The air was thick with smoke and the salty stench of seawater, damp and heavy.
Gion's sharp gaze lingered on Zaraki's back for a moment, carrying a faint, almost imperceptible tremor before she drew it away.
She did not speak.
Instead, she turned her eyes toward Chaton, who was still in a sorry state not far away.
Chaton felt a tightness in his chest.
The muscles in his cheek twitched uncontrollably, and beneath his sunglasses, his face had gone ashen.
As an Admiral candidate, when had he ever suffered such disregard? The humiliation made his temples throb!
He gritted his teeth and sprang up from the ground, hurriedly straightening his crooked sunglasses before bending down to retrieve the sword that had been embedded in the ruins.
Chaton quickly walked toward Gion, his voice urgent and low. "Gion, this guy is way too strong. We have to work together and drive Jack the Drought out first."
As he spoke, he instinctively glanced toward Zaraki, and aside from urgency, there was now a trace of awe in his eyes.
He no longer dared call Jack a monster, because the real monster was standing behind them, and had not even given them a proper glance.
Vice Admiral Yamakaji, who had arrived with Gion, wore an extremely grave expression.
He cut off Chaton's words in a deep voice. "Tokikake, it's useless."
His gaze moved away from the massive slash mark that had torn through the harbor and landed on Zaraki's unmoving back. His tone was calm and unquestionable.
"That brat has already marked Jack as his prey. If we interfere rashly, we'll only disrupt his rhythm. And knowing him, he might swing without caring whether we're in the way."
Yamakaji unconsciously lowered his voice on the final words, as if afraid of disturbing the killing blade behind them.
Chaton's body stiffened.
He looked back at Yamakaji, then at the calm-faced Gion.
Driving away one of the Four Emperors' top officers was the Marines' duty, and also his chance to recover his dignity.
Yet now, Yamakaji was telling him to let a junior who had merely "passed by" fight alone?
This made no sense at all.
Chaton's gaze shifted toward Zaraki again, just in time to catch the curve at the corner of his mouth.
It was pure excitement, the excitement of a hunter.
Chaton's heart clenched, and a chill shot from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.
What?
Did this man... see the battlefield as a hunting ground?
Just then, an earth-shaking roar broke the strange silence.
"Bastard! A little brat like you dares run your mouth here? Arrogant little punk."
Jack the Drought's massive body was soaked in blood, yet he showed no sign of weakness.
The eyes above his metal jaw guard burst with even fiercer light as they locked onto Zaraki.
Dark blood poured from the wound across his body, but the muscles around the injury were already tightening at an inhuman speed, as if his Ancient Zoan vitality were forcibly stitching the torn flesh back together.
"My life belongs to Kaido-sama! What the hell are you supposed to be?"
Jack suddenly extended his trunk, wrapped in dense Armament Haki, and pointed at Zaraki.
His voice was filled with endless killing intent.
"Come here and die. I'm going to twist off your head and give it to Kaido-sama as a chamber pot."
Hearing that, the curve at the corner of Zaraki's mouth deepened.
He did not even turn around. He merely tilted his head slightly and clearly spat out two words in a playful tone.
"Come on."
Those simple words instantly ignited Jack's fury.
"Roooar!"
Jack's eyes turned blood-red as he let out a deafening roar.
A huge aura erupted from his body, kicking up shattered stone and dust into the sky.
His mammoth-like body kicked off the ground, making the earth tremble.
The enormous force turned him instantly into a black blur as he charged toward Zaraki with the weight of a mountain.
Every step he took cracked the ground, leaving enormous footprints behind.
His speed was astonishing, and his massive body showed no clumsiness at all.
Crack... crack, crack...
Even more terrifying was the wound running from Jack's right shoulder to his left abdomen. As he charged, that bone-deep injury was healing at a visible speed.
The bloody wound rapidly tightened, new skin growing over it.
Although it still left an ugly scar, that horrifying vitality made every watching Marine suck in a cold breath.
"How is that possible?"
Chaton cried out, his eyes beneath the sunglasses widening as if he had seen something that overturned common sense.
Gion's pupils contracted violently, and her fingers tightened unconsciously around her sword hilt.
Yamakaji's face went pale as he stared fixedly at Jack's almost fully healed wound, his heart in turmoil.
That kind of recovery was not something a human should possess.
In that instant, they all understood.
Jack was called the Drought not only because nothing survived wherever he went, but also because his body and vitality were so tenacious it made people's hearts go cold.
With shocking momentum, Jack arrived behind Zaraki in the blink of an eye.
His hybrid body twisted with savage force.
One massive hand gripped a huge shotel-like blade while his trunk snapped forward to stabilize the swing, and with a piercing howl, the weapon wrapped in jet-black Armament Haki chopped viciously toward Zaraki's shoulder.
That strike was enough to split a small mountain in half.
The air shook from the force of its roar, and the surging wind made the hem of Gion's clothes snap violently.
Behind her, Chaton, Yamakaji, and the others all felt a tremor run through them.
Under Gion's complicated gaze, Jack the Drought's massive curved blade, carrying the force of tens of thousands of pounds, finally tore through the air and slammed down heavily onto Zaraki's left shoulder.
Clang!
An ear-splitting metallic collision suddenly erupted.
The sound was so loud that everyone present felt their eardrums buzz.
A visible shockwave spread outward from Zaraki's shoulder, blasting the ground beneath his feet into a spiderweb of cracks.
However, the bloody scene everyone had imagined never happened.
Zaraki did not move.
Even his stance had not changed, as if the thing struck was not flesh and blood, but a mountain of metal.
