Hearing the voice from behind, Killingham was startled.
'Who could sneak up behind me without my notice?'
As he turned to look, what appeared in his vision was a blue sword aura carrying dark red lightning.
SLASH!
Killingham was instantly sliced in half, falling from the treetop downward.
In that moment, his two separated eyes glimpsed the appearance of the newcomer.
Disheveled white hair and a silver cloak.
It was a handsome old man holding a four-foot-long sword.
'The Dark King... Silvers Rayleigh.'
'Hmph. Just livestock with slightly stronger power.'
While thinking this, a peculiar energy emanated from within Killingham's severed body.
Under the influence of this energy, his body that had been cleanly cut in half by Rayleigh actually fused back together in mid-air.
Completely restored, Killingham performed a backflip, lightly stepping with his left foot on the trees on either side before returning to the giant treetop, though the pristine bubble covering his Qilin head was now gone.
He was extremely angered by this as veins bulging on his forehead!
Killingham and Rayleigh, standing on adjacent giant treetops, faced each other across the distance.
"You big insect! Because of your recklessness, I'm breathing the same air as you!"
"You deserve death!"
Facing Killingham's taunts, Rayleigh remained completely unfazed, resting his sword on his shoulder.
During his years sailing the seas, he had experienced everything.
He had seen plenty of Celestial Dragons more arrogant than this guy before him.
Most Celestial Dragons were just pets raised by the Ruler of the World—it was understandable they'd be a bit foolish and arrogant.
Just tools helping Imu rule the world.
As for the regeneration ability of the Five Elders and the God's Knights, Rayleigh was also aware.
So what he needed to do was stall this guy.
Let Luffy and the others clean up these nightmare monsters as quickly as possible.
...
Nami's area-of-effect lightning attacks had been unleashed three times without effect.
This was nearly exhausting their navigator.
Robin's Hana Hana no Mi eye clones also couldn't discover Gunko's whereabouts in the dense forest.
The others were even worse off—Mikita, Bon Clay, and Brook completely lacked vision or tracking abilities.
Especially Brook, who was really having a rough time.
Out of every three times Gunko appeared from the shadows, twice she was beating him up specifically.
Now Brook's entire skeleton was nearly shattered with fractures.
Fortunately, he always carried milk with him—one drink could repair his bone injuries instantly.
Gunko's clearly preferential attack frequency made Brook realize he might hold some special significance to her.
After carefully recalling his past, Brook made a surprised sound.
"My goodness... how could she... it can't be."
"Did she recognize me?"
Decades ago, Brook had been the captain of a certain West Blue kingdom's guard regiment before becoming a pirate.
The Gunko causing them trouble today might very well be someone he had known back then, or a descendant of someone he knew.
...
Regarding finding the elusive Gunko, Franky had thought of a good method.
He transferred parts of his newly acquired soul energy into some flowers, plants, and trees through his Soul-Soul Fruit ability.
He didn't need these newly created Homies to have combat capabilities—just surveillance would suffice.
And because the plants contained fragments of Franky's soul, the information they saw could be transmitted back to Franky's mind.
Based on the current progress of placing "wards" for vision, it wouldn't be long before there would be nowhere left for Gunko to hide in this forest.
'By then, we'll surely be able to come up with a countermeasure, right?' Franky thought, grinning.
Just as Franky reached the final spot in the forest where he could release souls (placing his last "eye"), a glowing arrow reappeared in the air.
The arrow pointed directly at the back of Franky's metallic head.
Gunko emerged from the shadows.
She wrapped the arrow-patterned bandages around her right hand, shaping them into a dense, blade-like weapon.
Following the directional arrow targeting Franky's head, she swung her blade and charged forward silently.
According to her Devil Fruit ability's mechanics, no matter how Franky dodged, Gunko's strike would inevitably pierce through his skull once marked.
But Franky, who was in the process of imbuing souls into stones, remained completely unaware of this impending doom.
At the very moment Gunko's bandage-like blade was about to deliver a fatal blow to Franky's blind spot—
SWISH!
A slender figure instantly appeared.
CLANG!
A kick infused with Haki swiftly knocked away Gunko's bandage-blade-wielding right hand.
Standing behind Franky, she exhaled a puff of smoke from her cigarette.
It was Shakky, the former Queen of Amazon Lily and ex-captain of the Kuja Pirates, who had made her move.
Thanks to Shakky's intervention, Franky finally realized he had just been in a life-or-death crisis.
"Whoa! SUPER strong auntie, thank you~!"
WHACK!
No sooner had he spoken than Franky was sent flying over a hundred meters away by a tremendous force to the back of his head.
Shakky furrowed her brows, lowering her smoking fist.
