A golden figure streaked through the air as barrages from every kind of weapon swept in from all directions like a torrential downpour.
Shiki unleashed a massive Flying Slash, clearing the barrage from one direction. The Zaku troops scattered to evade it, and only two were destroyed.
Even with the dense fire from the other directions hounding him, Shiki kept looking for ways to fight back as he flew and dodged.
"You just won't fight fair and square!"
As a great pirate, Shiki would never say something as foolish as "you're ganging up on me." Besides, he had always prided himself on being a one-man army. What annoyed him most was the Mechanical King's utterly unsatisfying way of fighting.
"Slash Wave!"
Rolling through the air, he swung his sword with the motion. A Flying Slash twisted like a tornado, tracing an arc through the sky, its curving sword energy piercing several Zaku troops.
Several bursts of fireworks exploded in midair, but a dazzling red-orange beam punched through the smoke, forcing Shiki to drop lower again, driven back into even more dangerous airspace.
On the ground, Zaku troops with portable antiaircraft cannons poured fire along Shiki's predicted flight path.
Shiki darted through the tracer fire, using Observation Haki to anticipate the truly dangerous electromagnetic cannon rounds, sniper grenades, and railgun sniper rounds.
As for rifles, machine guns, and even small-caliber autocannons, he dodged them when he could and tanked them with Armament Haki when he couldn't.
Despite the Zaku troops' ferocious assault, the number of hits they landed could be counted on one hand.
Aerial combat was Shiki's specialty. Even surrounded and pursued like this, his experience and Observation Haki let him find a suitable escape route most of the time.
"Efficiency above all."
Babbage, still maintaining an advantageous firing distance,