Crocodile's entire body went rigid, his mind a complete blank.
Wave Guiding King… Aaron Kyle.
That name was like a dark cloud looming over every ambitious person in the world, so heavy it was suffocating. How could he be here? Why was he here? What was he doing in Alabasta? Countless questions exploded in Crocodile's mind, but his body was too shocked to react.
Just then, Kyle moved. He took two steps forward, hooked a finger, and picked up the cigar that had fallen to the ground, still coated with a thin layer of sand. Then, he slowly walked up to Crocodile and, as the Warlord's pupils constricted in shock, calmly put the cigar back into his mouth. His movements were as casual as if he were lighting a cigar for an old friend.
"..."
This single act was enough to ignite Crocodile's pride as a ruthless king of the desert. It was blatant humiliation. A rush of blood went straight to his head. He abruptly took a step back, his somber face twisting with pure rage. A roar, suppressed to its absolute limit, was squeezed from his throat as his body trembled with fury.
"You bastard, what kind of sick joke is this?!"
Admitting defeat was one thing, but surrendering without a fight was impossible. Crocodile had once fought Douglas Bullet, the Demon Descendant, to a standstill. He had even challenged the great Whitebeard himself! Even if he had lost, those battles proved his strength. For years, he had been plotting in this desert, scheming to obtain an Ancient Weapon capable of overturning the world. He, Sir Crocodile, was second to no one!
"Sandstorm!" Crocodile roared, plunging his golden hook deep into the ground.
Boom—!!!
His violent fury transformed into tangible power. Centered on him, an endless sea of yellow sand surged into the sky, instantly engulfing the entire Raindinners casino. The sturdy buildings were like paper in the face of this natural disaster, torn to shreds and turned into dust that filled the air. The entire city of Rainbase shook.
Countless residents and gamblers screamed as they fled the collapsing structures, their faces masks of terror. They ran frantically toward the city's outskirts, and when they dared to look back, they saw a colossal sandstorm tornado obscuring the sky. It connected the heavens and the earth, emitting a dull roar as if it were about to swallow the entire city whole.
In Alabasta, there was no shortage of sand.
"In my kingdom, I am God!" From the center of the storm came Crocodile's arrogant, hoarse cry. Here, he had the absolute geographical advantage. His power was limitless. What can you possibly do to fight me now, Kyle?!
The response he received was not a fearful plea for mercy, but a flash of black-gold light that tore through the sky.
Whoosh—!!!
It was a single slash. A black-gold slash that spanned the entire sky, so massive it looked as if it could cleave the heavens in two. It was completely silent, yet it carried the domineering power to cut through anything and everything. Wherever the light passed, the raging sandstorm was neatly split open, leaving a huge gap down the middle like butter cut by a red-hot knife.
Sunlight poured through the gap, and for a moment, the swirling sand in the sky seemed to pause.
Deep within the storm, Crocodile's elementalized body reformed. He was unharmed, but the cold sweat on his forehead instantly drenched his temples. A lazy voice drifted clearly to his ears.
"Oh, I missed."
The voice was casual, as if commenting on a trivial mistake. But to Crocodile, it was more chilling than any threat he had ever heard. I would have died. The thought surged uncontrollably from the deepest part of his mind, wrapping around his heart like a cold vine. Missed? If that slash hadn't been aimed at the storm, but at me… Crocodile didn't dare to think any further. He felt as if the blood in his veins was turning to ice.
To his surprise, after unleashing that world-breaking attack, Kyle slowly made the black-gold naginata in his hand disappear. He stood his ground as the sand blew around him, a faint black-gold light flowing around his body that kept every grain of sand at bay.
Kyle looked at the pale-faced, rigid Crocodile and spoke slowly. "You know, little sand flea." He paused, his golden pupils sweeping across the boundless desert. His voice wasn't loud, yet it carried clearly to Crocodile's ears. "Besides silicon dioxide, there's also… iron in the desert."
The moment his words fell… Hum—
The entire earth began to emit a low, vibrating hum.
Crocodile's pupils suddenly widened. He looked down in disbelief at the sandy ground beneath his feet. He saw something impossible happening. In the endless yellow sea of sand, tiny black substances—grain by grain, thread by thread, piece by piece—were being pulled from the gaps between the sand particles. They vibrated, gathered together, and then slowly, irresistibly, began to rise into the air.
It was iron sand. All of the iron sand contained within the desert.
Under Kyle's will, these particles of metal, scattered across tens of thousands of square kilometers of desert, seemed to hear the call of their king as they awakened from their long slumber.
Kyle ignored Crocodile's shock. He simply opened his arms and closed his eyes, as if embracing the new, black world he had just created.
"Dance."
Rumble rumble—!!!
The black iron sand in the sky responded. It gathered behind him, forming a black storm even larger, deeper, and more terrifying than Crocodile's sandstorm. From a distance, two storms of clashing colors, both containing boundless power, stood in defiance of each other, dividing the sky into two distinct halves.
On one side was the yellow sandstorm, a symbol of natural disaster and destruction.
On the other was the black tide of iron, a symbol of absolute death and finality.
The entire kingdom of Alabasta seemed to fall into a deathly silence under the weight of these two opposing forces.
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