Crocodile's Frustration / The Battle Heats Up

The two of them soon arrived at the door to a room.

"Sir Knight, our boss is inside. Please, go in," the man in the suit said to Arthur, standing outside the door.

Arthur promptly pushed the door open and walked in.

Inside the room, the area by the window was brightly lit, while Arthur stood in the shadows by the door like a phantom.

"Blond hair, a knight... I didn't expect you to give me such a big welcoming gift the moment you arrived." Crocodile's heavy voice carried a note of accusation. "So, have you come to tell me your choice? Mr. 6, or... Wind Sword Knight?"

"One seal released, Excalibur—"

Rather than answer Crocodile, Arthur reached out and grasped an invisible sword.

The wind dispersed, revealing a magnificent blade. Its dazzling radiance dispelled the gloom and lit up the entire room.

Whoosh—

Without taking a moment to charge, Arthur raised Excalibur and slashed at Crocodile.

The radiance gathered on the blade shot out as a beam, its cutting edge propelled by a torrent of gold that roared like the sea.

Boom—

A deafening blast rang out, echoing to the heavens.

Thick smoke billowed everywhere.

Inside the casino, almost everyone could feel the whole of Rain Dinners shaking violently.

Those outside could see it more clearly.

A dazzling golden light burst from the top floor of Rain Dinners, reducing it to ruins as though it had been blown apart.

Whoosh—

A figure hurtled down from the sky and crashed into the ground, leaving an enormous crater.

Another figure floated down right after.

"As expected of a Logia. What a shame."

Looking at the crater shrouded in thick smoke, Arthur sensed signs of life with his Observation Haki and couldn't help sighing.

Chapter 34: Crocodile's Frustration

"I see. So that's what you're after? You want to take my head and make a name for yourself across the seas, knight brat?"

A low, hoarse voice came from the dust, within which a figure was faintly visible.

Excalibur, still in Arthur's hand, was hidden once more by Invisible Air. He looked at Crocodile's figure in the dust without attacking again, a hint of regret in his eyes.

True Name Release of Excalibur, with more than one seal released, required time to charge.

Arthur hadn't had much time to give Crocodile a chance to react, so he could only unleash Excalibur with one seal released to catch Crocodile off guard.

Clearly, Arthur had still underestimated the Logia users of this world.

Their Elemental Transformation really was troublesome.

Crocodile slowly emerged from the dust. His earlier bearing as a boss was gone, and he looked utterly disheveled.

His fur coat and the cigar in his mouth had vanished, and the Golden Hook on his left hand had melted away until only a short piece remained. Several burns and wounds marked his arm and chest, proving that Arthur's blast of light had not been entirely ineffective.

Crocodile, battered into a sorry state, glared at Arthur with murderous intent. His face twisted as he said, "You want to step on me to climb to the top? Then are you ready to die, knight brat?"

"Lord Crocodile..."

"What's going on? Who's Lord Crocodile fighting?"

"More pirates?!"

"..."

Seeing Crocodile appear in such a sorry state, the nearby residents of Dream City stopped in their tracks and instinctively backed away, clearing the area. They watched from a distance, discussing it among themselves.

With Crocodile's sinister schemes still unexposed, his reputation in Alabasta and Dream City remained exceptionally high. In particular, the spectacles he often staged himself had led many residents to believe he was Alabasta's guardian deity.

"Have I been taken for the bad guy? I didn't expect a Shichibukai like you to have such a good reputation here," Arthur said with a chuckle, pretending not to know about Crocodile's plans as he glanced around.

"Done with your last words? Then die! Sables!"

But Crocodile, who had suffered minor injuries and serious damage to his image, was no longer in such a good mood. He was a cruel and thoroughly self-centered man to begin with, and now that Arthur had enraged him, all he wanted was to suck the hateful brat dry.

Crocodile raised his right hand and threw out a small sandstorm.

The instant it left his hand, it turned into a massive sand tornado that swept toward Arthur, seemingly intent on drawing him in and tearing him apart.

Swish—

Faced with the attack, Arthur merely gave Excalibur a gentle swing.

A golden wave of sword pressure spread out, easily cutting the sand tornado in two.

"Whoosh... bang!"