The enormous blade powerful enough to split stone was stuck against his shoulder.
Its edge had bitten only a shallow line into the flesh before stopping, and sparks scattered together with a thin thread of blood.
Time seemed to freeze at that moment.
"This... how is this possible?"
Chaton's sunglasses slid down from the bridge of his nose and shattered in two on the ground, but he did not notice at all.
His mouth hung open wide enough to fit a fist, his eyes filled with disbelief.
He had taken it head-on.
He had taken the full-strength blow of a Four Emperor's top officer head-on!
And he had not even fully hardened his shoulder with Armament Haki?
Was this something a human could do?
Gion's breath also caught, and veins bulged across the back of the hand gripping her sword.
She had imagined countless ways Zaraki might respond, whether by dodging, blocking, or clashing with an even stronger attack, but she had never imagined that he would choose to receive it with his body.
This was no longer confidence. It was complete contempt for his enemy, contempt that reached deep into the bones.
"Not a bad cutting force."
Zaraki finally moved.
He slowly turned his head, his indifferent gaze glancing at the curved blade stuck against his shoulder.
His tone was as calm as if he were judging a home-cooked dish.
"Unfortunately, it's not enough."
Before his words had fully fallen, Zaraki's shoulder shifted, and Reiatsu surged outward through the point of contact.
Crack!
The huge curved blade groaned, cracks spreading along its edge before it shattered on the spot.
Countless metal fragments shot in every direction, and Jack's massive body was forced two steps back by the rebound, his eyes above the metal jaw guard showing astonishment and confusion for the first time.
"Thunder Breathing: Second Form: Rice Spirit."
A low murmur sounded.
Zaraki's figure suddenly vanished from where he stood, leaving only a streak of dark-gold pressure behind.
Zzzzt!
Dark-gold Reiatsu sparked through the air in arcs that looked almost like lightning.
In the next instant, Zaraki appeared like a ghost behind Jack's huge body, slowly sheathing Murasame in his hand.
Jack's mountain-like body froze in place.
One second.
Two seconds.
Pfft!
Five blood lines deep enough to reveal bone suddenly burst open at the same time across Jack's chest, abdomen, shoulders, and neck.
Blood sprayed violently.
Those five slashes had been so fast that even the wounds seemed to have forgotten how to bleed.
"W-What just happened?"
A young adjutant's voice trembled. He rubbed his eyes hard, completely unable to understand what had happened in that instant.
Vice Admiral Aus, standing beside him, had an expression so grim it looked like water could drip from it.
Cold sweat covered his forehead as he explained in a dry voice.
"...In an instant... five consecutive slashes... No, that wasn't five consecutive slashes. It was truly one slash, causing damage in five different places at the same instant. This guy... he's surpassed the limits of speed."
Hearing those words, the surrounding Marines all sucked in a cold breath.
When they looked at Zaraki's back again, they unconsciously took half a step back.
"Roooaaaar!"
Jack let out a roar filled with pain and fury.
He lowered his head and looked at the five bone-deep wounds across his body, his violent killing intent almost becoming tangible.
"You can't kill me! I am the Drought! I'm an Ancient Zoan, Mammoth-form ability user! Little wounds like these don't mean anything!"
As he roared, white steam rose from those five terrifying wounds, and the muscles began writhing and healing at an astonishing speed once again.
Although the recovery was much slower than before, that tenacious vitality still made everyone's heart go cold.
He swung his trunk again, picked up another spare curved blade, and charged toward Zaraki once more like an out-of-control beast.
"Is that so?"
The curve at the corner of Zaraki's mouth finally carried a trace of excitement.
He was not using the newly unlocked forms with polished mastery yet.
He was testing their shape, forcing each one into his own brutal rhythm as he carved into the opponent in front of him.
He drew Murasame, and this time, dark-gold Reiatsu sparked around the blade in arcs that looked like lightning.
"Thunder Breathing: Third Form: Thunder Swarm!"
Countless fine, crackling slashes poured out like a storm, colliding wildly with Jack's giant blade.
"Fourth Form: Distant Thunder!"
Zaraki leapt high into the air, bringing down a heavy thunderous slash from above.
"Fifth Form: Heat Lightning!"
"Sixth Form: Rumble and Flash!"
For a time, the ruined harbor was filled with crackling pressure and blood-colored blade shadows.
Zaraki's figure turned into a streak of dark-gold pressure, dancing madly around Jack's enormous body.
Each flicker left a new wound on Jack.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
The piercing sound of colliding weapons linked into a continuous roar as sparks and blood scattered everywhere.
Wounds also began to appear on Zaraki's body.
Jack's wild strength grazed him, leaving blood marks one after another, but rather than making him retreat, it only made the smile on his face grow more bloodthirsty.
This was no longer a contest of technique.
It was a pure, savage exchange of cuts.
Gradually, the wounds on Jack's body grew more and more numerous.
Before the old wounds could heal, new ones appeared.
The powerful recovery brought by his Ancient Zoan body, which he had always taken pride in, began to fall short under Zaraki's endless, unrelenting barrage of insane slashes.
Reiatsu clung to each cut like a weight, forcing Jack's body to repair too many wounds at once.
He panted heavily, his chest rising and falling.
He could feel his life force draining away at high speed, while the man before him seemed to grow stronger the longer they fought, his momentum still rising.
For the first time, a trace of wavering flashed in Jack's eyes.
He looked at Zaraki, at the smile on that man's face as he enjoyed the battle, and a terrifying thought formed in his heart.
This guy... was not carrying out a mission at all.
He was simply... hunting!
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