Lure the Enemy Deeper

The afterglow of the setting sun spilled over the shattered ruins, and the wind gradually carried a trace of gunpowder smoke.

"The Iron-Cutting Realm already showed the beginnings of Armament Haki... Using me as a whetstone to hone your Haki? Then let's see if you have what it takes."

Rain flicked the blood from his fingertips. Against such an extreme physical fighter, he abandoned the close-range suppression he had originally planned to use.

"Then try this."

Rain abruptly clasped his hands together, then pulled them apart. The sandy ground around him instantly boiled as countless fist-sized chunks of intensely compressed granite rose into the air.

"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—!"

Hundreds of high-density stone bullets, carrying terrifying kinetic force beyond the speed of sound, poured down on Mr. 1 like a torrential storm. Such concentrated firepower could turn a warship into a sieve in an instant.

Yet faced with the overwhelming barrage of stone bullets, Daz Bones did not even attempt to dodge. He rapidly swung his blade-transformed arms and slashed head-on.

"Clang, clang, clang, clang!"

Dense sparks flashed wildly across Mr. 1's body. The stone bullets, capable of piercing ordinary steel plates, were all shattered into lime dust that filled the sky!

Not even the slightest scratch was left on Mr. 1's body.

"Too brittle." Mr. 1 slowly lowered his arms amid the rain of stone and looked coldly at Rain. "If throwing rocks is all you can do, then obediently wash your neck and wait."

"It's not over yet."

Rain's gaze sharpened as he violently stomped his right foot onto the ground.

[Leyline Execution: Great Thrust].

"Boom!"

The sandy ground beneath Mr. 1 instantly split apart. More than a dozen thick, sharp, gray-black rock spikes erupted from underground in a crisscrossing pattern like the fangs of a vicious dragon, attempting to skewer and shred him in an instant!

"Grip Slash!"

A trace of disdain flashed through Mr. 1's eyes. Rather than retreating, he advanced. His arms instantly transformed into two broad executioner's blades gleaming with cold light. As his body spun at extreme speed, two incomparably fierce crossing slashes erupted with a bang.

"Crack! Crack!"

The hard stone spikes, which could easily pierce a human body, were smoothly sliced into countless fragments the moment they touched Mr. 1's Twin Blades, collapsing with a roar like brittle crackers.

A body of steel, invincible against all.

Rain's brows knitted tightly together. His long-range bombardment and terrain-based attacks had completely lost their effect against this monster who had trained his flesh into refined steel.

"My turn."

Stepping over the rubble littering the ground, Mr. 1 suddenly leaned forward. At that moment, his heavy steel body erupted with terrifying explosive force. Like a cannonball fired from its barrel, he instantly closed the distance between himself and Rain.

"Spiral Draw Slash!"

The ends of Mr. 1's arms transformed into rapidly spinning circular blades, streaking toward Rain's chest with a shrill howl through the air.

"Clang, clang, clang—!"

The piercing clash of metal rang repeatedly through the ruins as sparks scattered in every direction.

Mr. 1 became a fierce whirlwind of steel, the blades on his arms slashing wildly at Rain's body with terrifying speed. However, without Haki reinforcing them, these refined-steel slashes, capable of cutting a small mountain to pieces, could not inflict any real damage on Rain. Every slash passed through gaps in the rubble, which swiftly reassembled into a human form.

Yet Rain's brows also furrowed slightly.

"Slashes without Haki truly can't threaten me. But this guy's steel body combined with that extreme speed makes him as slippery as an iron fly."

Every time Rain swung a heavy punch in an attempt to smash him apart, Mr. 1's battle instincts as a top-tier assassin always allowed him to pull away and retreat at the very last instant. Rain understood that against a physical opponent possessing absolute hardness and extreme speed, no matter how powerful his punches were, they would only hit air if he could not seize an opening.

"Looks like I'll have to set a trap and make him hand me the blade himself."

Rain stopped, slowly lowered his arms, and actually withdrew the ordinary rock armor cushioning his chest, deliberately exposing an obvious opening.

"Giving up your defense? Elementalization may not make you unbeatable. The power hidden within my body, come forth!"

A cold glint flashed in Mr. 1's eyes. His sharp assassin's instincts would never let such an opportunity pass. He violently crossed his arms behind him, and the steel muscles throughout his body tensed to their limit. His entire body seemed to transform into a massive pair of shears about to cut through everything.

"Dust Slash!"