The bisected sand tornado kicked up a violent gust. A figure darted through the thick cloud of sand as soon as it spread, and the two men's attacks collided once more.

The blast of air from their powerful clash swept everything away. Arthur had raised his right foot to block the gold handguard left after Crocodile's Golden Hook melted. Their eyes met, Arthur's calm and Crocodile's grim.

Swish—

The two didn't remain at a stalemate for long. Arthur seized the initiative, slashing at Crocodile with Excalibur.

"Slash—"

A seasoned fighter's instincts alerted Crocodile, and he instinctively swerved back. But his carelessness still cost him a cut across the chest.

"Armament Haki... you brat..."

Crocodile retreated several paces and glanced down at the sword wound on his chest. A trace of wariness entered his eyes as he looked at Arthur and said through gritted teeth, "Who exactly are you? Someone from the East Blue couldn't possibly know Armament Haki."

Crocodile had attributed the earlier light blast to his own carelessness and being caught off guard, without noticing the several burns on his body. But he had been serious just now, and aside from opposing elemental properties and Seastone, only Armament Haki could hurt him in his Elemental Transformation.

And anyone proficient in Armament Haki was certainly no nobody.

At that moment, Crocodile no longer regarded Arthur as a brat fresh out of the East Blue.

"Sorry, I can't tell you," Arthur said evenly. He kicked off the ground and shot forward.

His expression serious, Arthur gripped his sword in both hands and launched a fierce assault on Crocodile.

Excalibur was coated in Armament Haki and concealed by Invisible Air. Arthur looked as though he were holding a mass of wind, and Crocodile, wary of his command of Haki, could only evade for the moment.

As Arthur pressed his attack, every swing of his sword left another wound on Crocodile, some deeper than others.

"Damn it! Hiding your blade like that, do you even call yourself a knight, brat?" Unable to judge the exact dimensions of Arthur's invisible sword, Crocodile failed every time he tried to dodge. Furious at being left with humiliating wounds by such a hateful brat, he shouted.

Unfortunately, Crocodile had specialized in his fruit ability and left the New World after his failed challenge against Whitebeard. He had never learned Haki, the means to establish a foothold in the New World. Otherwise, he could have used Observation Haki to predict Arthur's attacks and dodge them.

If his Golden Hook hadn't melted, he could also have used it as a weapon to clash with Arthur.

Without the Golden Hook, Crocodile had effectively lost the use of one hand and was trapped in a frustrating defensive position.

"In that case, as you wish." Arthur halted his fierce assault. A gust swept out from Excalibur in his hand, revealing its magnificent golden blade.

Arthur's habit of hiding the blade with Invisible Air came from memories of his previous life. He hadn't transmigrated into the Nasuverse, so after hearing Crocodile's words, he was happy to oblige.

"A straight sword. Which of the Twelve Supreme Grade Blades is it?" A flash of admiration passed through Crocodile's eyes as he looked at the golden sword in Arthur's hand. Like everyone else, he immediately understood why Arthur had used such a method to hide the blade. It was indeed a Famous Sword that could not fail to inspire greed.

Powerful swordsmen in particular could not resist its appeal.

The last time he had seen a sword this magnificent, it had been Mihawk's Black Blade, Yoru.

That was why Crocodile had instinctively asked about the Twelve Supreme Grade Blades rather than the Twenty-One Great Grade Swords.

"Unfortunately, this isn't a man-made sword," Arthur said evenly. Excalibur was a holy sword forged by the planet, far beyond comparison with the Famous Swords of this world.

Chapter 35: The Battle Heats Up

"A man-made sword? I don't understand. Forget it... I'll kill you first, brat, then take my time investigating!" With those words of boiling murderous intent, Crocodile saw that Arthur had revealed his blade and switched from defense to offense. His entire arm turned into a blade of sand, and he swung it fiercely at Arthur. "Desert Spada!"

The sand blade abruptly grew enormous. Like a wave of sword pressure unleashed by a swordsman, it split the earth, carving a deep trench through the ground.

It was lightning-fast.

Faced with the blindingly swift attack, Arthur seemed to have foreseen it. The moment Crocodile's attack came down, he stepped aside and dodged it with ease.

Unless a ranged attack like that was too fast for Arthur to react to, it was nothing but a joke before Instinct (A)'s ability to see the future.

