The golden figure followed closely behind the Flying Slash and charged straight toward Cyrus.
Raise hand, draw blade.
Cyrus's movements were crisp and decisive as he faced the furious Shiki rushing at him, drawing his blade and striking.
Without using his Devil Fruit ability, merely combining Haki with pure strength, Cyrus sent Shiki crashing down with a single slash, and though Shiki crossed his twin blades in defense, he plummeted like a falling meteor against Cyrus's overhead strike.
Upon impact, the ground trembled and shockwaves rippled outward in all directions, making the Homies scatter even more frantically.
Watching Shiki get knocked out of the sky by Cyrus's single strike darkened Charlotte Linlin and the other two's expressions, because though Shiki had always been arrogant, he undeniably possessed skill.
'Had he weakened this much after all these years apart?'
Facing the shockwaves from Shiki's impact, only the airborne Charlotte Linlin avoided them, while Wang Zhi and the other had to raise their hands to block the force.
As for containing the collateral damage from the shockwaves... The place was already nearly destroyed anyway.
Giving his blade a light flick, Cyrus landed steadily on the ground.
Shiki lay in a crater not far before him, eyes glazed over, still unable to recover from the blow in his daze.
As for Cyrus, he glanced at Shiki to mentally assess his current condition.
First, his physical prowess had weakened significantly, though his abilities hadn't diminished much, but his powers didn't offer substantial advantages in one-on-one combat.
That said, in his regular state, Cyrus wasn't confident about taking on all four opponents before him.
If he had to activate Unbending, he wouldn't be able to hold back because the explosive power unleashed after activating Unbending was something he couldn't yet perfectly control, making it easy to overexert so casualties would be inevitable.
But before resorting to that, Cyrus hoped to handle the current situation with his usual strength.
"Hey, Shiki, if you're not dead yet, get up now," Charlotte Linlin called out.
The ground shuddered and everything around seemed to lose weight to float upward, and aside from the living beings present, everything in the vicinity levitated.
"Gyahahaha! Exhilarating, absolutely exhilarating! That power reminds me of that guy Whitebeard!" Shiki laughed uproariously, his body floating upward while still lying down.
"This is no place for a fight."
The others might not care, but Charlotte Linlin was different because this was her territory, and if a full-scale battle broke out, the outcome was all too predictable since keeping even part of Whole Cake Island from sinking would already be a best-case scenario.
Just these two brief exchanges had inflicted significant damage upon Whole Cake Island.
And Shiki's abilities... She knew full well that when he lost control, he'd start dropping floating islands from the sky, but the current Shiki was in no state to listen to her.
His previously horizontal floating form righted itself to hover upright.
"Lion's Roar: Earth Roll!"
With his move, the ground along with the debris that had just floated up coalesced under the influence of his levitation ability into a massive lion's head, surging toward Cyrus.
The lion's head, formed from desserts, ground structures, and soil, appeared peculiar with its mixed colors, and if one had to describe it, it resembled a spotted dog.
"Stroke Cut!" Cyrus flashed past and appeared behind Shiki in an instant.
Clang!
A loud crash echoed.
A burly man wielding a gleaming axe blocked the path in front of Shiki with the flat side of his weapon.
"Old-timer, now's not the time to be careless. That strike was quite powerful, though." Silver Axe turned to look at Cyrus, excitement gleaming in his eyes.
Silver Axe, much like Kaido, possessed a robust physique, immense strength, and formidable Haki mastery, and it was he who had intercepted Cyrus's blade aimed at Shiki.
Cyrus's plan to reduce their numbers by one had failed.
"Seems you all coordinate quite well!" Cyrus sheathed his blade and turned as his gaze shifted between the two figures flanking him.
"Almost turned into a dead rooster." Shiki turned to face Cyrus and grinned self-deprecatingly, as he seemed unfazed by the danger of Cyrus's earlier strike.
Boom!
At that moment, Cyrus raised his blade to the right to clash with a massive sword descending from above, and the ground beneath Cyrus's feet sank and exploded.
Charlotte Linlin, gripping her sword with both hands, failed to land a hit, so she retracted her blade, raised it again, and wrapped Conqueror's Haki around Napoleon.
Black sparks erupted as she swung down at Cyrus once more.
With Conqueror's Haki enveloping his own blade, Cyrus met the descending Napoleon with an upward slash as black lightning crackled and flared.
A gleaming axe accompanied by a gust of wind swept horizontally toward Cyrus's waist, and deep Armament Haki coiled around the axe as if intending to cleave Cyrus in two.
Cyrus raised his left hand clenched into a fist and wrapped it in both Conqueror's Haki and Armament Haki to meet the oncoming axe head-on.
Boom!
A violent shockwave radiated in all directions to send Wang Zhi and Shiki flying back.
Silver Axe shuddered violently, swayed unsteadily, and staggered backward.
With each step, the ground shattered beneath his feet because the force behind Cyrus's punch was immense, forcing him to dissipate the power through such means.
After repelling Silver Axe with a single punch, Cyrus withdrew his blade and retreated to break free from the encirclement.
Once steady, Cyrus held his long blade tilted toward the ground and fixed his eyes on the four opponents before him.
In this brief exchange, everyone had held back, and it had merely been a few probing moves, but aside from Wang Zhi, Cyrus had already gauged the strength of the other three.
It seemed somewhat easier than he had anticipated since both Charlotte Linlin and Silver Axe relied on their physical prowess and Haki in combat, but in terms of raw power and Haki, Cyrus was no weakling either.
Especially when it came to strength, as his formidable physique granted him immense power.
If it were a battle of abilities, Cyrus might have needed to strategize, but in a direct clash of force, he currently feared no one.
However, before that...
Cyrus turned his head to glance at Wang Zhi.
This guy hadn't made a move from the very beginning, yet Cyrus had a vague estimation of his strength as well.
After all, this guy had taken control of Hachinosu after the Rocks Pirates disbanded, only to be defeated by the combined efforts of Blackbeard and Koby, which meant his strength was quite limited.
Since that was the case, Cyrus withdrew his gaze and flames erupted from his body.
In the blink of an eye, the flames soared dozens of meters high to twist and scorch everything around them with their intense heat, and on the blade in Cyrus's hand, crimson patterns ignited to become exceptionally dazzling.