Three meters, six meters, eight meters... she only finally stopped growing when she reached ten meters tall.
The naginata she had originally held grew along with her expanding body. It had now become a gigantic weapon capable of cleaving a small mountain, its blade reflecting a chilling gleam in the sunlight.
Marigold was next.
Her transformation differed slightly from her sister's. Her body was likewise covered in a layer of ocher scales, but hers were smaller and more tightly packed, fitting against her skin like armor.
Her lower body also became a snake's tail, but its color was deeper, a dark yellow reminiscent of a desert viper.
She grew as well, though not as dramatically as Sandersonia, finally settling at around eight meters tall.
The Palaeophis-the largest venomous snake of ancient times. Though it lacked the terrifying size and strength of the Titanoboa, its venom was far more insidious.
The two enormous snake-woman giants stood side by side, their shadows covering a vast stretch of ground.
Chapter 22: Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress
When the ragged figures saw Sandersonia's and Marigold's enormous bodies blotting out the sky, they did not even slow down.
Their eyes were vacant yet frenzied. Like beasts stripped of reason, they knew only to chase the living creatures before them. Like hyenas scenting blood, they surged forward one after another, knowing nothing of fear.
Sandersonia moved to meet them first.
The gigantic naginata in her hands traced a dazzling arc through the sunlight, carrying tremendous force as it slashed viciously down on the crowd at the very front.
Boom!
Flesh and blood flew beneath that single stroke! The figures leading the charge were chopped directly into fragments. Severed limbs and pieces of organs sprayed outward like fireworks, painting a horrifying smear of crimson across the dry, rocky ground.
A head broke free of its body, tumbled through the air several times, then rolled to Saint Dio's feet.
Saint Dio glanced down, extended a foot, and gently nudged the head with the tip of his boot.
It was strange to examine. Its skin was an unhealthy grayish white, its eye sockets sunken, its pupils cloudy and unfocused. It looked like a corpse that had been dead for a long time, yet it could still move.
Rather than human, it looked more like some kind of animated zombie.
As though juggling a soccer ball, he flicked the head up with his toe, then caught it steadily in his hand.
He placed his other hand over the top of the head and exerted slight pressure with his fingers. A black orb of light slowly emerged from the head. It hovered in his palm for a moment before bursting like a bubble, dissolving into specks of light that dispersed into the air.
After the light scattered, a brand-new Devil Fruit appeared in his palm.
It was a strangely shaped fruit, dull iron-gray all over, with a hard, coarse skin that looked as though it were covered in a rusted metal shell.
The fruit was irregularly shaped, its surface covered in rivet-like protrusions.
As Saint Dio gazed at it, its name naturally surfaced in his mind.
Human-Human Fruit, Kabane Form.
"Kabane...?"
He murmured the name, turning it over before realization dawned, and a knowing smile curled his lips.
No wonder their clothing had looked like something from Wano Country. No wonder they had charged fearlessly toward death like mindless beasts.
So that was it.
Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress.
This world...
Saint Dio casually tossed the fruit to Stussy. She caught it securely, examined it with curiosity for a few moments, then put it away.
Saint Dio folded his arms and watched the battle ahead with interest.
Sandersonia and Marigold were putting their might on full display.
Facing the tide of Kabane pouring toward them, they swung their naginatas with fierce vigor. Severed limbs and bloody spray flew wherever their blades passed, and not a single Kabane managed to break through their defensive line.
The surrounding rocky ground was soon stained dark red, covered in a thick layer of shredded flesh and bone fragments.
Before long, however, the two discovered something.
These Kabane had extremely limited attacks-nothing beyond scratching and biting-and could not penetrate their defenses, covered as they were in thick scales.
Their scales were as hard as iron. The Kabane's claws and teeth could not leave so much as a white scratch on them.
The two simply abandoned their naginatas and instead used their enormous size to rampage through the waves of Kabane like heavy tanks.
