Chapter 116: Battle (Patreon)

While Moren was occupied with Rhine, Robin and Baccarat's situation was becoming increasingly precarious.

Across from them, Ella moved like a phantom. Using Shave to dart at high speed, she flicked her wrists and sent out countless ultra-strong steel wires, each as fine as a strand of hair but incredibly tough.

Some of the wires were embedded with fragments of Seastone, a material notoriously difficult to work with, yet deadly against Devil Fruit users.

Every time Robin tried to attack or defend, the Seastone-laced wires would intercept and entangle her with surgical precision. Contact with the Seastone brought waves of weakness, slowing her movements and severely limiting her ability usage.

She could only rely on her combat experience and physical skills to keep her distance and evade, but Ella's relentless, spiderweb-like assault, specifically designed to counter her, had already left several bloody scratches on her body.

"The Devil Child, your ability is useless against me!" Ella sneered. She flicked her wrist, sending several wires snaking toward Robin's wrists and ankles like poisonous serpents, while her other hand launched a sharp steel spike aimed straight at Robin's throat.

Robin twisted and dodged, but the spike grazed her shoulder, leaving a bloody gash.

Baccarat's situation was equally grim. The hulking Norton was a human tank, carrying a customized small cannon and constantly bombarding her with specialized ammunition loaded with tranquilizers or explosives.

On the rare occasions Baccarat found an opening to counter, he would simply use Tekkai to defend, shrugging off her attacks entirely.

Baccarat was never a frontline fighter. Under this relentless barrage of firepower and close-quarters pressure, she could only dodge frantically, her movements growing increasingly desperate.

BOOM! A shell exploded where she had been standing moments before. The shockwave sent her tumbling across the sand.

"Cough, cough, damn you, you big brute!" Baccarat scrambled to her feet, covered in dust. "Time to replenish my luck!"

Still, despite her predicament, her Devil Fruit ability continued to work its subtle magic.

Just as Norton aimed at Baccarat and was about to pull the trigger, he stepped on one of his own spent shell casings. His foot slipped, his body lurched, and the shell went wide, flying past Baccarat and landing near Ella, exploding and giving Robin a moment of reprieve.

"Watch where you're aiming! What the hell are you doing?!" Ella shouted at Norton.

Norton shrank back sheepishly, unable to argue. It had indeed been his fault.

Baccarat seized the moment. She exchanged a glance with Robin and quickly scrambled over to her.

Robin had combat ability, but Ella had come prepared to counter her specifically, leaving her at a disadvantage. Baccarat, while not a fighter, had luck on her side. Together, Robin was able to leverage Baccarat's fortune to barely turn the tide, but it wouldn't last long. Baccarat's luck wasn't infinite, and both her stamina and her luck were rapidly running out.

The battle between Moren and Rhine was a completely different spectacle.

Their movements were so fast they left only afterimages behind, the clash of blades ringing out without pause.

Rhine was undeniably one of the most formidable opponents Moren had ever faced. He had mastered Armament Haki, and his command of the Six Powers was flawless. Every technique flowed naturally from his hands.

His fighting style wasn't flashy, but it was like a precision machine, every move and ounce of force used with perfect efficiency.

Shave for blinding speed, Moonwalk for mid-air maneuvering, Paper Art for fluid dodging, Tekkai for hardened defense, Finger Gun for pinpoint thrusts, and Tempest Kick for ranged slashes.

These skills blended seamlessly into a comprehensive, ruthless offensive and defensive system. His attacks were vicious and precise, his defenses ironclad. He constantly used his vast combat experience to edge Moren away from where Robin and Baccarat were fighting.

Robin's abilities were being hard-countered, and Baccarat was struggling. Though they occasionally managed to fight back, they posed little threat to opponents of Ella's and Norton's caliber.

I need to end this quickly, Moren's mind raced for a solution.

Rhine was too strong to defeat in a short time, but Robin and Baccarat couldn't hold out much longer.

Rhine seemed to sense Moren's distraction and pressed harder, his tone cold.

"Give up. Your companions will fall soon."

"We came fully prepared to deal with Nico Robin. Her abilities are useless against Ella."

"Is that so?" Moren's gaze sharpened. He had made his decision.

The next moment, as he used his blade to deflect one of Rhine's Tempest Kicks, Moren's left hand slammed downward.

"Sandstorm Burial!"

BOOM!

The ground around Moren for hundreds of meters shook violently. Countless grains of sand surged like a tidal wave, as if stirred by an invisible giant hand, surging toward Rhine with overwhelming force. This was no mere wave of sand. It carried the terrifying power to crush and devour.

Rhine's expression shifted. The intelligence he had gathered was incomplete. He had known Moren had somehow acquired the Sand-Sand Fruit's abilities after defeating Crocodile, but unleashing them so suddenly during close-quarters combat caught him completely off guard.

He instinctively tried to use Shave to retreat, but the sand was too fast and too wide.

"Tekkai!"

In desperation, Rhine pushed Tekkai to its limit while pouring all of his Armament Haki into his defense, bracing himself to withstand the blow.

BOOM! The massive wave of sand swallowed him whole, burying him deep beneath a massive dune that continued to writhe and compress, trying to crush him.

Seizing the brief opening, Moren vanished.

"Shave!"

In an instant, he appeared between Robin and Ella, blocking the steel spike aimed at Robin.

"What?!" Ella was stunned. She hadn't expected Moren to break free from Rhine's grip and arrive so quickly.

