Backstabbing Rocks, Borrowing a Knife to Kill

Rocks's furious roar traveled through the cramped underground passage.

The sound crashed against the damp rock walls, carrying a deep, muffled buzz. Like a beast trapped in an iron cage, struggling in its final moments.

Rektol stopped.

His military boots crushed the gravel underfoot, grinding a sharp piece of quartz into fragments with a crisp crack.

The tunnel was filled with dust. The air was so thin that it made his chest feel tight.

Katakuri stopped three paces ahead. Blood dripped from his back onto the dirt, splattering into several black spots. He turned his head, breathing somewhat heavily beneath his gas mask.

He did not ask why Big Brother was not going up. In this pitch-black passage, he obeyed only one voice.

Cracker leaned against the cold stone wall behind them, panting heavily. Hearing the commotion overhead, he shrank his neck in fear and clutched half a piece of black bread tightly to his chest.

Rektol patted the dirt from his hands.

The coarse grit fell through his fingers. Black ash was packed beneath his fingernails.

He reached into his pocket.

He pulled out the Den Den Mushi that was currently roaring furiously.

A layer of underground condensation clung to the Den Den Mushi's snail shell. Its eyes were shut, its mouth stretched wide open, and its soft body convulsed violently.

Its features twisted, vividly imitating Rocks's furious face.

"Rektol! Get your ass over here!"

A roar mixed with blood spittle erupted from the Den Den Mushi's mouth. Irritation and fear intertwined in the voice, stabbing painfully at the eardrums.

Rektol looked at the noisy soft-bodied creature in his palm.

He tugged at the corner of his mouth, revealing a row of fine teeth. He did not reply with even half a word.

Go up and provide support?

Become a meat shield for an old relic destined to be discarded by the old era?

His three-year-old body stood ramrod straight in the tunnel. The surrounding darkness could not suppress the chilling aura radiating from him.

Deep within his chest, two heartbeats rose at the same time.

"Boom! Boom!"

Their frequency was astonishingly fast. His blood slammed against his vessel walls like a flood breaking through a dam.

The heart on his left pumped out violent electrical currents. The heart on his right drew out terrifying gravitational force.

Two hundred million volts of lightning spread from his palm, instantly wrapping around the Den Den Mushi.

The Den Den Mushi was shocked rigid and rolled its eyes back. It forcibly swallowed the rest of its curses, emitting only a faint sizzling sound.

Rektol closed his eyes.

The perception network of the All-Knowing Eye exploded outward.

Following the coordinates of the electrical waves and sound, it extended straight upward.

It pierced through fifty meters of granite, passing through the tangled underground roots and subterranean rivers.

It locked onto the ruined cliff shaking violently at the edge of the grand canyon.

Found it.

Rektol opened his eyes. Blue light blazed within them, bright enough to sting.

He abruptly raised his right arm. With his five fingers pressed together like a blade, he thrust fiercely upward.

"Break."

A blue-white lightning pillar as thick as a barrel erupted from his fingertips.

A layer of translucent Reverse Gravity Field wrapped around the outside of the lightning pillar. The air was forcibly sucked away, forming a ring of visible vacuum ripples.

This force did not strike at Garp on the ground.

Nor did it target Roger, who was swinging his sword.

Like an invisible siege drill, it carried brute force capable of tearing through everything and shot straight toward the surface through the heavy layers of earth.

On the ground. At the center of God Valley.

Rainwater mixed with bloodwater and flowed through the muddy ground.

Garp's iron fist unleashed a piercing sonic boom. The Armament Haki covering its surface was so dense it seemed ready to drip like ink. It shot straight toward Rocks's face.

Roger's Ace Greatsword sealed off Rocks's escape route to the right. Conqueror's Haki lightning coiled around the blade, splitting the air with sharp cracks.

Rocks gritted his teeth until they shattered.

His chest was caved in, and blood bubbles sprayed out with every breath.

He prepared to use the wind from Garp's punch to retreat half a step.

As long as he stepped onto the protruding granite at the cliff's edge and jumped into the grand canyon, his mastery of physical combat would let him temporarily avoid the danger on the sheer cliff and buy himself time to catch his breath.

His rear heel had just exerted force. The sole of his military boot had only just touched the hard stone.

The granite beneath his foot suddenly let out a shrill scream.

"Rumble!"

A streak of blue-white lightning pierced upward from underground.

The violent Reverse Gravity instantly tore the rock strata at the cliff's edge to pieces.

Boulders weighing hundreds of tons floated upward against all reason. They collided with Roger's sword energy and instantly became dust filling the sky.

The shockwave sent several unlucky officers of the Rocks Pirates flying dozens of meters away. They slammed heavily into the ruined stone pillars and vomited blood.

Rocks's foot came down on empty air.

The sensation of weightlessness instantly enveloped his entire body. His heart jumped into his throat.

The speed and reflexes he prided himself on became a complete joke at this moment.

The cliff was gone.

His only escape route had become the roaring sea wind in the abyss beneath the cliff.

Rocks's body fell uncontrollably.

That half-meter drop placed him perfectly in the absolute blind spot of Garp and Roger's combined execution.

Above him was an iron fist capable of smashing a mountain peak. To the right was a sword capable of cleaving the sea.

There was nowhere to dodge.

There was nowhere to retreat.

Garp's black iron fist instantly filled Rocks's vision. The friction from the Conqueror's Haki ignited sparks in the air and singed Rocks's eyelashes.

Rocks glared down at the smoking hole.

His sclera was covered in dense red veins. The corners of his eyes split open, and blood streamed down his cheeks into his mouth.

He finally understood.

There had been no support. No one had gotten lost.

From beginning to end, that three-year-old brat had treated him as bait.

Not only had Rektol sold him out, he also intended to step on the corpse of this emperor of the seas and take the Celestial Dragons' foundations for himself.

Rocks had rampaged across these seas for decades. In the end, he had actually become a knife borrowed by a three-year-old child to kill someone.

Inside the underground passage.

The aftershock of the lightning pillar shook large amounts of dirt loose from the ceiling.

Rektol brushed the dirt from his shoulder.

He lifted the Den Den Mushi, which was still rolling its eyes, to his mouth.

He took a deep breath.

His three-year-old lungs expanded violently. Deep rumbling thunder rolled within his chest.

Two hundred million volts of electricity adhered to his vocal cords, amplifying his voice countless times over.

Rektol roared into the Den Den Mushi.

"Beautifully done, Roger!"

His voice transformed into tangible thunderous sound waves.

Following the blasted-open hole, they shot toward the high skies of God Valley like cannon shells.

They exploded above the clouds covering the entire island.

Thunder rumbled.

It forcibly drowned out the roar of cannons filling the sky and the sounds of tens of thousands fighting. Pirates and Marines across the island all covered their ears in pain.

"You keep the old relic occupied. The treasury belongs to us!"

After shouting those words,

Rektol suddenly applied force with his thumb.

"Crack."

The Den Den Mushi's skull was crushed on the spot.

Green slime splattered across his fingers. The call was cut off instantly.