
A hatch opened in the belly of the ship above, and a dark blur plummeted toward the earth.
THOOM!
The figure hit the ground with enough force to shatter the stone beneath his feet, sending a plume of dust into the air.
"Slayer Oliver…"
Ryūkawa's gaze sharpened into needles, a razor-edged aura beginning to leak from his body.
"Long time no see," Oliver greeted them lazily as he straightened up. Then, his eyes narrowed. "Today, I'm taking Kagekimaru Kunimitsu back. It doesn't belong in your hands."
"Yohehehe~ stop talking big. I bet your chest, stomach, and right leg are still screaming in pain!" Ryūkawa sneered.
"Well... I have a feeling your wounds hurt a lot more than mine," Oliver grinned, returning to his nonchalant posture.
Ryūkawa's temper flared, his hand twitching toward his blade, but the sight of Aeridar and Enel in his periphery forced him to suppress his rage. Oliver frowned slightly at the display of restraint; he had hoped to provoke an early strike to break Ryūkawa's focus.
"To be honest, Aeridar-sama, there was never a personal grudge between us. This situation escalated due to a series of misunderstandings," Malha said, forcing a tight smile onto his gloomy face. "I've often hoped we could talk this out. Now that we've formally met, will you give us that chance?"
"Tsk, tsk... you're right, there was no grudge, until you took in my enemies and stole what I was sworn to protect. You've made me look quite bad," Aeridar replied, licking his lips as a murderous intent colored his words.
As Malha suggested, they had no prior quarrel. Taking in Benson's crew to recruit them was one thing, but sending them to steal the Vigor-Vigor Fruit was an unforgivable provocation.
Worse, losing the fruit while under the protection of two Warlord-level powerhouses in Tesoro's domain (Gran Tesoro) was a massive blow to the reputation of Aeridar and his peers. This humiliation was the glue that had bound the three factions together in this hunt.
"Is that so? A pity, then," Malha shook his head, looking genuinely regretful.
The moment the words left his lips, Malha pointed a finger. A thumb-sized beam of green light erupted from his fingertip.
Deco-Deco Ray! (Decompose)
Aeridar's eyelids flickered. Sensing a massive threat, he instinctively triggered his 'Teleportation' ability, vanishing instantly.
The green light flashed past, piercing through trees and boulders in total silence. Where it passed, it left perfectly smooth, thumb-sized holes.
"What kind of power is this?" Aeridar reappeared to the side, staring in shock at the silent destruction.
"One-Sword Style Iai: Dragon-Slaying Strike!!!"
In that heartbeat, Ryūkawa drew. A terrifying pressure erupted as a breathtakingly sharp blade-light cleaved through the earth and air, reaching Aeridar's throat in a fraction of a second.
"Watch out!" Oliver and Enel shouted, moving to intervene.
Oliver drew his twin blades, and Enel's wrist transformed into pure lightning as they prepared to counter-attack Ryūkawa.
But Malha struck again. Ten green beams shot from his ten fingers, fanning out like a lethal web to ensnare Oliver and Enel.
Deco-Deco Ray: Ten-Fold Volley!
A cold chill gripped Oliver's heart. He abandoned his strike toward Ryūkawa, swinging his twin blades in a frantic blur to meet the five beams coming his way.
The collision was eerily silent. Oliver's flying slashes hit the green rays and simply... dissolved. The green rays shrank as they consumed the energy of the slashes, eventually flickering out of existence once the kinetic force was neutralized.
"Inazuma!"
Simultaneously, Enel ignored the rays. He snorted coldly as his wrist-turned-lightning surged forward in a straight line toward Ryūkawa.
However, the five rays struck Enel's body. One passed directly through his right wrist.
Sizzle—
Four large holes appeared in Enel's torso, and his right wrist was severed, or rather, it looked as though it had been erased by a cosmic eraser. The lightning bolt he had fired flickered and detonated prematurely, scattering into harmless sparks.
"Impossible!"
Enel gasped in horror. Though he felt no physical pain, he realized his body was being interfered with. His ability to control his Logia transformation was failing, and his attacks were being forcibly unraveled.