But her reaction was lightning-fast. She flicked her wrist, redirecting the wires meant for Robin into a net laced with Seastone, hurtling toward Moren. At the same time, she launched a special projectile, a metal net embedded with even more Seastone, aimed straight at him.

"You're a Devil Fruit user, so surrender quietly!" Ella shouted, confident in her Seastone weapons. A single touch would weaken any ability user, robbing them of their strength.

But Moren showed no panic. He didn't even dodge.

He simply raised his blade, Yubashiri. In an instant, a layer of dense, pitch-black Armament Haki coated the entire blade, forming a tiny pitch-black gleam at its tip that sent chills down one's spine.

"Break," Moren murmured.

The next moment, his blade moved like a flash of lightning tearing through the night.

SHING!

No deafening roar. Only the faint sound of a blade cutting through silk. The Seastone-laced net disintegrated on contact with the black blade, scattering into countless shards of metal.

"Impossible!"

Ella's sneer froze. For the first time, disbelief flickered in her eyes.

Her Seastone weapon had been shattered so easily?

Just how strong was this man's Armament Haki?!

In that instant of shock, Moren stepped through the falling debris and appeared before her, close enough to touch.

Ella's pupils contracted. A primal sense of death made every hair on her body stand on end.

She tried to retreat, to use Paper Art, to summon more wires.

Too late.

Moren's blade moved.

It was a simple, straightforward horizontal slash. No frills, but impossibly fast and impossibly sharp.

The black blade traced a faint arc through Ella's vision.

SHLICK!

A soft sound of steel passing through flesh and bone.

Ella's body went rigid.

She felt a chill at her neck.

Then her vision began to rise and spin uncontrollably.

She saw her own headless body, still holding its defensive stance, blood spurting from the severed neck.

Then she saw the black-haired young man's calm, emotionless eyes.

Finally, she saw the twilight sky and drifting sand.

Then, darkness.

THUD!

Ella's head hit the sand, rolling a few times before coming to rest, covered in grit.

Her body crumpled, blood quickly staining the sand around her.

From Moren's sudden appearance to the destruction of the net and Ella's death, it all happened in the span of a heartbeat.

Norton, who had been locked in battle with Baccarat, and Rhine, who had just clawed his way out of the sand, both saw it.

Their expressions twisted.

"ELLA!"

Norton let out a thunderous roar of pure rage.

Rhine's expression became terrifyingly grim.

He had never imagined that such a brief window would allow Moren to kill Ella.

"You'll pay for that!"

Rhine's voice was venomous, his killing intent exploding like a physical force.

"Flying Finger Gun!"

Rhine's roar echoed across the battlefield.

His arms bulged with muscle as his ten fingers, coated in condensed Armament Haki, thrust forward in impossibly rapid succession.

A storm of concentrated Finger Gun projectiles erupted from his fingertips, raining down on Moren's position.

This was an advanced application of Finger Gun, wide-ranging and highly penetrative. It was meant to pin Moren down and create an opening for close combat.

At the same time, Rhine used Shave, blurring into motion, using the barrage of Flying Finger Gun as cover as he hurled himself at Moren.

Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at Norton, still fighting Robin and Baccarat.

He didn't speak, but his meaning was unmistakable.

Finish those two women. Now.

Norton looked at Ella's corpse, his eyes bloodshot with rage.

His rage and killing intent erupted like a volcano. But he also understood that this wasn't the time to act recklessly.

He understood exactly what his captain meant.

Only by eliminating Nico Robin first would they have any chance of concentrating their full strength against the terrifying Collector.

"DIE!"

Norton roared like a wild beast, redirecting all his rage toward Robin and Baccarat.

His customized cannon poured relentless fire onto the two women.

But without Ella suppressing Robin's powers with her Seastone weapons, the tide of battle had already begun to shift.

"Thirty Blossoms: Claw!"

Robin's face was pale, but her eyes had regained their usual calm.

She crossed her hands before her chest, pushing her ability to its limit.

Several dozen white arms sprouted across Norton's body, grasping his arms, legs, and torso.

They weren't trying to snap his bones.

Instead, they tightly restrained his joints and points of leverage.

Although they couldn't overpower his tremendous strength, they were more than enough to interfere with his movements at critical moments.

"Gigantic Tree!"

Above Norton's head, countless arms merged into a massive palm that came crashing down with a howling wind.

Norton's heart lurched.

He immediately tried to use Shave to dodge.

But the instant he gathered his strength, the sand beneath his feet had somehow become unusually loose.

He stumbled involuntarily, and the power he had gathered instantly dissipated.

That single stumble cost him everything.

The gigantic palm slammed down.

BOOM!

Sand exploded into the air.

Norton barely managed to raise his cannon above his head while activating Tekkai with all his strength before the enormous palm smashed him deep into the sand.

Only half of his body remained above the sand.

His head spun, and he found himself unable to move.

"Nice one, Robin!"

Baccarat pumped her fist excitedly from the side.

Robin smiled, but she didn't stop.

The giant palm continued slamming into the ground over and over, each impact shaking the battlefield.

Noticing that Robin and Baccarat had completely reversed their situation and were now launching a counterattack, Moren allowed himself a slight sigh of relief.

With no need to worry about Robin and Baccarat anymore, he could finally devote his full attention to the strongest enemy before him.

At that very moment, Rhine had already charged through the lingering barrage of Flying Finger Gun and closed the distance.

His fighting style had undergone an obvious transformation.

Gone was the precise, machine-like approach that focused on control and attrition.

In its place was a wide-open, all-or-nothing assault filled with reckless ferocity and savage brutality.