I Won't Lose to Anyone

At the same time, Tesoro swung the microphone stand in his hand and brought it crashing down on Sandersonia's head. She caught it in one hand, but the microphone stand exploded again! A cloud of yellow powder spread out with the blast.

"Poison powder?" Having fallen for it again, Sandersonia suddenly felt a pang of panic. This was snake-catching powder specially made to target venomous snakes! The sound of machine-gun fire rang out from the yellow mist, battering Sandersonia until she swayed without pause.

Excited laughter erupted from Charmak Saint in the stands. "Hahahahaha! I gave him the Navy's most advanced armor-piercing rounds! Even an iron plate would be turned into Swiss cheese!"

Yet Hancock merely stood far behind them, coldly watching the towering snowman.

Snowman Butcher Machio also stood at the rear, utterly motionless.

An unexpected shift occurred in the arena, drawing cries of alarm from the spectators. Captain Dais, standing eight meters tall, could not force Marigold down. Instead, he was gradually pushed back.

"When it comes to strength..." Marigold's body kept growing, swelling larger and larger as she rose upright. Soon, she stood far taller than Dais. At the same time, Marigold wrapped her tail around Dais's body, binding his waist and arms. She pulled with all her might, gradually twisting his posture out of shape before slamming him to the ground with a thunderous crash.

The sound of bones shattering erupted all over Dais's body as he let out an earth-shaking scream.

"I won't lose to anyone! Tail Spear—!" Marigold's tail tip transformed into a long spear coated in Haki and struck Dais fiercely in the stomach. Dais flew like a cannonball and crashed into the wall. Marigold slammed her spiked club heavily against the ground, claiming an easy victory.

The gunfire on the other side stopped. Tesoro stared in shock at the battlefield as the smoke cleared. The snake woman across from him was completely unharmed?

"Snake Dance. Pretty, isn't it?" Sandersonia swayed her enormous head and even flashed Tesoro a broad smile. "Not a single shot hit me."

In the face of the Observation Haki she had trained, every place Tesoro aimed his bullets was perfectly clear. To her, his movements were entirely in slow motion.

"Monster!" Tesoro gritted his teeth and pulled out a grenade. Now, they could only die together! He hoped Charmak Saint would keep his promise and set his beloved Stella free.

But green hair flashed suddenly, and the grenade Tesoro threw was knocked hundreds of meters into the air.

With a boom, scorching airwaves burst overhead. The grenade's power was astonishing. Even the spectators in the surrounding stands could feel the rolling heat.

Tesoro was stunned. What had hit his hand? It had been too fast to see!

A sea of emerald green stretched before him, surging like waves. Tesoro immediately started running; from this angle, he had no way to hit his opponent. But those emerald waves chased after him, as if they could sense the direction of his escape. They blocked off every route of retreat, then transformed into eight enormous serpents and bit down on Tesoro's hands and feet.

"This is... hair?" Tesoro finally saw clearly.

"Snake Hair Barrage! Yamata no Orochi!" Sandersonia raised her head. The emerald-green hair atop her massive head surged like ocean waves, each strand winding tightly around Tesoro's body.

Tesoro struggled and even fired a few shots, but he soon stopped moving. With a flick of the emerald hair, Tesoro fell to the ground with his eyes rolled back. He looked as though he had been strangled unconscious.

In the stands, Charmak Saint cursed loudly. "That useless Tesoro!"

When the showers of sparks raining from the sky landed on Snowman Butcher Machio, the man who had stood motionless in the back all this time finally spoke.

"Boring."

An icy wind suddenly blew from the snowman's body. The airwaves descending from above were instantly blown away by the cold wind, becoming Shadowless, and even the spectators in the surrounding stands began to shiver. Snow suddenly began falling from the sky, freezing winds swept through the entire arena, and the temperature dropped by thirty degrees.

Miming stared at the snowflake that landed in his palm, startled. Could this be the power of a Logia Devil Fruit?

"Bring the cups over, quickly!" A group of Celestial Dragons, their noses running from the cold, began screaming.

The bulletproof glass around the stands rose and sealed together with the roof, turning the area into an enclosed space. Warm air immediately began to blow inside.

By then, a thick layer of snow had already accumulated on the ground. Two huge snowmen stood in the arena, the sort built from snowballs. One was the more than eight-meter-tall Captain Dais, and the other was Tesoro.

Snowman Butcher Machio was in no hurry to attack. Instead, he happily began building snowmen. He rolled the two unconscious men across the ground, and in the blink of an eye, they became two snowballs. Then he piled more snow over the heads sticking out of the snowballs.

"I hate seeing blood. I don't like killing people either." Machvise patted Dais's head, and the snow beneath his palm became thicker and thicker until it quickly formed a sphere.

Then Machio somehow produced enormous giant carrots. He broke off a pointed end and stuck it into the face of Tesoro's snowman. He then stuck the remaining portion into Dais's face.

The stands erupted in cries of surprise. "Look, they became snowmen!"

In an instant, Captain Dais and Tesoro had become two bizarrely shaped snowmen. Their faces were twisted into grimaces, still retaining a few traces of their original expressions.

"This way, no one can tell they're humans, right? They're monsters!"

As Machio spoke, he pulled a giant snow shovel from behind his back, his expression turning savage. "And monsters should be smashed like this—!"

Cheers filled the stands. "Snowman Butcher! So he's the Snowman Butcher who specializes in killing snowmen!"

With a bang, the snow shovel aimed at Snowman Tesoro smashed a horrifying crater into the ground.

Sandersonia's long hair swept Snowman Tesoro away just in time, but because of that movement, her body grew even colder and her movements became stiff.

"Big sister, I... can't move anymore!" Marigold's strained voice rang out. Sandersonia did not seem to be in much better shape either, her body covered in a thick layer of snow.

Hancock was wrapped in a thick cloak and seemed cold as well, especially since she was still wearing a full suit of iron armor. Snowflakes glittered atop the metal surface, forming a thin crust of ice.

Sandersonia suddenly used all her strength to hurl her great blade. It slashed into Machio, plunging deep and piercing straight through his heart.

The stands erupted in shocked cries.

Yet Machio seemed to feel nothing. He reached out, gripped the blade, and pulled it from his chest as though he were pulling out a fruit knife. His body was completely uninjured.

"So far, very few people have been able to truly hurt me," Machio said coldly.

"How can this be?" Sandersonia and Marigold were already too frozen to move, and they realized the gravity of the situation.

Rosward and Shalria burst into laughter. Rosward said smugly, "Now do you understand why I was willing to pay such a huge price? Snakes are terrified of the cold! Wahahahaha!"

Shalria smiled smugly. "And snowmen aren't human, so they won't be affected by the Love-Love Fruit's petrification at all!"

A group of Celestial Dragons burst out laughing. No wonder Rosward had been so confident. It seemed Dais and Tesoro had merely been there to make up the numbers.

In the arena, Machio shouted, "Don't worry. You'll become snowmen soon enough!" As he spoke, he raised his enormous foot and stomped down at Sandersonia and Marigold. Their bodies were covered in snow, and they could no longer move.