Farming Crocodile for Proficiency; Reviewing the Spoils!

"Sure enough, it was full-body Armament Haki?"

Dongze's expression remained unchanged as he looked again. No joy or sorrow showed on his face, but inwardly, he was already grinning from ear to ear.

His guess had indeed been correct. As a Devil Fruit User of the Sand-Sand Fruit, Crocodile's understanding and insight into the desert far surpassed that of ordinary people, and he could bring Dongze substantial returns.

The proficiency of Erosion Sword Intent on the panel had unknowingly reached 4,500/1,000,000.

Just three moves had raised his Erosion Sword Intent proficiency by 3,000 points. To him, this was absolutely a god-tier support.

Seeing the extremely serious expression on Crocodile in the distance, Dongze's thoughts raced. He couldn't scare away such excellent support, so he lightly bit through the tip of his tongue, and a thread of crimson blood ran from the corner of his mouth.

Seeing Dongze injured, Crocodile in the distance laughed with a mocking "geh geh geh." As long as he could break through his defense, Crocodile wasn't afraid of a war of attrition.

Because this was the desert—his main battlefield.

"Brat, do you know how powerful I am now?"

"What are you calling your daddy for? Even injured, Daddy can still teach you how to behave!"

Dongze's venomous tongue remained as sharp as ever. Hearing his words, Crocodile instantly flew into a rage. At that moment, he had already resolved to teach Dongze a lesson.

However, this time, before he could make a move, Dongze attacked first.

He had to commit fully to the act. If it was too obvious, he would give himself away. After all, his opponent wasn't an idiot.

Forgotten Dust was drawn, and Armament Haki covered it.

The long sword then split the air, with Dongze's figure following behind. As the sword's momentum rose, the sky transformed into a space of interwoven black and white.

An Azure Dragon soared through the clouds, stirring up boundless killing intent.

When Heaven sends forth killing intent, the stars shift. When Earth sends forth killing intent, dragons and snakes rise from the land. When humans send forth killing intent, Heaven and Earth are overturned.

This was called Hundred-Pace Flying Sword!

After perfecting this sword technique, Dongze's understanding of the move had grown deeper and deeper, and he could now wield it with complete freedom.

At this moment, the supreme technique of Vertical Swordsmanship once again revealed its razor-sharp fangs to the world.

Crocodile, the Sand-Crocodile, was locked on. A chill ran through his entire body, and he suddenly discovered that his feet seemed glued to the ground. He couldn't move even one step.

Watching the sword flash toward him like lightning, a trace of fear unexpectedly rose in his heart. Even as a Logia Devil Fruit User of the Sand-Sand Fruit, he felt no additional sense of security.

"What the hell is this?"

Seeing the Flying Sword about to reach him, his expression grew increasingly ferocious.

He roared furiously in his heart: Move, damn you! Move! Move!!

Forgotten Dust reached him. The icy Sword Intent made his hair stand on end. Crocodile's body reacted instinctively, and he subconsciously used elementalization.

Dongze's final horizontal slash, the beheading strike, ultimately returned without result.

Seeing this, Dongze promptly withdrew and retreated explosively, once again widening the distance between himself and Crocodile.

Watching Crocodile reform his true body in the distance, Dongze narrowed his eyes. Sure enough, his guess had been correct. If a Logia user only wanted to evade and activated elementalization in advance, then even with Haki, killing them truly wasn't easy.

"Brat, you've completely angered me!"

"Erosion Cycle!"

Chapter Thirty-Three: Rage-Farming the Sand-Crocodile and Counting the Spoils!

In the desert, Dongze was confronting Crocodile.

"Heh heh! Brat! You're only wasting your strength! I'm a Logia!"

"In a moment, I'll definitely turn you into a dried corpse!"

Seeing that even the terrifying sword from before had failed to accomplish anything, Crocodile's taut nerves suddenly relaxed.

He looked at Dongze in the distance and spoke with extreme arrogance.

"Mr. Dongze!"

The person in the distance was Robin, who had already followed them here. After witnessing that astonishing sword strike, she began to worry.

Devil Fruit Users, especially Logia users, could elementalize and evade nearly all attacks. That was what Robin had read in books.

She had previously thought it was merely an exaggeration. But after witnessing it with her own eyes, she felt not only astonishment but also deep concern.

Dongze's expression changed. He chuckled and decided to change his previous strategy.

His proficiency didn't increase only when he was beaten. It also increased when he beat others—especially when the opponent was a Devil Fruit User who could be called the embodiment of the desert.

Armament Haki once again covered both his arms, and Forgotten Dust was wrapped in Armament Haki as well.

He then glanced at the Haki entries on his panel.

Observation Haki (Awakening): 325000/1000000;

Armament Haki (Awakening): 335000/1000000;

Conqueror's Haki (Awakening): 8500/1000000;

Then he said, "I hope you can dodge every time! Don't die, Crocodile!"

As soon as he finished speaking, Shave activated once more. The next second, he appeared less than a meter in front of Crocodile.

Eight slashes, each more than ten meters wide, tore through the air. They were fierce and domineering, sweeping through everything in their path.

This time, Crocodile was directly hacked into dust.

More than a dozen zhang away, Crocodile once again re-formed his true body. But this time, fear had appeared in his eyes.

That move had given him the taste of death as well.

Dongze was simply too fast—so fast that Crocodile had to focus with all his might just to keep up. If he hadn't kept elementalization active ever since he had said those words, that attack would have sent him straight to his death.

"Damn it! Where did this brat learn all these techniques? He's a complete freak! If I slip up even once, he'll kill me outright!"

