The pirates crammed into the narrow alleyway turned pale.
Rick the Leech, his eyes glinting with malice, exchanged a quick glance with Levi the Manslayer, who was swathed in a long black coat.
Without a moment’s hesitation, both men lunged at once, striking at Caro from the left and right!
“All together!
Kill him!!”
Rick raised a hand, raining a dark swarm of squirming creatures across Caro’s body.
Following right behind the barrage, he thrust his right palm toward Caro’s heart!
Those dark squirming things were dozens of bloated, fat leeches.
Meanwhile, the palm of Rick’s right hand split open to reveal a maw lined with razor-sharp fangs, eager to tear through the flesh over Caro’s chest.
He had eaten the Zoan-type Leech-Leech Fruit!
On the right, Levi the Manslayer yanked off his black coat and flung it wide.
Taking advantage of the moment the coat blocked Caro’s field of vision, his short frame spun violently into motion.
He transformed into a high-speed top.
As he spun, his body distorted at terrifying speed, morphing into overlapping spiraling blades.
The man turned into a drill wrapped in lethal edges, tearing through the air with a deafening howl as he coordinated with Rick to slice into Caro’s left flank!
This was the Paramecia-type Dice-Dice Fruit!
The synchronized strike of two criminals with bounties exceeding one hundred million instantly pushed Caro into a deadly squeeze.
Seeing this, Partheus gritted his teeth and drew his long sword.
“I’ll help—”
He had barely lifted his right foot, his shout not even fully out of his mouth, when Caro—a lit cigar clenched between his teeth—stepped forward and struck the air with an open palm.
The air in front of him burst and distorted under the strike, generating a surging shockwave of wind.
Before the dozens of disgusting, greasy leeches could even land on him, they blew apart in midair.
They exploded into a spray of bloody mist, showering back onto Rick the Leech.
Swatting the flying leeches dead in a single blow, Caro lost no momentum.
He shifted his palm into a claw, curling his fingers, and clamped down directly on Rick’s incoming right wrist.
“Damn it!
Let go of me!”
Horrified, Rick instinctively tried to yank his wrist back.
Yet Caro’s fingers held him like a multi-ton steel vise.
Not only could he not break free, but his wrist bones visibly compressed under the pressure, on the verge of being crushed to powder!
To Caro’s slight surprise, however, the bone didn’t break.
At the final second before Rick’s wrist snapped, it softened like rubber, morphing into a slimy, sea-green tentacle.
Slippery and slick, it slid right out of his grip.
At that exact moment, Levi the Manslayer tore in from the left, spinning wildly and kicking up sharp blades of wind.
His rapidly rotating blades targeted Caro’s body, intent on peeling the flesh from his bones like skinning a potato.
The coordination between the two was seamless.
Even an ordinary Marine Vice Admiral would have been forced to retreat.
Even Caro couldn’t help offering a word of praise.
“Not bad for New World pirates.
To have this much strength with bounties barely over a hundred million…
decent.”
Yet he didn’t back down.
Far from retreating, right under Levi’s bewildered glare, Caro extended his left arm straight into the path of the spinning blade-rigged drill.
“Is this guy…
planning to sacrifice his arm just to stay alive?”
The thought had barely crossed Levi’s mind when Caro whipped that extended left arm violently toward his spinning frame!
*SLAP!*
A crisp, ringing crack echoed out.
Levi felt as though his face had been slapped with brutal force.
Worse, its direction was forcibly redirected, veering past Caro’s front by a hair’s breadth.
Amid Rick’s terrified screams, the blade drill plowed straight into his companion.
*Rrrrip—!*
The sickening sound of tearing flesh made Partheus’s scalp go numb as he stood frozen with his sword drawn.
Under his terrified gaze, Rick—stuck halfway between human and tentacle form—uttered a bloodcurdling shriek under the blades of the high-speed Levi.
He was sliced into bits while still alive, collapsing into countless bloody chunks that rained onto the ground.
“Curse you!!”
Having accidentally slaughtered his partner, Levi was consumed by fury.
Bouncing off the ground while still in a spin, he lunged at Caro once more.
And Caro whipped his arm again, snapping it like a long leather lash straight toward him.
“You think you can pull the same trick twice?!”
“Blade Storm!!”
Levi roared, diving headfirst into Caro’s incoming arm.
Expected tearing sounds of Caro’s flesh being stripped away never came.
Instead, a continuous metallic clanging tore through the air.
*CLANG!
CLANG!
CLANG!*
Blinding sparks showered in every direction.
“What?!”
Levi opened his eyes in shock, only to see a pitch-black arm pushing back against his furiously spinning body, showering sparks across the alley while remaining entirely unharmed.
“Armament Haki!!”