Their thick serpentine bodies rolled across the ground, crushing the incoming Kabane directly into flattened meat.
With Saint Dio at the center, the two slithered in a huge circle, their long snake bodies linking head to tail to form an impenetrable barrier of flesh.
The Kabane charged forward one after another, only to become speed bumps beneath that defensive line, crushed into indistinct masses of flesh and blood.
Occasionally, a Kabane wielding a katana rushed up among the crowd, swinging its rust-covered blade at their scales.
With a sharp clang, the blade shattered and fragments scattered, without leaving even the slightest mark on the scales.
A second later, the sword-wielding Kabane was crushed beneath a snake's body, reduced to pulp that merged with the bloody carpet covering the ground.
Only when the last Kabane had been crushed beneath their serpentine bodies did the one-sided massacre come to an end.
By then, the rocky terrain had changed beyond recognition.
As far as the eye could see, the ground for hundreds of meters around was a dark red mire of flesh and blood. Severed limbs and shattered organs lay scattered throughout, and the air was thick with the stench of rust and blood.
The dry, rocky ground had been stained a horrifying crimson, as though it had just undergone a baptism in hell.
The blazing sun hung high overhead, baking the field of flesh and blood and raising a faint, blood-colored mist.
Saint Dio stood on the gore-covered ground, yet miraculously, not a single stain marked the hem of his white clothes.
With a light push of his toes, he leaped onto Sandersonia's enormous snake head and stood firmly atop it, gazing into the distance.
"Head toward the setting sun," he ordered, then turned to Stussy on the ground. "Scout the surrounding area. Let me know if you find a city or a railway."
Sandersonia tilted her enormous snake head slightly, a trace of confusion showing in her slit pupils. She did not know what a "railway" was.
But since it was Saint Dio's command, she merely shook her head without asking any questions, swaying her enormous serpentine body as she began moving toward the setting sun.
Stussy did not know exactly what "railway" meant either, but after following Saint Dio for years, she had long since grown used to his occasionally using words she did not understand.
In any case, I just need to find strange things that look man-made rather than naturally formed.
With that thought, she knelt on one knee and pressed her white-gloved palm into the still-warm pool of blood on the ground.
Stussy activated her Devil Fruit ability.
As though it had suddenly come alive, the pool of blood began boiling violently, countless bubbles rising across its surface.
Then, as though given form, the blood rose from the pool and condensed in midair into palm-sized crimson bats.
The bats flapped their wings, letting out faint squeaks, then scattered like a flock of birds, flying swiftly in every direction.
Because an enormous volume of blood had accumulated on the battlefield, the number of bats created from it reached an astonishing scale.
A dense swarm blotted out the sky, spreading toward every part of the horizon like a moving blood-colored cloud.
Stussy rose and brushed the dust from her knee. As she watched the swarms fly away, a faint, satisfied smile curved her lips.
In developing her Bat-Bat Fruit, Vampire Form, she had rarely focused on pure combat power.
She preferred to apply it to support roles-healing, reconnaissance, and infiltration.
This was not because she lacked strength, but because her role had never been that of a pure warrior.
As an agent from Cipher Pol Aigis Zero, her specialties were intelligence gathering, infiltration, assassination, and protective duties, rather than head-on clashes on the battlefield.
Besides, the Bat-Bat Fruit, Vampire Form was not itself a Devil Fruit renowned for combat.
The reason the fruit had displayed such terrifying power in the hands of its original owner, Patrick Redfield, ultimately lay in the fact that the legendary pirate himself stood alongside Roger, Whitebeard, and Golden Lion. To him, the fruit's abilities were merely an added bonus.
Had an ordinary person eaten it, its performance in direct combat might not even have been as practical as that of some ancient Zoans.
Stussy understood this clearly.
Thus, she had chosen a path better suited to herself, fully exploiting the fruit's potential for support so she could become the most capable tool in Saint Dio's hands.