"That annoying Haki again." Seeing Arthur move as if he had known beforehand, Crocodile once again mistook it for Observation Haki and cursed inwardly.

Having left the New World early, he knew about Haki but had rarely fought powerful Haki users. Moreover, those who possessed Haki either specialized in physical combat or were ability users. Mihawk was the only person Crocodile knew of who had both superb swordsmanship and skill with Haki, but they had never fought.

Now, facing Arthur, Crocodile finally experienced how troublesome Haki could be.

"Finished attacking? Then it's my turn," Arthur said with a faint smile as he looked at Crocodile's dark expression.

"Don't get cocky just because you've mastered Haki, brat."

In Crocodile's eyes, Arthur's smile was unmistakably a provocation. When had a rookie ever mocked him like this?

"Let me show you the true terror of a Logia." The humiliation filled Crocodile with unprecedented rage. He even forgot that this was Dream City, forgot the heroic image he had cultivated in Alabasta. He dropped into a crouch, placed a hand on the ground, and unleashed a wide-area attack unique to Logia users. "Erosion Cycle!"

As the words left his mouth, the moisture in everything within a thousand meters—stones, dry grass, wood, buildings—was drawn out completely, as though pulled by a powerful magnet. In an instant, everything within a thousand meters of Crocodile withered and cracked, before visibly crumbling into clouds of yellow sand.

Rumble—

A shudder that shook the earth and mountains spread across the land. Cracks began to open in the ground, drained of its moisture, and sections of earth sank or rose.

"Crocodile, stop!"

"Please stop, Lord Crocodile! We haven't gotten away yet!"

"..."

The onlookers within the thousand-meter radius cried out in despair as they fell one after another into the cracks, then were buried beneath the sand that the stones had become.

Like a mirror, this act turned Crocodile's image in the people's eyes around.

Little did they know that this was the real Crocodile.

A ruthless, utterly self-centered schemer who would kill anyone once they had lost their value.

In Crocodile's eyes, his so-called heroic image was merely a way to seize Alabasta and thereby obtain information about Pluton more easily.

But Nico Robin had been missing for more than half a month. The only person who could read Ancient Script was gone.

And now a rookie from the East Blue had provoked him and left him in a sorry state. Rage filled his mind. At this moment, Crocodile no longer considered Alabasta or Pluton important. All he wanted was to suck this hateful brat dry and vent his hatred.

"That's quite something."

Guided by Instinct (A), Arthur had leaped high into the air before Crocodile used Erosion Cycle. Hanging in midair, he looked at the once-bustling streets below, now transformed into a vast expanse of desert, and sighed softly.

"Still in the mood to admire the scenery?"

A mass of yellow sand gathered in front of him, forming Crocodile's upper body. Crocodile reached his right hand toward Arthur and spoke with a vicious grin.

"Sorry, I can't let you touch me." Unflustered, Arthur pointed Excalibur at Crocodile.

A golden wave of sword pressure severed Crocodile's outstretched right hand, but no blood spattered, and the hand quickly re-formed. Crocodile sneered. "Haki can touch a Logia user's real body, but Armament Haki has different levels of strength too. As long as I give up attacking and remain in Elemental Transformation, your spirit isn't enough to matter, brat."

"Such free and easy Elemental Transformation... as expected of a Shichibukai." Arthur hadn't expected Crocodile to switch freely between a killing move and his normal state. He couldn't help sighing as he changed to a two-handed grip, his eyes growing serious as he looked at Crocodile. "Then try taking this attack of mine."

"Two seals released, Excalibur—"

Light swiftly gathered. While they were both suspended in the air, before Crocodile could react, Excalibur in Arthur's hands began to shine with a dazzling golden light. Combined with Arthur's own holy and noble bearing, it made the people looking up from below feel as though they were seeing a god descend.

"Not good, that move again. That's no slash."

Seeing the dazzling golden light flare up, Crocodile immediately sensed danger. His lower body, transformed into sand, whipped up a fierce wind and carried him toward Arthur like a sand tornado.

But it was too late.

Whoosh—

Like a meteor streaking across the sky, a golden beam shot across the clear heavens, seemingly visible from all of Alabasta.