Two muffled thuds of impact echoed through the narrow passage.
A sharp ache bloomed across Zaraki's chest and left ribs, the kinetic force attempting to shred his internal organs. It hurt, but not enough to shift his expression.
The savage smiles on the CP0 agents' faces froze the moment their fingertips met Zaraki's body.
'Something's wrong!'
Their Finger Pistols possessed enough penetrating power to puncture layered steel, but stabbing this young Marine felt like driving fingers into tempered leather.
Their strikes sank less than half an inch before overpowering muscle and bone trapped them, halting their momentum entirely.
'What the hell is this monster's body made of?'
Their minds flatlined as the reality before them defied logic.
Zaraki lowered his head.
His eyes swept over the two shallow punctures on his chest, where only the faintest beads of blood surfaced. His brow didn't twitch.
"Are you tickling me?"
The deadpan question crushed their remaining confidence.
A wave of heat powerful enough to warp the air erupted from Zaraki.
Boom!
The pressure felt purer and more primal than Conqueror's Haki, bypassing flesh to strike directly at the soul.
The two agents trembled under its weight, their lungs straining for oxygen.
In the dim corridor, the colossal phantom of a golden skull flickered behind Zaraki, golden flames burning in its hollow sockets.
Zaraki moved.
His left hand blurred, clamping over the wrist of the agent who had targeted his lung.
Crack!
The snap of shattering finger bones harmonized with the agent's shriek.
Zaraki didn't bother looking, gripping Murasame in his right hand, he carried his momentum into a sweeping arc.
The flat of the blade struck the screaming agent in the ribs with the force of a battering ram.
The man launched sideways, slamming into the stone wall.
Blood and ruined organ fragments sprayed from his mouth before his broken body slid into a lifeless heap.
From the eruption of Reiatsu to the brutal execution, barely a second had passed.
The surviving flanker lost his nerve.
Abandoning his offensive, he backpedaled to create distance.
But his speed proved laughable.
Zaraki's figure blurred, he bypassed the fleeing man and materialized in front of Black Three, who leaned against the far wall, gasping for breath.
"You—"
Black Three managed a single syllable before his pupils contracted.
Zaraki vanished again.
He wasn't targeting Black Three, his prey was the crippled agent he had just batted aside.
'This madman... he's finishing him off!'
Black Three couldn't react.
He watched the lightning-wreathed shadow loom over the fallen agent. Zaraki's posture barely shifted as he transitioned from a horizontal swing to a brutal thrust.
The blade struck forward like a viper's fang.
Pfft!
The steel cleaved through flesh, crushed bone, and embedded itself deep into the masonry. The agent, who had just managed to lift his head, choked out a wet rattle.
The light left his eyes as Murasame pinned his corpse to the cold stone.
Black Three's face drained of color.
He stumbled backward, his shoulders hitting the wall to keep him upright.
Dead.
Another one dead.
His elite squad was being butchered, and he lacked the power to comprehend or stop it!
A suffocating dread seized his chest.
But suddenly, a ragged shout shattered the quiet.
"Flying Finger Pistol: Bachi!"
It was the first CP0 agent Zaraki had crippled.
Having regained consciousness, the man leaned against the wall, funneling his remaining strength into the one finger he could still move.
He aimed at Zaraki's back.
A highly compressed air bullet fired like a cannon shot, tearing through the corridor with a high-pitched shriek.
Zaraki didn't look back.
He reversed his grip and positioned the flat of his blade directly in the projectile's path.
A sharp, sorrowful metallic whine rang through the passage.
Zaraki's arm absorbed the impact without shifting, but across the jet-black steel of Murasame, hairline fractures spiderwebbed.
The sight stunned the two surviving agents.
Black Three's eyes locked onto the expanding cracks, a desperate spark igniting in his gaze.
'His sword... it's about to break! This is our chance! Our only chance!'
An urgent roar suddenly echoed from outside the gate.
"Zaraki! Stop!"
Sengoku's voice.
But the command arrived too late.
Whether responding to the order, or buckling under the repeated strain of high-voltage lightning and monstrous kinetic strikes, Murasame let out an overwhelmed wail.