"I don't appreciate being called 'auntie' by a pervert in a speedo like you."
Right after saying this, Shakky charged toward Franky's direction again.
Because Gunko's glowing arrow still pointed at the back of Franky's head.
The mark hadn't vanished.
The blade struck once more, and even Franky's mechanical body seemed to sweat cold drops.
"Can attacks marked by that arrow NOT be interrupted?!"
If not for Shakky using her immense strength and Haki to block Gunko's assault again, Franky would undoubtedly have met a fatal end.
Thus, Franky began retreating toward his comrades' location, with Shakky staying by his side, repeatedly repelling Gunko's lethal, homing attacks aimed at him.
After five failed attempts to bypass Shakky, Gunko finally canceled her directional arrow mark on Franky.
She sighed, her brows tightening above her heterochromatic eyes, revealing an impatient expression.
"You're just a dying former Empress dares to interfere with my fun?"
"Fine then... I'll eliminate you first."
With that, Gunko activated her ability again.
The glowing arrow now pointed directly at Shakky's chest.
Simultaneously, she created a massive 30-meter boot out of her bandages, coated it entirely in black Armament Haki, and charged straight at Shakky.
Shakky could sense the terror of this attack.
Exhaling a smoke ring, she spoke seriously to Franky.
"Go inform Robin and Bonney. I truly am getting old... and need their assistance."
After saying this, Shakky also enveloped her right leg in Armament Haki.
She turned sideways to the right, aligning the arrow-targeted area on her chest with her right leg to intercept the strike head-on.
BOOM!
The collision erupted, sending clouds of dust and smoke billowing through the forest.
…
The massive commotion from the intense battle in the forest naturally caught the attention of Robin, Nami, Bonney, Mikita, and the others.
But at that moment, they couldn't rush to provide support to Shakky.
Because the massive "Poverty-stricken" dream monsters had also swarmed their battlefield.
Despite their unremarkable, ragged appearance, the enormous size of these 100-meter monsters inherently granted them formidable physical strength.
Each monster's actual combat prowess was no weaker than Oars from Thriller Bark.
Nami's mind operated at high speed as she rapidly generated thundercloud bubbles from her Sorcery Clima-Tact.
If she wanted to inflict significant damage on these giants, she would need to create a thundercloud at least a hundred meters wide.
Similarly for Robin, her ordinary Hana Hana no Mi clones couldn't deal effective damage to such massive targets.
She could only use her "Gigantesco Mano" skill at a high stamina cost, creating six giant, beautiful legs to hold back three "Poverty" monsters single-handedly.
Each massive leg possessed impressive kicking techniques, repeatedly forcing the starving monsters to retreat.
One giant leg, wrapped tightly in Armament Haki, executed a brutal upward kick, striking directly at the crotch of a particularly aggressive Poverty monster wearing only ragged underwear.
CRACK!
Instantly, this Poverty monster lost its combat ability, collapsing to the ground and wailing in high-pitched agony.
To ensure the monster wouldn't get up again, Robin used her giant beautiful legs to stomp repeatedly on the fallen giant.
After nine heavy stomps, the Poverty monster ascended to heaven in ecstasy (or pain), dissipating back into dream mist.
"Whew~ That was exhausting."
Robin wiped the sweat from her forehead with her sleeve and continued fighting the other giant monsters.
Due to her leg injury from Kizaru, Mikita could only attack with her fists coated in Armament Haki.
Though slightly weaker in striking strength than her kicks, by manipulating her weight behind her punches, she was close to defeating one of the monsters.
Bonney was quite interesting—she activated an even more peculiar application of her ability.
She imagined a specific alternate future in her mind.
Taking a deep breath, her right fist suddenly swelled to the size of Luffy's Gear Third: Bone Balloon and slammed into the monster's head.
"Distorted Future!"
BAM!
However... due to a lack of actual physical power to back up the massive size, it only pushed the 100-meter monster back half a step.
"Hmm... I've thought of a better way."
So, Bonney transformed into her small child form and disappeared into the dense forest.
Ready to play a bit dirty.
...
In the distance.
Ray unleashed another Wind scar slash, sending Nusjuro flying through the air again.
He also observed the struggling situations of Robin, Nami, and the others below through his Observation Haki.
After a moment's thought, he came up with a good plan.
Though after this, Nami might completely exhaust her stamina and fall into a resting state.
Once decided, Ray released his vast demonic energy straight into the sky.
RUMBLE...
In no time, the entire sky above Sabaody Archipelago was shrouded in unnatural darkness, with massive, roiling thunderclouds gathering overhead.
Nami looked up at the sky and revealed an excited, predatory smile!
---------
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