With a furious roar, Mr. 1 swung the blades of his arms in a cross at speed beyond the limit! Two terrifying cross-shaped slashes, carrying an unstoppable sharpness, came crashing down toward Rain's unguarded chest!

Facing this lightning-fast killing blow, Rain neither dodged nor evaded. Instead, a mocking cold smile curled at the corner of his lips.

"Splurt—!"

A dull slicing sound rang out. Mr. 1's prized refined-steel Twin Blades cleaved deeply into Rain's chest without the slightest resistance!

It worked? Joy surged through Mr. 1's heart, but his expression completely changed the very next second.

No blood splattered out. There was no crisp crack of bones breaking, nor was there any sense of resistance from a blade cutting through flesh.

He felt as though his blades had struck a heap of loose gravel. Then those "gravel stones" instantly collapsed, closed, and solidified at terrifying speed and density!

"Enjoy cutting with that pile of scrap metal?"

Rain's cold face slowly loomed larger before Mr. 1. A demonic amusement gleamed in his dark gray eyes.

It turned out that in the instant before the blades struck him, Rain had elementalized the torso around his chest in advance, turning it into loose, fine sand and gravel. After allowing Mr. 1's blades to sink deep into his body, he instantly canceled his elementalization and transformed his chest directly into indestructible, ultra-compressed obsidian.

The terrifying physical density instantly formed a naturally perfect hydraulic clamp, forcibly "locking" Mr. 1's refined-steel Twin Blades inside Rain's body.

"I... can't pull them out?"

Mr. 1's eyes widened in terror. He used every ounce of his strength to pull his blades free and retreat, but the refined-steel blades stuck in the obsidian were as immovable as if they had been cast deep within a mountain.

His greatest pride, his speed, became a complete joke at that moment. His body was forced into fatal rigidity.

"Got you, scrap."

Rain's right hand, charged to the limit and compressed to the extreme, wielded [Obsidian Heavy Hammer]. Carrying Rain's absolute strength and violence, it smashed viciously into the blade of Mr. 1's trapped right arm!

"Break...!"

"Clang—crack!"

A crisp yet deafening sound of steel snapping echoed across the entire desert.

Under the overwhelming pressure of mass and the leverage principle, Mr. 1's right-arm blade, which he claimed could cut through even steel, was smashed cleanly into two by Rain's all-out Obsidian Heavy Hammer.

The broken refined-steel blade flew into the sky.

"Arghhhhh—!"

The agonizing pain of having his arm forcibly broken made even this man of iron let out a shrill scream.

But Rain's slaughter did not stop.

The obsidian fist that had shattered the blade continued onward, carrying terrifying residual force as it slammed viciously into Mr. 1's defenseless steel chest!

"Bang!"

Accompanied by the teeth-grinding sound of his sternum shattering, Mr. 1's prized steel body was smashed inward by that punch! He spewed a mouthful of blood mixed with fragments of internal organs, and his entire body flew backward like a kite with its string cut. He smashed through three massive stone pillars in succession before finally being buried beneath the rubble.

Rain walked toward the ruins step by step.

Within the rubble, Mr. 1 lay in a pool of blood, his sternum completely shattered and his right arm broken. His prized steel defense had been utterly destroyed. He was barely breathing now and had completely lost his ability to fight.

"You... are a real madman..." Mr. 1 looked at Rain approaching like a blood-soaked asura. For the first time, a complicated expression mixed with awe appeared in his eyes. Using his own body as bait to trap a blade was a mad style of combat that no Logia reliant on a Devil Fruit could possibly employ.

"I told you long ago that I would knock every steel tooth out of your mouth."

Rain walked up to Mr. 1 and coldly raised his right foot. The sole of his boot instantly transformed into a sharp obsidian spike, aimed directly at Mr. 1's heart.

"A hunting dog that disobeys orders should be prepared to die. Go to hell and repent for your arrogance."

But before Rain's foot could fall—

"Whoosh—"

A strange breeze suddenly swept through the previously calm desert ruins.

Then, the hard granite rubble beneath Rain's feet instantly lost all moisture and cohesion, transforming into a patch of extremely dry, fine sand.

The instant Rain stepped down, he lost his balance and toppled forward.

At the same time, a deep, hoarse voice carrying authority and coldness exploded above Rain's head amid the wildly dancing sandstorm.

"I can't let you hurt my man, kid from the West Blue."

A sandstorm that blotted out the sky instantly swallowed the entire ruin.