A barrage of Hurricane Fists slammed into Crocodile, nearly knocking him unconscious.
Crocodile was a tough man too. Enduring the pain across his face and body, he forcibly used elementalization during the brief interval after the Hurricane Fist combo ended and before the next attack arrived, merging into the sand and vanishing.
Whoosh... A gust of wind swept past, carrying the sand away. Across several hundred meters of desert, there was nothing and no one besides Carlos.
Carlos spread out his Observation Haki. The Mangekyō Sharingan's insight and predictive ability were no weaker than Observation Haki, but a pair of eyes still had blind spots unless they possessed a three-hundred-sixty-degree field of vision without dead angles like the Byakugan of the main family. That was why Carlos often paired it with Observation Haki.
"Yo, you're pretty stubborn, aren't you? You're not even thinking about running away. Though even if you wanted to run, you couldn't..."
The edges of the desert for several hundred meters around had already been surrounded by Shiryu, Martin, Dolores, Riley, and the Divine Eye Pirates' crewmates. Even Bear had removed his gloves, ready to lend a hand.
Although Bear had only just met Carlos, they had at least some connection. Naturally, he would help Carlos rather than Crocodile, a complete stranger.
As Carlos spoke, the sand beneath his feet began to surge like waves. A powerful suction force came from a hole in the sand, trying to drag Carlos underground. Once he entered the sand layer below, Carlos would truly be at a disadvantage.
However, that level of suction was not enough to restrain Carlos. Power erupted from his body as he broke free and leaped beyond its reach.
Desert Treasure Blade!
The ground shook. A slash gleaming with golden light cut upward from underground, but