The moment Esdeath touched the ground, an icy chill exploded outward from her, spreading in all directions. The scorching magma rapidly cooled, solidifying into a hard stone surface. Even the erupting lava streams froze mid-air, turning into towering black pillars that stood rigid across the battlefield.
"It's you!"
The instant he saw Esdeath, Sakazuki recognized the "comrade" who had once fought by his side during the Paramount War. Yet at the same time, he felt an odd sense of relief.
Esdeath's abilities were far too similar to Kuzan's Ice-Ice Fruit, and Sakazuki had been worried that his next opponent would be his former colleague.
"Come on—fight me! Use battle to entertain me!"
Esdeath's lips curled upward, revealing something close to a feral grin. She raised her arm toward the sky and opened her palm.
In the next instant, several colossal ice prisms—each more than a hundred meters in diameter—materialized in the air. With a downward sweep of Esdeath's hand, they plummeted toward Sakazuki's position like falling mountains.
"Run!!"
Pirates and soldiers of the Holy Land Defense Corps scattered in terror. Those gigantic ice prisms were like descending glaciers—more than enough to instantly annihilate anyone present.
Even if a Logia user like Sakazuki wouldn't be killed, the shockwaves generated by the impact alone would flatten every pirate and soldier within hundreds of meters, swatting them like flies.
"Great Eruption!"
Feeling the crushing pressure of the falling ice masses, Sakazuki drew a deep breath. The seething magma on his arm condensed into a colossal molten fist, which he launched upward. The overwhelming force and blistering heat instantly vaporized every massive ice prism in its path.
Even the battlefield's temperature—sharply lowered by Esdeath's freezing aura—spiked upward again in a flash.
A Logia user as powerful as Sakazuki was a natural disaster incarnate. Fighting in a frozen wasteland couldn't truly hinder him.
However, facing a powerhouse whose strength was nearly equal to his own, even the smallest environmental advantage could become decisive. There was no way Sakazuki would allow Esdeath to turn the battlefield into her domain.
"Warm-up's over. Let's enjoy a real slaughter!"
A thrilled smile spread across Esdeath's beautiful face as her blade became wrapped in jet-black Armament Haki.
Although she hadn't "nurtured" the sword long enough for it to evolve into a black blade, that didn't diminish the pleasure she felt when cutting down her enemies.
With a single step, Esdeath's figure vanished. When she reappeared, she was already in front of Sakazuki, her blade wrapped in crackling black lightning as it came crashing down toward him.
In speed, strength, and martial technique, Esdeath had reached the absolute pinnacle.
Her only physical shortcomings had been erased once she mastered all three types of Haki. It was no exaggeration to say that Esdeath now had the qualifications to rank among the top three fighters in the entire world of pirates.
"Hound of Hell!"
Caught completely off guard, Sakazuki made the decision—within the shortest possible moment—to drag Esdeath into a mutual-destruction exchange.
If this blade fell, Esdeath would be able to sever one of Sakazuki's arms, but she herself would inevitably be pierced clean through by his "Hellhound."
But just as Sakazuki calculated that the blue-haired woman before him would surely dodge, giving him the chance to press the attack and overwhelm her defenses with relentless blows, his Observation Haki suddenly flared with frantic warnings.
Only then did Sakazuki realize that Esdeath had absolutely no intention of evading.
On the contrary—she was acting like a woman who no longer cared whether she lived or died, putting even more strength behind her swing, fully intending to chop off Sakazuki's arm.
Sakazuki had encountered enemies willing to fight to the death before, but a woman this ferocious—willing to sacrifice her life just to bite off a chunk of her opponent—made him feel as if he had smashed head-first into a steel wall.
Esdeath's sheer brutality ignited Sakazuki's own bloodlust.
Trading one arm to take down a powerful enemy? A profit no matter how he looked at it.
"ROAR!"
The blade wrapped in crackling black lightning struck Sakazuki's shoulder first.
The moment blood sprayed through the air, a burning magma fist slammed into Esdeath's abdomen.
But just as Sakazuki prepared to drive his attack straight through Esdeath's body, his Observation Haki "foresaw" her next move.
Zzzraaa!
The flesh already sliced open suddenly melted into scorching magma—and Esdeath's blade cut it cleanly in two.
Logia users were generally able to avoid attacks by elementalizing their bodies.
Even Esdeath, who had mastered all three forms of Haki, found it difficult to seriously injure Sakazuki when he was completely focused on defense.
"Tch. Why'd you stop?"
Esdeath casually froze over the magma-burned wound on her abdomen.
He had been just a little short of burning straight through her stomach—maybe even piercing her entire torso in one blow.
If that had happened, even Esdeath would have been as good as dead.
After all, that level of injury was something even top-tier fighters struggled to survive—aside from the so-called "Strongest Creature Alive," Kaido.
"…Don't get ahead of yourself. The battle has only just begun, you lunatic woman!"
Sakazuki reverted to human form again, a trace of shock and uncertainty still lingering on his face.
Although he avoided having his arm severed by timely elementalization, Sakazuki still received a huge gash across his shoulder from Esdeath's blade.
That single cut reduced Sakazuki's combat effectiveness by at least twenty percent—this despite the fact that Sakazuki doesn't rely heavily on pure body technique.
"Ah, then let's get back to it!"
Esdeath flicked the molten slag off her blade, cracked a grin full of madness, and charged at Sakazuki again.
Since developing healing through the Stand "Withering Rose" that Kizaru granted her, Esdeath has grown more fond of a fighting style that lets her fully relish the joy of battle.
What once belonged exclusively to Kaido's delight in battle is now something Esdeath can enjoy too.
No matter how her opponent tries to wound her, Esdeath can absorb the damage through her Stand and heal—yet her attacks remain brutally effective.
Even a coarse, violent monster like Kaido was beaten into silence by her; he'd rather hide than meet her again.
"Large Lava Fist!"
Realizing Esdeath was not the fragile target he'd imagined, Sakazuki decisively shifted his fighting approach.
He abandoned the close-range trade of wounds—Esdeath could simply heal—and tried to create distance to play to the strengths of a Logia user.
°°°
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