The Strongest, Hardest Armament!

As the two leaped into the air and charged at each other, Gotti, who had been aiming his FT-G rocket launcher at the target, fired.

They couldn't kill anyone from the family, but Daz was only an assassin. It wouldn't matter if both of them died together.

The rocket streaked toward the center of the clash, where Conrad and Daz were locked in a head-on fight.

Daz's arms spun into a Spiral Draw Slash, crashing down toward Conrad's face. His fragile skull looked as though it would be shredded in an instant.

But Conrad didn't dodge. Once he chose a target, he never changed his mind.

Shark Tooth Shigan: his hands spread to either side like wings, then his ten fingers closed together and clamped around Daz's chest and back.

Haki swirled around his Shigan fingers. Daz's eyes widened like a black bull's.

Squelch!

At last, blood filled the grooves, like the cruel grin of a shark's teeth.

Boom!

The rocket exploded against Conrad's ragged blood-red hair and Daz's blood-spewing body.

The two tumbled and rolled, crashing into the audience seats and smashing a section of them. Splintered wood, thick smoke, and flames shot upward.

The Mafia members running toward the passage stopped and looked back. At the top of the Opera House, the king and Tony watched tensely, trying to see the battle's outcome through the black smoke.

The smoke soon scattered, too, as Daz's spinning, chainsaw-like arms blew it behind Conrad like a pair of fans.

Conrad's hands were clamped around Daz's chest and back, his claws having pierced right through his broad, muscular body. Six claw tips, all but his thumbs and pinkies, protruded from either side, and blood poured from the wounds like a waterfall.

But Daz's chest still rose and fell. He was still breathing. There was still hope he could survive if they got him medical attention.

Meanwhile, Conrad's face and skull were being bent backward by the spiral blade on Daz's right forearm!

His head was slammed back at a ninety-degree angle! The blade twisted and tore into him in a frenzy!

His Marine uniform had been blown to shreds, and half his body was bloody and charred. The seventeen-year-old, barely five foot seven, arched his head back as the muscular right arm of a six-foot-six giant pressed against his face, the chainsaw blade grinding into him.

Bang, bang, bang!

Gunshots—six of them, one after another.

They came from a tattooed man among the Mafia members, his tongue hanging out in a curl. His name was Strange Gun Vito. He had enormous hands, so the revolver in his left hand was huge, too.

All six bullets tore through Conrad's tousled hair and struck the side of his face, leaving it bloodied.

The Mafia members relaxed.

The king and Tony exchanged a glance, then burst into cheers. "Hahaha! Go! Kill the rest of the Marines!"

Laffitte's gloomy face twisted into a sneer once more. He had thought he'd run into some strange little monster. After all, in these seas, there really were beings who could take on giants when they were only a few years old.

But then a savage laugh rang out. It started as a faint chuckle, grew louder and louder, and finally erupted into an unrestrained roar.

"Heh... hahaha... Yahahahaha!!"

The terrifying laughter made everyone who heard it feel as if they'd fallen into an icy abyss. Fear froze their legs in place. Every gangster was locked stiff before the stage passage, their heads turning back in unison.

The most terrified was Daz, the one closest to Conrad.

The voice came from beneath his forearm—from the mouth of Conrad's head, which should have been ground to pieces.

Then a force pushed upward, lifting his arm.

Before everyone's eyes, Conrad's bloodied head, bent back at a ninety-degree angle, slowly rose. Dazzling sparks flew from it.

Just as his head was nearly upright, it suddenly snapped back, smashing his face against the spiral blade. A thunderous clang rang out, echoing through the entire Opera House.

"Arrogant? You stupid iron turtle! The one thing you absolutely shouldn't have done was attack the strongest, hardest part of me—my face!"

As the clang faded, a face as black as pure onyx, reflecting the starlight of the night sky, came into view before every Mafia member.

They had never seen anything so black.

It was black as an iron wall, so hard it could block anything, or like the cavernous mouth of a giant Great White Shark, its depths impossible to see.

The blood was nothing more than gore from the explosion of his body, splattered across his Armament Haki-covered face.

A cold smile curled across that pitch-black face. He pulled his claws out of Daz's chest, threw his head back, and laughed as rolling waves of Conqueror's Haki burst out.

"Ah!!!" The Mafia members screamed and ran. Those who used violence to terrorize others would, in the end, be terrified by violence themselves.

Daz's burly body had already withered until he looked like an old man. If not for his iron organs being so difficult to absorb, he would have been reduced to bones like the ordinary Mafia members.

His life force had made Conrad shoot up another four centimeters, bringing him to five foot eight.

Daz closed his eyes. His will was fading from blood loss, but after only a second, they snapped open again, bloodshot.

Conrad was hunched beside him, driving his ten Shark Claws into Daz's chest over and over, alternating between left and right.

He kept going until he had taken the last of Daz's life force, leaving no trace of his remains.

Conrad couldn't catch his breath. He couldn't catch it at all. The craving had taken hold, and the pleasure he yearned for filled his entire mind.

He charged at Gotti, who had just fired the rocket launcher at him. His Soru was even faster than before.

Gotti had barely seen him stomp before Conrad crossed the audience seats and appeared right in front of him below the stage.

"Haah!" Gotti roared and swung the iron chain on his right arm. He could wield such a heavy steel rocket launcher one-handed and withstand its recoil, so he was clearly strong, too.

But he was too slow.

Before he could even raise his arm from the ground to his waist, Shark Claw had pierced in through the left side of his neck and into his chest. The tip of its middle finger plunged into his heart.

His blood recoiled in an instant, and his bearded face turned scarlet.

"Go! Get me out of here! I'm done watching!" The king tugged at Laffitte's coat sleeve.

Laffitte's browless face creased in a frown, his eyes full of disgust. If the king weren't under his hypnosis, he would have fainted the moment Conrad let his Conqueror's Haki leak out.

He thought it over in silence. His and Bege's original plan had been to pin the slaughter of the Marines and the prominent guests on Tony, provoking a conflict between the Marines and the Marlon Family.

Then they would seize the opportunity to unite the West Blue underworld.

These Mafia members were all Bege's subordinates.

But now the Marines had successfully retreated, the Mafia were running in every direction, and their will to fight had collapsed. The plan had already failed.

Laffitte sighed. "What a useless bunch of fools. These days, anyone with a future ends up becoming a pirate..."

Bang!

The Opera House roof was smashed through. Blood-red hair, rolling like waves, came into Laffitte's view.

A sense of danger surged through him, and two broad, pure-white wings abruptly spread from his back.

With a single flap, he lifted the king into the night sky, leaving Tony behind.

That left Tony alone to face Conrad, staring into those blood-red eyes.

He instantly wet himself. His legs gave way, and he dropped to his knees on the roof. "Save me! Save me! Please... arrest me! Put me in prison!"

Snot and tears ran down Tony's face. He had never wanted to go to prison as badly as he did at that moment. He truly wanted to go to prison.

He desperately hoped that Conrad would remember he was a Marine and remember the laws of the World Government.

But, alas, what greeted him was a claw larger than his head, piercing straight through his chest and abdomen.

Beneath the vast, pitch-black night, Conrad raised him high toward the dim moon.

The stars blinked. Surrounded on all sides, the Great Ominous Constellation was smothered into darkness by the even more vicious Ten Thousand Mile Slaughter, lying in ambush at its center.