Just like the first Hundred-Pace Flying Sword, the slash passing through his body made him feel as though he were walking a tightrope ten thousand meters in the air. The slightest lapse in attention would mean game over.

Watching Dongze vanish again without saying a word, Crocodile didn't even think about it and immediately elementalized.

As expected, another sword strike blasted him apart. A full-moon horizontal slash swept through the area, flattening the dunes within a ten-li radius. Seeing such power, he was rendered speechless.

The sensation of Armament Haki against his body made his scalp go numb.

"Damn! What a beast!"

Then came Heavenly Flying Immortal!

This move concealed killing intent beneath its splendor. Sword Aura scattered like flowers from the hands of a celestial maiden. The moment the sword was unleashed, it nearly made Crocodile cry out for his daddy.

Then came One Sword Across the Ages!

This sword thrust differed from a Famous Sword. Forgotten Dust was itself a sword, and it could unleash Sword Aura of astonishing sharpness. It was even faster than a sword-drawing technique. This strike left Crocodile unable to keep his cigar in his mouth. The cigar he had habitually clenched between his teeth fell to the ground, while his heart began racing far beyond normal limits.

Next came Hidden Light, Sitting in Forgetfulness! Countless swords of light surrounded him. After two full minutes of bombardment, Crocodile felt a chill shoot straight from the soles of his feet to his brain, leaving his entire body numb.

Watching move after move reduce the nearly ten-li stretch of desert around them by almost fifty meters, Robin stared dumbfounded at Dongze, who looked like a god or demon in the middle of the battlefield.

Back on the sea, she had seen him shatter a ship with one slash. In the desert, she had seen him split the heavens with one sword. She had known only that Dongze was powerful.

But seeing him again now left her heart pounding. Even the Buster Call she had witnessed in her childhood could never have reached this level. And this had only taken a few moves.

When she had read those legends in books—stories of people destroying a mountain with one punch and powerful fighters destroying an island in an instant—she had assumed they were exaggerations. Now, it seemed they were probably all true.

However, the battle did not stop there. Crocodile, frightened into a state of panic, no longer dared to deactivate his elementalization.

He had originally planned to use Erosion Cycle to ambush Dongze, but now he abandoned the idea completely.

The slightest lapse in attention meant death. The missing section of his cloak and the hookless Golden Hook behind him were proof.

His cloak was missing half of it, and even the hook on his Golden Hook was gone. Recalling what had happened earlier, he had nearly wet himself.

At that moment, he finally understood why this brat had acted so fearlessly before.

"Hey! Brat! I take back what I said earlier! Can we stop?"

Dongze acted as though he hadn't heard him and swung another sword.

Watching the proficiency on his panel rise rapidly, how could he possibly stop now?

"Hey! Brat! Don't push your luck!"

The slash swept across, and Crocodile was directly blown apart.

"Brat! I'm a Logia! You can't hit me anyway! You're wasting your time here—are you sick in the head?"

Crocodile was utterly aggrieved. Dongze didn't say a word. The moment Crocodile showed himself, another sword came flying at him, leaving him no choice but to evade with elementalization.

It was simply absurd. In this situation, he couldn't even escape.

Even if he burrowed deep underground, Dongze could slash him right back out. Every sword contained Armament Haki. If he didn't elementalize in advance, one sword was enough to cripple him. What else could he do?

As time passed, the sun sank in the west and rose again in the east. Robin had grown numb from watching.

Crocodile, the person involved, was even worse. He was practically going insane.

In the end, he began cursing at the top of his lungs.

"Are you a damn lunatic? I already said I'm not fighting anymore! Are you sick?"

"I told you, I'm a Logia! You're wasting your strength! Is there something wrong with your brain?"

"I'll curse your ancestors! Damn you! You're a lunatic!"

"..."

"Little brother! Can we stop fighting?"

"Is it not enough that I admit defeat?"

"I'll join you! Please, take back your Divine Ability!"

Crocodile couldn't be blamed. Even when he had challenged Whitebeard, he had never been treated this way.

Whitebeard had been magnanimous. After beating him for a while, he had simply thrown him aside.

The man before him was practically inhuman. Every sword made his heart tremble. Every sword forced him to evade. Every sword toyed with the limits of his nerves.

After an entire day and night, he was nearly driven insane.

Suddenly, a voice reached Crocodile's ears. He had never imagined that one day a voice could sound so beautiful.

"Who said I couldn't cut you?"

Crocodile instinctively elementalized at once.

Before he could recover, pain shot through his entire body. A wound stretched from his right shoulder to his left abdomen.

"I was cut?"

"So he can cut me while I'm elementalized!"

"You could cut me all along, so why the hell didn't you say so? Why did I keep dodging? I..."

Immediately afterward, Crocodile—the Sand-Crocodile, the Shichibukai—finally lost consciousness.

Even after losing consciousness, his body continued elementalizing. Seeing this, Robin's eyelids twitched violently from the distance.

At last, Dongze returned Forgotten Dust to its sheath and used Shave to arrive beside Robin.

He looked at the panel again.

Observation Haki (Awakening): 395000/1000000;

Armament Haki (Awakening): 405000/1000000;

Conqueror's Haki (Awakening): 8500/1000000;

Erosion Sword Intent: 400000/1000000;

Seeing this frightening increase, he nodded in satisfaction.

Excellent!

One Sand-Crocodile had raised both of his Haki proficiencies by nearly one hundred thousand points, along with four hundred thousand points of Sword Intent.

And below it, a new skill had appeared.

Meditation (Beginner): 100/10000;