“Get out of the way!”
Hina let out a soft cry.
She saw wisps of white steam rising from Skyler’s arm as he raised his blade, and his body temperature seemed to be startlingly high.
Swish!
An arc-shaped blade aura instantly destroyed the bars imprisoning the man.
All the iron bars snapped in response.
In the brief instant when bullets poured down, Skyler slipped away, darting into the soldier formation and beginning a massacre.
He gave up on a one-on-one fight with Hina.
“Capture him!”
Several headquarters officers raised their weapons in response, surrounding Skyler just as he cut down several gunmen.
Clang, clang, clang!
Figures fluttered about as a dazzling array of attacks assaulted the pirate.
Skyler steadily parried, waiting for an opportunity to counterattack.
The officers each brought out their signature skills.
For a moment, they actually fought to a standstill with Skyler.
The situation temporarily reached a stalemate.
“Although his blade is fast, his swordsmanship clearly hasn’t reached an unattainable level yet…
It’s just that his physical strength is also terrifying.” Hina looked at the broken iron cage and the scattered broken bars all over the ground, her brow furrowed tightly.
She had originally thought that her Devil Fruit ability could temporarily imprison Skyler; her previous clash led her to judge that the hard metal generated by her fruit ability could collide with Skyler’s blade momentum.
But now…
Skyler erupted with even more astonishing power, forcibly enhancing the destructive force of his swordsmanship.
“Ah!”
The crowd on the Marine side was thrown into complete chaos by Skyler’s slaughter.
Skyler was extremely fast.
Not wanting to get bogged down in a protracted battle, he set his sights on those ordinary soldiers.
Once he darted into the dense crowd and used the cover of the numerous soldiers, it was extremely difficult to lock down his position.
This man could slaughter wantonly.
“Scatter the formation!” Hina utilized Soru from the Rokushiki, turning into two blurred figures with Skyler as they shuttled through the crowd, chasing each other.
she shouted loudly.
“Watch out!”
However, Hina’s eyes were fixed dead on Skyler, causing her to overlook the potential danger.
The adjutant a few meters away let out a startled cry.
The moment Hina looked up, she saw several soldiers killed by Skyler suddenly step forward to block her, raising their gun barrels at her.
Pulling the trigger!
Bang!
A bullet pierced through her white cape, leaving behind a hole.
Hina sidestepped to dodge.
“Is this the power to control dead people that Monde’s subordinates mentioned?”
Hina was slightly startled in her heart.
Not far away, Crocus watched the battle unfolding right under his eyes, his eyes flickering.
He was likewise gazing into the distance at Skyler’s predicament.
His moves were ruthless, his on-the-spot adaptability was extremely strong…
and he knew how to play to his strengths and avoid his weaknesses.
You must know that even the officers under Hina were headquarters elites; if transferred to a branch, their military rank would be at least major…
With these seven or eight people joining forces, plus a headquarters colonel who was a Devil Fruit user, once Skyler was dragged down and unable to break away, even if he could tussle for a moment, he wouldn’t escape defeat.
Because there were simply too many people on the Marine side—the soldiers alone numbered five or six hundred.
Even if Skyler’s strength was extraordinary, after killing these soldiers, his stamina would drop severely, making him completely unable to deal with the remaining group of powerhouses led by Hina.
Skyler clearly realized this as well, shattering the Marine formation and plunging the scene into complete chaos.
“Clever little fellow.”
Crocus let out a chuckle.
…
Time ticked by second by second.
The Marines’ seemingly sure-to-succeed capture operation began to experience unstable changes.
More and more soldiers fell, becoming puppets controlled by the Teigu Yatsufusa.
These corpses could further provide cover for Skyler and hold back the officers’ pursuit.
Hina grew increasingly astonished at the combat prowess Skyler displayed.
Needless to say about his physical fitness, his stamina recovery was also terrifying.
Skyler’s body gradually accumulated some wounds—some were slash wounds, others were grazes from passing bullets…
After all, facing an encirclement of hundreds of people all by himself, no matter how heaven-defying he was, he couldn’t come out completely unscathed.
