"Did you notice, Shiki? All your men have been taken care of. You're all alone now!"
"Eighty Owl Commanders!"
Lucas whipped his weapon through the air. With each flash of the blade, another crimson Flying Slash, hundreds of meters long, shot out like a torrential downpour, blotting out the sky as they descended on Golden Lion.
"Jihahaha! As long as I'm alive, the Flying Pirates will never disappear! Shame about Indigo, though. A scientist that useful won't be easy to replace!"
Golden Lion's arms blurred. His two fine blades struck again and again, sending golden, crescent-shaped Flying Slashes surging like a tide into Lucas's crimson web of attacks.
"Lion: Thousand-Cut Valley!"
Their Flying Slashes collided violently in midair with deafening booms. Crimson and gold light tangled and vanished, unleashing bursts of turbulent air that spread in every direction and threw the sky into chaos.
"Ikoku!"
Amid the churning air, Golden Lion abruptly changed his attack. A column of force wreathed in black-red lightning shot from his sword, blasted through the turbulent currents, crossed over a hundred meters, and hurtled toward Lucas's face.
"Rocks's sword technique, I can understand. I didn't expect you to know Charlotte Linlin's too."
Lucas chuckled, amusement glinting in his eyes.
"Don't tell me you have a child in the Charlotte Family. Why else would you have learned her signature move?"
Even as he teased him, Lucas burst sideways with a sharp blast of white air beneath his feet and swept Dracule, wreathed in Conqueror's Haki, across his body.
"Divine Departure!"
The column of force split cleanly down the middle. Its two halves scattered to either side, and the howling wind swept over the ground, knocking down the giant beasts caught in the battle's shock waves.
Ferocious as those creatures were, they could only scramble to their