The thought had barely flashed through his mind when Caro’s giant hand clamped around his head.
He was a Paramecia-type Dice-Dice Fruit user.
Every part of his body could turn into hardened steel blades.
He possessed the properties of iron and steel—he was impossibly hard!
Yet as Caro’s five fingers slowly clenched, Levi’s steel-hardened head began to deform, utterly unable to resist.
Accompanied by a piercing sound of twisting metal, Caro crushed his head flat with one hand.
Molding steel like clay!
What terrifying finger strength!
His head was crushed.
He was dead.
Yet Levi’s corpse didn’t stop spinning.
The influence of the Dice-Dice Fruit seemed to linger briefly on his corpse, not yet fully dissipated.
Taking advantage of this, a wickedly mischievous grin spread across Caro’s face.
With a sudden whip of his arm, he hurled Levi’s corpse straight down the alley.
“Pierce the heavens!
Drill!!”
In the next instant, before the horrified eyes of the remaining pirates, the drill formed by Levi’s corpse became a life-harvesting meat grinder under Caro’s violent throw.
In a single breath, a storm of blood and gore swept down the straight alleyway.
Everywhere the drill passed, the helpless pirates were ruthlessly minced into bloody remains scattered across the cobblestones.
Meanwhile, the white-haired Caro stepped through the thick layer of blood like a demon king bathed in gore.
With his half-smoked cigar still clamped between his teeth, he strolled toward the harbor where the pirates had come from.
Having personally wiped out a street full of pirates, his expression didn’t change in the slightest.
He remained completely calm and unbothered.
As if those killed weren’t living human beings, but mere livestock.
Partheus was shaking like a leaf, kneeling limply amidst the blood and minced meat.
He stared up vacantly at the approaching Caro.
A warm wetness trickled down his trousers.
“What’s your name?”
On the verge of a breakdown, Partheus vaguely heard a voice.
He answered instinctively, “Partheus…”
“You’re in luck.”
“If you manage to survive, come find me at Hachinosu.”
“Hachinosu?”
The voice floated past his ears, snapping Partheus out of his daze.
Stunned, he turned his head to watch the tall, white-haired figure walk past the mountains of corpses and seas of blood, striding firmly toward the terrifying horned demon king in the distance.
And then, Partheus witnessed a scene he would never forget for the rest of his life!
He saw the white-haired man accelerate.
He started to run.
The narrow alley exploded under his boots, leaving deep crater-like depressions with every step.
The entire street quivered beneath his sprint.
The smoke trailing from the cigar in his mouth stretched into a taut, straight line, resembling a white cord.
He ran faster and faster.
Though his frame wasn’t gargantuan, his sprint carried the momentum of a stampeding behemoth.
By the end, he vanished into a blur of motion.
With an earth-shattering boom, he launched himself from the city streets like an ascending missile, blasting straight into the sky!
The muscles in his raised right arm bulged, and his clenched fist punched forward with savage force!
Not at Kaido, however— but into the back of Samuro, who was tumbling backward from Kaido’s strike!
Still airborne, Samuro was gritting his teeth, glaring at Kaido ahead and preparing himself for the next blow.
Yet the sudden, overwhelming sense of mortality surging behind him made his scalp tingle.
“Who’s there?!”
He tried to turn around, but it was already too late!
An explosive power struck his spine with lightning speed!
Almost simultaneously, Kaido—who was sprinting across the ground from the opposite direction—seemed to spot something entertaining.
His bloodthirsty, battle-hungry eyes lit up like never before.
He gripped his kanabo tightly, swinging it straight toward Samuro’s chest with even more brutal force!
Caro and Kaido.
One from behind, one from the front—a pincer attack.
At almost the exact same second, the fist and the spiked club smashed into Samuro’s tumbling body!
*BOOM!!!*
In an instant, Samuro’s tempered, powerful body was pulverized by the two rampant forces.
His broad chest erupted, flesh and blood flying as a hole was punched clean through him from front to back!
A pitch-black fist shattered his spine, punching out through his torn chest to collide directly with the black kanabo in Kaido’s grip!
*CLANG!!*
Amid a deafening metallic screech, two pairs of equally bloodthirsty, battle-crazed eyes met through the gory, gaping hole in Samuro’s chest.
Feeling the mountain-crushing force surging from the tip of his kanabo, Kaido’s grin stretched wider and wider.
“Wororororo!”
“Who would’ve thought there was another monster on this island?”
“Brat, who the hell are you?!”
“Soros Caro!” Caro’s lips curved into a long-absent grin of pure excitement.
His free left hand whipped around, snapping the bloody top half of Samuro’s corpse in two and hurling it straight at Kaido’s face.
“Kaido-sensei, nice to meet you!
Please go easy on me!”