The countdown ticked down to fifty seconds.
The Anywhere Door hung above the exhaust trench. Beyond it lay neither the Clinic nor a safe evacuation point.
It was the churning ignition flame beneath the rocket.
The orange-white exhaust was cut off by the doorframe, like a river of lava forcibly dragged into the ground. Heat surged toward them, instantly blistering the paint on the fence.
Absolute Slaughter's Black Armor began to boil.
The armor blades on her shoulders softened inch by inch. Holt's face emerged from her chest, his lips bleached pale by the heat.
"So you're afraid of fire too." Yang Ming clamped down on her wrist.
Absolute Slaughter said nothing.
She suddenly grabbed Holt by the nape and dragged his entire body toward the Anywhere Door.
Holt's toes scraped the ground, and his soles instantly charred.
Absolute Slaughter used that momentum to retreat.
As long as her host entered the flames first, she could shed all the material connecting them.
Yang Ming's gaze turned cold.
His Observation Haki pressed through the gaps in the Black Armor.
The outer material was contracting.
The shoulder armor was a decoy.
The chest cavity was a decoy.
The real neural core lay hidden beneath Holt's right collarbone, pulsing with Absolute Slaughter's consciousness. Every pulse shifted its position.
"Found you."
Yang Ming tightened his fingers.
Absolute Slaughter's body abruptly stiffened.
Basic Conqueror's Haki crashed down.
There was no sound.
Yet every raindrop around Yang Ming slammed into the ground at once, and an invisible force pressed a ring of cracks into the pooled water.
Absolute Slaughter's mind went blank for a tenth of a second.
That was enough.
Armament Haki coated Yang Ming's right hand, and his five fingers pierced the Black Armor like scalpels.
He did not tear sideways.
First, he avoided