But even so, in just this short while, Hina noticed that some of the shallower wounds actually showed a tendency to heal.
Most importantly, Skyler’s movements remained fierce and swift.
Clearly, fighting a protracted war of attrition with this pirate was not a wise decision.
Naturally, she had no idea that this was the effect brought by the Heart-Shaped Herb and the Super Soldier Serum.
“All soldiers, evacuate the battlefield and return to the warships!”
Hina issued the order.
Ordinary Marine soldiers participating in a battle of this level would instead give Skyler a breakthrough point, and to her and the few officers, they had become a burden.
This was something she hadn’t anticipated beforehand.
Hearing the voice, the soldiers ran quickly, retreating toward the shore.
Skyler alone naturally couldn’t stop the migration of such a massive crowd.
However, out of the original force of several hundred people, fewer than two hundred remained alive to run away.
Nearly two-thirds had been killed by Skyler.
Soon, on the crowded land, there were only Hina and three officers panting heavily and mentally exhausted.
Yes, the only headquarters officers who survived were just those three.
The rest had all been taken care of by Skyler amidst the chaos.
Beneath their feet lay dense corpses; the casualties on the Marine side were heavy.
“Shigan!”
Hina refused to give up; she had to suppress this man today.
Two puppets controlled by Skyler appeared before Hina.
The woman’s expression remained unchanged as she waved her hand, instantly binding the bodies of the two dead subordinates with iron bars, rendering them unable to move.
Not just these two, all the corpses on the ground had been pinned down by iron bars, unable to budge.
Even if Skyler exerted the effect of the Teigu, those remains would find it hard to get back up.
Hina’s fruit ability possessed a certain degree of restraining effect against Skyler’s Teigu.
“Battojutsu!”
It was this swordsmanship again!
Facing Skyler’s attack, Hina’s whole body tensed up.
This slash was difficult for the naked eye to capture, and when the blade was drawn, it was so fast that in the blink of an eye, even time and space seemed to have stalled.
Before the finger of Shigan could even approach Skyler, Hina’s delicate body trembled, and a spray of blood burst from her body.
A cut was sliced open on her arm.
If she hadn’t reacted in time, this arm would have been severed…
“Colonel Hina!”
Several officers cried out urgently, stepping forward to support her.
“It seems today isn’t the time for the few of you to die…”
Skyler sheathed his blade and stood in place, his peripheral vision catching the shadow of another warship appearing on the sea surface.
It was the opponent’s reinforcements.
There was no need to keep lingering in a stalemate.
Although he failed to kill Hina, a plot character, the gains from this battle were already quite substantial.
Primarily because Skyler wasn’t clear on who the Marines would send next; if it was a powerhouse on the same level as Hina, it would be rather troublesome to deal with given his current strength.
There would be danger.
“Let’s end it here for now…”
Saying this, Skyler’s feet slowly left the ground, rising high into the air.
It was precisely the Air Dance Technique.
“Damn it!
You bastard, don’t think about running!”
On the ground, an officer saw him fly into the air with a shocked expression, but quickly reacted and opened fire.
But it was already to no avail.
“Skyler!”
Hina locked eyes with the man in the sky, her face full of reluctance.
Skyler’s eyes were just as they were at the start, appearing incomparably cold.
Swoosh!
Immediately afterward, Skyler turned into a black dot, darting toward the end of the horizon and tearing through the air.
“This…”
If Skyler had used the Air Dance Technique right from the start, the Marines wouldn’t have been able to keep him.
In other words, right from the beginning, Skyler never believed that the army led by Hina would pose a threat to him.
The reason he stayed was precisely because he wanted to kill people and reap combat points.
In this battle, the Marines suffered a crushing defeat.
The capture operation ended in failure.
Perhaps the only solace for the Marines was figuring out Skyler’s methods and some of his abilities, giving them a more detailed understanding of this person.