On the fog-choked islet, rain mixed with the stench of blood, making the air thick and acrid.
Rain stood calmly in the center of an open patch of ground, fresh splatters of blood on his clothes.
Across from him, a tall figure stepped out of the fog, slow and deliberate.
"Maelstrom Spider" Squard.
Violence and killing intent rolled off him. He still carried minor wounds from the earlier sea battle.
"It's you? That Marine brat?" Squard flicked out his tongue and licked his sharp teeth, his single sly eye locking onto Rain.
"Your luck is awful," he grinned viciously. "You crawled out of the sea just to be torn apart by my hands here?"
"I'll return that line to you," Rain said, slowly drawing his sword, the blade reflecting the gray fog.
Squard stopped wasting words. He stomped—cracks spidered through the ground—and he launched forward like a cannonball, the longer katana screaming through the air as it came down in a brutal overhead chop.
Rain inhaled once. Every muscle in his body snapped taut. Dense, pitch-black Armament Haki flooded over his blade like ink.
Head-on.
KRAAANG—!!!!
A deafening impact exploded.
A violent shockwave mixed with rain blasted outward, kicking loose stones off the ground.
A monstrous force hammered through Rain's sword. He was driven back five or six steps, each footfall stamping deep prints into the slick earth. Pain flared through his arms; his grip went numb.
Tch… that's strength, Rain assessed instantly. His physique is above mine. My Armament is more refined, but in raw power clashes, I'm the one losing.
"Not bad, brat." Squard confirmed the kid really could fight him straight on.
He surged again. One long blade, one short—his twin swords became a storm, weaving a dense "web" of steel through the fog that swallowed Rain completely.
Hard-trading with someone who had the advantage in power was stupid.
Rain focused everything and pushed his Observation Haki to the limit.
In an instant, the world slowed inside his perception.
Squard's seemingly wild slashes turned into crisscrossing "future lines."
"Left long-blade sweep—aiming for the waist… then right short-blade thrust—heart…"
Rain clearly "saw" every next movement.
And yet—
Shhk!
Rain tried to dodge early, but his body lagged by half a beat.
Squard's short blade scraped across Rain's ribs, kicking up a spray of blood.
"Damn it!" Rain hissed, retreating sharply to open distance. I saw it—but my body didn't keep up!
This was the first time he'd used "future sight" in a real life-or-death fight.
He could see the future, but his body was still stuck in the old rhythm—fighting by instinct and habit.
That mismatch between "fast" and "slow" tore at him.
"What's wrong, brat?!" Squard pressed forward, sneering. "Feeling the gap now?"
He had no idea what was happening. He just assumed Rain had barely survived the first exchange by some trick and was running out of steam.
"Spider: Thousand Blades!"
Squard's assault intensified. His twin swords became a killing storm.
No. Calm down! Rain forced himself steady.
Don't move after you see it—move before it happens. Trust what you see.
Facing the next lethal barrage, Rain did something absurd—
He closed his eyes.
He abandoned vision entirely and handed everything over to his perception.
Under Squard's stunned stare, Rain's body began slipping through the blade storm in a strangely awkward way.
The long blade passed a hair from his nose.
The short blade stabbed empty air beside his back.
Rain's movements were clumsy, even ugly—more than once he nearly tripped himself—but he came out unscathed, dodging the "sure-kill" combo without taking a scratch.
"What?!" Squard was genuinely shocked.
His proud web of blades couldn't even nick the edge of Rain's clothing?
Why is this brat always one step ahead?
That uncanny "wrongness" made frustration bloom inside Squard.
In the instant Squard stiffened—just a fraction—at what he was seeing…
Rain opened his eyes.
He was starting to catch the feeling.
Now.
Rain's Observation Haki showed him a gap—a gap that would appear in three seconds, a gap he himself would force into existence.
"You filthy bug!" Squard roared, fully enraged by Rain's bizarre footwork. He unleashed his strongest thrust, lunging in with his whole body.
Rain didn't retreat. He raised his sword in a panicked block to the right.
Got you. Cruel delight flashed in Squard's eye. This was his favorite kind of prey—overconfident little brats.
But because he poured everything into that thrust, his left side opened completely.
In the next heartbeat—
A strange-looking pistol was suddenly in Rain's left hand.
The muzzle was pressed directly at Squard's lower back.
BANG—!!!!
A bullet coated in pitch-black Armament Haki detonated into Squard's unguarded lower back at near point-blank range.
"GAAH—!!!"
Agony and the Haki shock punched through him instantly.
Squard's thrust froze mid-motion. He stared down in disbelief at the bloody crater in his back—through it, he could even glimpse shredded organs.
He couldn't comprehend how the Marine brat's gun had appeared out of nowhere.
The fight was decided.
Rain would never give him room to breathe.
"You lose."
Rain appeared in front of him as if teleporting. While Squard's body was still locked by pain, Rain's sword—flooded with full Armament—carved a cold arc.
In Squard's horrified, unwilling gaze, the blade severed his throat cleanly.
Squard's body stiffened. He clutched his spraying neck and fell hard, eyes still wide with disbelief.
His final thought was: Damn it… to die to… such a dirty ambush…
[Judgment complete]
[Prisoner: "Maelstrom Spider" Squard]
[Overall Rank: SSR2]
[Status: Executed]
[Sin Index: 85,000]
[Execution Involvement: 100%]
[Selectable Rewards]: (7 options)
[Wish List]: (activatable)
"Hah… hah…"
Rain stood over Squard's corpse, breathing hard.
"I won…"
This was the most dangerous battle he'd faced since transmigrating.
He'd won through calculation and surprise, but he felt drained—physically and mentally.
"SSR-class really is no joke."
He didn't even look at the other rewards.
[Physique Inheritance]—immediately.
Raising physique first was always the right move.
In an instant, an unprecedented torrent of warmth surged through his body.
He could feel every cell, every muscle fiber, every bone being washed clean—reborn, elevated.
The bleeding gash at his side, under the combined effect of the new power and [Life Return], stopped bleeding and began sealing almost immediately.
Rain slowly clenched his fist.
Power—new, overwhelming power—flowed through him like molten lava.
He raised his hand and opened his palm, as if he wanted to close it around the fog-shrouded sky and the storm-tossed sea itself.