The woman's strength was far beyond what John had imagined. It wasn't just that her power was strange she was cold-blooded in a fight, quick to read the field, and deadly precise.
Heat from his flames warped the air. Sweat ran from John's temples and along his jaw. The pressure on him kept climbing an invisible boulder on his chest that made every breath feel short.
She must be one of the Sea Fiends too… and who knows how long she's lived… not giving me a sliver of a chance, he thought grimly.
Give any beast centuries and it forges instincts like steel. This one had that and more.
The green serpents crowning her head coiled and feinted, always ready to spring. Each time John spewed fire, they snapped back as if on springs, or slipped left and right to let the flames rake only empty air.
His most punishing technique did nothing. Worse, those blue "flames" the petrifying rays kept lancing out without warning, forcing his nerves to stay strung tight as bowstrings.
Mockery flashed in those reptilian eyes. To her, John wasn't an opponent; he was quarry making its last, pitiful thrash.
The liquor line in his flask fell and fell.
He knew how bad it was. His blades were gone snatched the moment he slipped and without them his swordcraft was caged. Unless
His eyes lit. Ares's No-Blade Style!
Like a drowning man grabbing the lone reed, he clawed through memory Ares fighting bare-handed, carving air itself… and the Navy's Rokushiki (Six Powers).
John spat flame like an old arcade mystic hurling a fireball but it lacked the savage heat from before. He'd started rationing the swallows, cutting his intake to make the flask last.
The lessening roar of his fire let the serpents creep closer two meters, then one.
Hissss.
Hissss.
The sound filled his ears.
He tipped the flask knew, from the feel, there was only half a mouthful left.
Whoomph!
The blaze burst, snarled for a heartbeat, then blew out. Blue rays scythed through the gap. John slid aside and, gambling everything, turned his hand into a blade snapping his arm in a scything arc, skin splitting the air into a bright slash at the nearest serpent.
Clink!
His heart plunged cold. The cut hadn't even marked the snake. Its scales had darkened to iron-black Armament Haki hardening turning that living cable into tempered steel.
A hand-forged slash already weaker than steel couldn't bite.
It's over. My pirate's run ends here.
The charging viper filled his pupils golden iris, forked red tongue, saliva strung from barbed fangs
A silver stroke knifed in sideways and smashed the serpent's head askew with a metallic bang, staggering the living spear a handsbreadth from John's face.
"Captain John I'm here!"
To John's ears, Silver Axe's shout was a hymn of salvation. The armored man planted himself in front of him: silver plate, broad shield on the right, a colossal battle-axe in the left.
John exhaled hard. "Careful, Silver Axe her power's bizarre. Those snakes spit a blue flame that petrifies!"
But Silver Axe wasn't listening. For a breath he just… froze. Under the plates, his skin crawled; hair prickled everywhere.
"Too ugly!"
The words fell out, raw and honest. He had never imagined that the voice like a heaven-sent angel belonged to this… this nightmare. His ideal shattered with a soundless crack.
It broke something inside him.
The song cut off.
Twin tongues of fire seemed to leap up in the woman's pupils rage flaring pure and savage. He'd stabbed her deepest scar and ripped the bandage off one that time hadn't healed.
"You die!"
Dozens of serpents struck at once, bodies coiling with a strength named fury, erasing the last meter between them and Silver Axe in a blink
Ding, ding, ding!
The bites rang off his armor in a patter of steel on steel. Silver Axe snapped back to himself and snarled, "Filthy hag my eyes!"
For a man who worshiped beauty, the affront felt personal.
"Shut your mouth!" the woman shrieked, voice turning razor-thin. "I'll tear it off! Petrifying Ray!"
Every serpent gaped and spat blue lances.
Silver Axe worked both hands shield smashing aside beams on the right while his axe, sheathed in Armament Haki, batted others away in sprays of light.
Behind him, John had already scooped his fallen swords and flooded them with Haki, the dark sheen warding off the Fruit's curse. Blades whirled; the two men went back-to-back, their steel and Haki weaving a roof that turned the barrage aside.
The woman, incandescent with rage, didn't pause. As one flurry ended, she drew a breath, set the conch, and unleashed the next.
"Siren's Song!!!"
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