High in the sky, that spinning mass of golden light was far too conspicuous. It was, without a doubt, the poison scorpion needle from Crocodile's left hand.
At this moment, Crocodile was down on one knee, his right hand clutching the stump of his severed left arm. Blood flowed steadily from the wound.
Sean may not have possessed Haki, but he had Reiatsu. Based on his previous tests with Ace, he knew that Reiatsu functioned similarly to Haki; it exerted a powerful suppressive effect on Devil Fruit abilities and allowed the user to make physical contact with Logia users.
As for the Zanpakutō, it was even simpler, as the blade was driven by Sean's Reiatsu.
As a Logia user who believed himself to be invincible, Crocodile hadn't bothered to maintain any defenses against Sean. Consequently, he had fallen into the trap with ease.
Of course, even if he had been on guard, the result likely wouldn't have differed much. While Kizaru focused heavily on developing his fruit abilities, he still trained in basic martial arts and swordsmanship. When Zephyr claimed Kizaru neglected physical training, it was only because Zephyr believed physical arts should be the primary focus and fruit development the secondary. It didn't mean Kizaru ignored them entirely; in fact, Kizaru's swordsmanship was quite impressive.
Crocodile, on the other hand, was a different story. Outside of his fruit ability, he had practically trained nothing else. Such an approach worked fine for bullying the weak, but it was a liability when facing a true powerhouse.
Though he had received a mysterious power boost by the time of the Paramount War... if Crocodile had possessed that level of strength back then, Luffy's grave would have grown grass several feet high by now.
Kneeling on the ground, Crocodile pressed his hand against the wound on his left arm.
Pain.
How long had it been since his battle with Whitebeard? In all these years, this was the first time he had tasted pain again!
But that wasn't the most critical issue. The real problem was that he couldn't even comprehend how Sean Campbell had managed to wound him.
The unknown was always the most terrifying thing.
Looking at Sean standing before him, cold sweat dripped from Crocodile's forehead. He couldn't use his fruit ability to drain the moisture from his own body, nor could he rely on elementalization to ignore the opponent's damage.
What was left?
The answer was... physical attacks.
Since Sean hadn't simply ignored the attack from the poison scorpion needle as he had before, it proved that physical attacks could indeed harm him.
In that case... he would turn his elements into a physical form.
He released his grip on the wound and slammed his palm onto the sand.
"Desert... Greatsword!"
A massive, razor-sharp blade composed of grit suddenly erupted from the sand behind Sean.
The timing was perfect! The positioning was perfect! The angle was equally perfect!
'In the end... victory belongs to me. If you want someone to blame... blame your own arrogance for not finishing me off when you had the chance!'
A smug expression crossed Crocodile's face, laced with a hint of cruelty.
In the next instant...
'Squelch.'
The sound of a blade piercing flesh echoed, reaching the ears of everyone present.
'Drip... drip, drip...'
Bright red blood slid down the blade, dripping onto the sand.
However, the victim was not Sean. It was Crocodile.
He stood there, dumbfounded, staring at the sharp sand sword in front of him. One end was connected to the desert floor, and the other end slanted upward, having precisely pierced through Sean's body.
Or rather, that was how it should have been.
Now, there was only the Desert Greatsword, and Sean was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a section of the blade was protruding from Crocodile's own right shoulder, blood flowing down the steel and dripping onto the ground.
This scene left even Lucci, a master of Rokushiki, stunned.
While the speed of Soru was immense, and Lucci's awakened Observation Haki would have allowed him to dodge the attack in that split second, he could never have done what Sean did: appear instantaneously behind Crocodile.
Soru moved in straight lines. To appear behind Crocodile would require executing Soru twice in rapid succession. Doing it twice wasn't difficult, but doing it in the blink of an eye was.
More importantly, Lucci's Observation Haki had captured something terrifying.
When Sean used Soru, he had only stepped on the ground three times.
That was impossible! Three steps were nowhere near enough to generate such massive reactionary force. This completely defied Lucci's understanding of the technique.