Crack.
The fractures widened.
Under the terrified gaze of the surviving agents, the famed demon blade shattered.
Over a thousand fragmented shards scattered through the dim, lightning-lit corridor, suspending themselves in the air around Zaraki like a halo of jagged silver.
Each piece caught the ambient light, gleaming cold and lethal.
Black Three's expression froze.
The remaining flanker stared in disbelief.
Zaraki stood amidst the floating minefield of steel, holding nothing but a bare hilt and crossguard.
His eyes held no surprise, the destruction of his primary weapon provoked no panic—only a chilling, absolute calm.
"That's it..." Zaraki murmured, the corner of his mouth ticking upward. "Now this is getting interesting."
A weapon? To him, a blade was merely a limiter.
And now, the limiter was gone.
He raised his right hand and clenched his fingers around the ruined hilt.
The thousands of suspended fragments received a silent command, erupting into a unified, buzzing swarm.
The muscles in Zaraki's arm coiled.
From dozens of meters away, he targeted the crippled agent who had fired the air bullet and executed a downward cleave.
The air shredded.
Thousands of electrified shards transformed into a lethal torrent, pouring toward the agent at supersonic velocity.
The fleeting relief on the agent's face morphed into raw terror.
He watched the storm of death expand in his vision, unable to twitch a single muscle.
"No—"
Pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft-pfft!
A dense staccato of piercing impacts merged into a continuous, meat-grinding noise.
He couldn't scream, the vanguard fragments had already shredded his vocal cords.
Pinned against the masonry, the agent's body convulsed under the relentless barrage.
Blood erupted from hundreds of puncture wounds, painting the stone a gruesome crimson.
The deadly rain only ceased when the final shard nailed itself dead-center into his brow.
Bristling with embedded steel like a macabre doll, the corpse slid down the wall and toppled off the walkway, plunging into the dark waters of the bay below.
Splash!
Enormous shadows surged from the depths, jaws snapping as they dragged the mutilated remains down into the abyss.
Only a widening ring of red foam remained on the surface.
The passage and the harbor beyond fell dead silent.
The wind, the crashing waves, and Sengoku's distant shouting faded into white noise.
Zaraki turned his head.
His gaze cut through the drifting red mist to lock onto the sole survivor.
A feral, blood-soaked grin stretched across his face.
"Now, you're the only one left."
To Black Three, that smile promised absolute annihilation.
Sensing the raw, uncontained aura of slaughter radiating from the young Marine, his final string of reason snapped.
'Run.'
Instinct overwrote everything else.
Missions, pride, Celestial Dragons—worthless in the face of death.
Pushing Shave to its absolute limit, Black Three blurred into an afterimage, fleeing toward the opposite end of the corridor.
He barely covered three meters as a silhouette materialized in his path, blocking any avenue of escape.
"Where are you going?" The casual tone sounded like a man asking for directions.
Black Three skidded to a halt, staring in paralyzed horror at Zaraki's right hand.
Buzz!
A resonant sword cry echoed through the passage.
Every fragment of the cursed blade—those embedded in the masonry, lodged in bone, or scattered across the floor—ignited into streams of light and shot upward.
Like rivers returning to the sea, they gravitated toward the hilt, assembling, extending, and reforming high above.
Scorching dark-gold Reiatsu filled the gaps between the shards, binding the steel together until it formed a colossal, hundred-meter greatsword.
The massive blade hung suspended in the cavernous space, spilling out toward the open gates, golden lightning cascading down its length.
Wherever the edge pointed, the ambient air warped in visible ripples.
Black Three froze, head tilted back, his body shaking uncontrollably.
The sheer atmospheric pressure of the colossal weapon suffocated him.
His psychological defenses crumbled to dust.
"Don't... don't kill me!" he shrieked, his voice cracking. "I'm CP0! The shield of the Celestial Dragons! If you kill me, the World Government will never let you go! Never—!"
Zaraki looked down at the broken agent, a flicker of genuine pity passing through his eyes.
But he swung his arm downward.
The hundred-meter executioner's blade dropped.
Before the steel even made contact, its crushing weight had already flattened the ground beneath it!
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