The ragged figures did not slow their pace even as they beheld the colossal forms of Sandersonia and Marigold, who towered over them, blotting out the sky.
Their eyes were hollow and fanatical, like beasts that had lost all reason.
They knew only to pursue the living beings before them, like hyenas catching the scent of blood, charging forward relentlessly, oblivious to fear.
Sandersonia was the first to meet them.
The giant glaive in her hand traced a blinding arc in the sunlight, carrying a force of ten thousand tons as it slashed down upon the frontmost wave of the crowd.
Boom—!
With a single strike, flesh and bone flew in all directions!
The figures at the very front were instantly pulverized.
Severed limbs and fragments of viscera sprayed outward like fireworks, painting the dry, rocky ground in a shocking, visceral crimson.
A severed head broke free from its body, tumbled several times in the air, and rolled to a stop at Saint Dio’s feet.
Saint Dio glanced down, extended his foot, and gently nudged the head with the toe of his boot.
The sensation of observing it was strange.
The skin was an unhealthy, ashen gray, the eye sockets sunken, and the pupils cloudy and dilated.
It looked like a corpse that had been dead for a long time, yet it was still capable of movement.
Rather than humans, they were more like some kind of driven zombies.
Saint Dio juggled the head with the tip of his boot like a soccer ball, before extending his hand to catch it steadily.
His other hand covered the top of the head, and as his five fingers tightened slightly, a sphere of black light was slowly drawn out from within the skull.
It hovered in his palm for a moment before bursting like a bubble, dissolving into motes of light that vanished into the air.
After the motes faded, a brand-new Devil Fruit appeared in his palm.
It was a bizarrely shaped fruit, its overall color a dull, iron gray.
Its skin was hard and rough, as if covered in a layer of rusted metal.
The fruit’s shape was irregular, its surface covered in protrusions that resembled rivets.
Saint Dio gazed at the fruit, and its name naturally materialized in his mind.
Hito Hito no Mi, Model: Kabane.
“Kabane…?” He murmured the name, testing it, then a look of sudden realization dawned on his face.
A faint smile played at the corner of his lips.
No wonder their clothing bore a resemblance to the style of Wano Country.
No wonder they were utterly fearless, acting like beasts that had lost all reason.
So that’s how it is.
Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress.
This world…
Saint Dio casually tossed the fruit to Stussy, who caught it steadily.
She examined it with curiosity for a few moments before stowing it away.
Saint Dio crossed his arms, watching the battle ahead with keen interest.
Sandersonia and Marigold were currently unleashing their full might.
Facing the tidal wave of Kabane, they swung their naginatas with ferocious speed.
Where the blades passed, severed limbs and blood mist flew, yet not a single Kabane managed to breach their line.
The surrounding rocky ground was quickly stained a dark red, covered in a thick layer of minced flesh and bone fragments.
But soon, the two sisters realized a crucial fact.
The Kabane’s methods of attack were extremely limited—nothing more than scratching and biting.
They were completely unable to penetrate the sisters’ defense of thick, heavy scales.
Their armored scales were as hard as iron; the Kabane’s claws and teeth couldn’t even leave a white scratch on them.
So, the two simply abandoned their naginatas.
Instead, they leveraged their massive size, charging through the Kabane wave like heavy tanks.
Their massive serpentine bodies crushed the Kabane that surged forward, grinding them into meat patties.
With Saint Dio as their center, the two sisters circled him in a giant loop, their long bodies linked head-to-tail to form an impenetrable wall of flesh and scales.
The Kabane charged wave after wave, only to be trampled under this living barricade, reduced to smears of bloody pulp.
Occasionally, a Kabane wielding a katana would emerge from the throng, hacking at the serpent scales with its rusted blade.
Clang!
The blade shattered into a thousand shards, but not even a scratch marred the scales.
In the next instant, the sword-wielding Kabane was crushed by a serpentine body, becoming just another layer of red pulp on the blood-soaked ground.
The one-sided massacre finally concluded when the last Kabane was trampled to death.
Now, the rocky terrain was unrecognizable.
For hundreds of meters, the ground was a mire of dark red flesh and bone.
Severed limbs and ruptured organs lay scattered about, while the air hung heavy with the metallic scent of rust and blood.
The dry earth had been dyed a shocking crimson, as if it had just undergone a baptism in Purgatory.
The scorching sun beat down upon the blood-soaked ground, evaporating the gore into a faint, crimson mist.
Saint Dio stood amidst the mangled remains, yet his white robes remained miraculously unstained.
With a light tap of his toe, he leaped gracefully onto Sandersonia’s massive serpentine head, balancing perfectly as he gazed into the distance.
“We head toward the setting sun,” he commanded.
Then, he turned his head to Stussy, who remained on the ground.
“Scout the surroundings.
Find a city or a railroad, then notify me.” Sandersonia tilted her enormous head, a flicker of confusion crossing her slitted pupils.
She had no idea what a “railroad” was.
But since it was Saint Dio’s order, she simply shook her head, asked no questions, and began to slither toward the horizon, her massive body undulating as she moved.
Stussy was equally unsure of what a “railroad” specifically referred to, but after following Saint Dio for so many years, she had grown accustomed to the occasional unfamiliar term he would utter.
As long as I find something that doesn’t look natural—something man-made and strange—that should be enough, she thought.
With this thought, Stussy knelt on one knee, pressing her white-gloved palm into a pool of blood that still held its warmth.
She activated her Devil Fruit’s power.
The blood pool seemed to spring to life, boiling violently as dense bubbles broke its surface.
Then, as if given shape, the blood rose from the pool, coalescing in mid-air into palm-sized crimson bats.
The bats flapped their wings, emitting faint screeches as they scattered like a startled flock of birds, flying in all directions.
Because the battlefield was soaked in such a vast amount of blood, the number of bats she conjured was staggering.
A dense, black mass of them blocked out the sun, spreading across the horizon like a living, crimson cloud.
Stussy rose to her feet, brushing the dust from her knee.
She watched the receding swarm with a satisfied smile.
Her development of the Bat-Bat Fruit, Model Vampire, had rarely focused on raw combat power.
She preferred applying it to support roles—healing, scouting, and infiltration.
This wasn’t because she lacked strength, but because her role was never that of a pure combatant.
As a CP0 agent, her expertise lay in intelligence gathering, infiltration, assassination, and escort missions, not in head-on warfare.
Besides, the Bat-Bat Fruit, Model Vampire, was never designed for combat.
The only reason it had unleashed such terrifying power in the hands of its original owner, Patrick Redfield, was that the legendary pirate himself was a titan on par with Roger, Whitebeard, and Golden Lion.
For him, the fruit’s abilities were merely a bonus to his already overwhelming strength.
An ordinary person eating this fruit would likely find it less practical in a direct fight than even some Ancient Zoans.
Stussy was acutely aware of this.
Therefore, she chose a path better suited to her, fully exploiting the fruit’s potential in support roles to become Saint Dio’s most efficient tool.
And as it turned out, her choice was the right one.