Generally, when practicing Soru, the goal was to increase the number of stamps within a 0.36-second window. Lucci himself could manage 37 stamps in 0.36 seconds. Other former CP9 members like Kaku and Jabra were only around the 27 to 28 mark. This difference in stamps was the source of the variation in movement speed.
But what did Sean do?
He did the exact opposite. He completed the Soru with only three stamps, yet his movement speed was significantly higher than Lucci's. This was far beyond Lucci's cognitive range.
Lucci's Observation Haki even caught another detail: after the first movement, Sean hadn't touched the ground at all. He had executed a second Soru mid-air, further shortening the time of the entire process. This was how he had moved behind Crocodile in a mere instant.
'Should I go back and research how to reduce the number of stamps and perform a mid-air Soru?' Lucci wondered.
If Sean knew what he was thinking, he would have warned him against it. Sean could do this because he was using Reiatsu to drive the movement. In other words, he was using the technical application of Soru combined with the propulsion method of Shunpo.
It was a brand-new method of movement—a fusion of two different systems.
The mid-air movement was the same; it was only possible because of Reiatsu, as Shinigami could naturally travel through the air using it. People in the world of pirates simply couldn't do this. Even with Moonwalk, they couldn't achieve the high-speed movement of Soru in the air.
After all, air is not the ground.
Those without Reiatsu should probably save themselves the trouble of trying.
At this moment, besides Lucci, there was one other person who was completely bewildered.
That was Crocodile.
He simply could not understand how Sean had circled behind him in a single instant, nor could he understand how the blade had managed to pierce his body.
After all, there was no sign of Armament Haki coating the exposed section of the blade.
It was utterly incomprehensible!
'Click!'
In an instant, a pair of Seastone handcuffs snapped shut around Crocodile's right wrist.
A sudden wave of weakness surged through his entire body. Already heavily wounded, the addition of the Seastone was the final straw; Crocodile collapsed onto the ground.
"Lucci, take him back to the warship and lock him up. Make sure he doesn't die—I still have use for him!"
"Yes, Rear Admiral!"
Nodding at the command, Lucci stepped forward, grabbed Crocodile by the collar, and hauled him off toward the Sandora River.
Robin then approached Sean. "How were you able to touch those Seastone handcuffs?"
This was what baffled her most. Inside the palace in Alubarna, she had seen with her own eyes that Sean used a Devil Fruit ability to heal Kohza. He was clearly a Devil Fruit user, yet he had picked up the Seastone handcuffs without a second thought and snapped them onto Crocodile.
How on earth was that possible?
"Hmm, that is a problem," Sean replied. "Thanks for the reminder. I'll make sure not to handle Seastone handcuffs like that again. Using things like that makes it too easy to blow my cover..."
Sean had genuinely considered the question and given a sincere answer; it was evident from the look on his face.
And yet... why did his answer make Robin want to punch him right in the face?
'Forget it. I'm no match for him. I'll just have to bear it!'
"Alright, as for the remaining lackeys, I'll have Lucci and the others take some Marines to deal with them for a bit of practice. As for us..." Sean paused. "Isn't it about time we got down to business?"
Business?
Wait... "Do you mean... the Poneglyph of Alabasta?"
"Exactly. Interested?"
"Yes. Are we going now?"
"What are you thinking? I don't even know where it is. Where exactly would we be going?" Sean replied, sounding exasperated.
Sure, he had read the original manga and knew the thing was in the royal tombs, but as for where those tombs actually were or where the entrance was located... he didn't have a clue! He couldn't exactly just start digging holes all over the kingdom, could he?
"Didn't you confidently claim earlier that you could take me to the Poneglyph? Now you're saying you don't know? What happened to 'not lying to your own people'?"
"I might not know, but that doesn't mean 'nobody' knows!"
"You aren't planning to just go and ask Cobra, are you?"
"What else would I do? I thought you were the smart one!"
Without waiting for Robin to respond, Sean turned and began walking back toward Alubarna.
'Is Cobra really just going to tell you?'
Robin stood there, momentarily speechless.