He stared blankly at the black-haired boy approaching him, his body beginning to tremble uncontrollably.
As Shano slowly raised his blade, his mouth suddenly stretched to its widest arc, unable to help but burst into laughter.
"Heh... Ha, ha, hahaha..."
The laughter was hoarse and desolate, tugging at the wound on his chest, causing him to cough up blood again, yet he continued to laugh heartily:
"Endgame! Is it really the Great Pirate Era that's ending? What an arrogant ambition, what an incredible brat... Hey, Roger! Did you hear that? If you heard these words, you would probably be jumping up in anger, leaping out of your coffin, hahahaha!"
Shano didn't respond, just slowly raised his blade.
Swish!
The sword light flashed past, and blood spurted!
Rayleigh let out a muffled groan, his right arm severed at the shoulder, rolling several meters away in the mud.
He endured the severe pain, glanced at his severed arm, then raised his head in surprise, only to see Shano flicking the blood droplets off his sword, returning it to its sheath.
"Why?"
Rayleigh asked in bewilderment, looking at Shano, "I was already prepared to meet Roger... Is it just because I didn't want to kill you before, asked you to use a finger to make amends, so you..."
"Don't misunderstand, I'm petty, always eager for revenge, lacking any grand gestures."
Shano glanced at him with no expression, "The reason is probably that just now, even when your back was exposed to me, you were willing to reach out to save slaves, which somehow saved your life, that's one half reason, as for the other half, think seriously, you should be able to guess."
"..."
Rayleigh was stunned for a moment, then smiled bitterly.
He lowered his head to look at the blood flowing from his severed arm, then raised his head to look at Shano, with a flash of understanding in his murky eyes.
"I see..."
There was a tinge of self-mockery in his voice.
"You want me to watch, right?"
"Watch as you end this era, watch as you crush everything Roger started, bit by bit..."
Shano didn't answer, or perhaps disdained to answer, merely turned away, walking briskly toward the shore.
Rayleigh was silent.
"Alright, alright..."
He struggled to push himself up with his remaining left hand, wobblingly standing up, then after taking a deep breath, he used all his remaining strength to shout:
"Then I shall represent Roger, represent the Roger Pirates, live well, with eyes wide open—"
"Watch what step you arrogant brat can ultimately reach!"
As his voice faded, Shano's figure had vanished into the pouring rain.
Only Rayleigh remained, standing amidst blood and mud, gazing toward the direction of his departure, breathing heavily, long without movement.
————
Splash.
The black-haired boy's foot landed steadily at the edge of the dock.
"Captain!"
"Lord Shano!"
"Bro!"
A medley of shouts rang out, as the bored partners, seeing him emerge from the curtain of rain, showed faces of delight, hurriedly rising to surround him.
"Finally finished fighting?" Nami looked at him eagerly, "Bro, that old man named Rayleigh, they say he was the deputy captain of the Pirate King! A super formidable guy, did you really defeat him?"
"Yes."
Shano nodded with a smile.
"Yay!" Nami cheered, "I knew it! No wonder you're my big brother!"
Shano didn't pay much attention to her, glancing around.
Chaos was everywhere, traces of battle scattered all around.
Pirate corpses were seen all over, along with Navy Soldiers who had either been frozen or suffocated by smoke and fainted, the warships were nowhere to be seen at the shore, it was evident that most Navy Soldiers had retreated and fled.
This didn't surprise Shano.
His partners inherited his character, never showing mercy to pirates who are mostly villains.
Instead, they often spared the lives of the basic Navy Soldiers.
But...
That's just preferential treatment for basic soldiers, the leaders in the Navy generally don't have such good fate.
Shano's gaze shifted to a deep pit at the shore, where Chaton lay with eyes wide open, clearly dead beyond saving.
"Hm?"
He slightly raised a brow, somewhat surprised, looking at Kuina, "This guy..."
"You misunderstood."
Kuina shook her head slightly, "I'm confident of defeating Doflamingo... but this Admiral Candidate is indeed stronger than me, I could only barely manage to hold him back, keeping him from disturbing you, Lord Shano."
"Then how did he die?" Shano couldn't help but be curious.
"This guy was unruly, Kuina said it would be one-on-one, so we didn't intervene, even after taking care of everyone else, we just watched from the side."
Nojiko snorted coldly, pointing at Chaton's corpse:
"As a result, this guy, seeing his subordinates getting taken down, while unable to breakthrough Kuina's defense for a while, thought he was surrounded, becoming increasingly impatient, and suddenly turned to try to break through, breaking through was one thing, he insisted on heading towards Nami's direction, and attempted to kill her in passing."
Taking Nami, who demanded the lowest bounty, as the breakthrough point.
Shano's gaze towards Chaton's corpse instantly turned icy, then turned to look at Nami: "Not hurt, right?"
"No worries, bro!"
Nami smiled, spinning around to show her unharmed self, "I've been training my abilities well, at that time I directly used elementalization to dodge."
"That guy clearly didn't know I was a Logia-type Ability User, froze for a moment without reacting, the next second got beaten to a pulp by everyone, oh, and Jack was the first to rush up, directly transformed into a Mammoth and pressed him down, unable to budge."