And the facts had proved her choice correct.
Chapter 23: Kotetsujō, Ayame Yomogawa
Saint Dio had no shortage of combat personnel.
If he truly wanted to, the stockpile of Devil Fruits he had accumulated would let him assemble a company-sized force of ability users in a short time.
But doing so would be meaningless. Low-quality, mass-produced fighting forces were nothing more than cannon fodder against true experts.
What he needed was discretion and quality over quantity.
High-end fighters were the ones truly worth investing resources in and cultivating.
By comparison, someone like Stussy, who excelled at intelligence work, was all the more precious to Saint Dio's plans.
Her value lay not in how many difficult battles she could fight, but in her ever-present eyes, her ears that missed nothing, and her mind, which could always accurately grasp her master's wishes.
With the Bat-Bat Fruit, Vampire Form augmenting her abilities, her intelligence gathering and covert infiltration skills ranked among the best in all of Cipher Pol Aigis Zero.
Precisely because of this, Saint Dio now found it somewhat difficult to do without Stussy.
She was simply too useful. Whether gathering and analyzing intelligence outside or serving and accommodating him in bed in private, she understood Saint Dio better than anyone.
She always grasped his intentions before he spoke and completed the preparations before he issued his orders.
That kind of rapport could not be replaced by just anyone.
It was not as though Saint Dio had never considered cultivating another such talent.
He had once asked Stussy to watch for promising candidates and try training a successor, but her answer had been frank.
Suitable prospects were simply too hard to find.
They needed the potential to become an agent, the ability to adapt to a Devil Fruit's powers, and the capacity to pass tests of loyalty. Such candidates could only be found by chance, not sought at will.
Sandersonia's enormous serpentine body moved swiftly across the barren land, each sway carrying her dozens of meters forward and leaving a winding trail behind.
Marigold followed close behind, her ocher snake body moving just as nimbly over the ground. The sisters advanced one behind the other like two moving walls.
A crimson bat flew back from the distance and landed precisely on Stussy's outstretched finger.
The instant its body touched her skin, it melted into a drop of deep red blood and seeped into her fingertip.
Stussy closed her eyes, reading the information the bat had brought back. A moment later, she opened them and tipped her chin in a direction. "Master, that way."
Saint Dio nodded slightly and lightly tapped his foot against the snake head beneath him. "Change direction."
Without a word, Sandersonia turned and headed at full speed in the direction Stussy had indicated.
Before long, clear signs of human work appeared ahead. Two parallel iron rails stretched along the ground into the distance, gleaming faintly with a metallic sheen in the afternoon sunlight.
Although the tracks were crudely laid, in such a desolate world, they were already an extremely conspicuous man-made feature.
"Stop."
Saint Dio signaled for Sandersonia to halt, then leaped down from her head and landed beside the tracks.
He looked down at the two iron rails embedded in the ground, confirming his judgment.
There was no mistake. This was a railway.
This world really was Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress.
Stussy came up from behind as well. She tilted her head and listened for a while, then reported, "Master, an armored vehicle in the distance is heading this way."
Saint Dio looked in the direction she indicated. At the distant end of the tracks, a tiny black dot had appeared on the horizon. Accompanied by the faint roar of a steam engine, it was slowly approaching.
In this world overrun by undead creatures called "Kabane," the survivors in Japan, an island nation in the Far East, had built fortified settlements called "stations" in various places to counter the Kabane threat, remaining confined within them as they struggled to survive.
The only means of traveling between these stations was this kind of armored steam locomotive, commonly known as a "Hayajiro."
The stations maintained their basic livelihoods by exchanging supplies they produced, and every journey carried enormous risks.
The armored steam locomotive approaching now was called Kotetsujō.
It belonged to Kongoukaku, a fortified settlement whose primary industries were heavy industries such as ironmaking and steam engines.
The Yomogawa Family governed Kongoukaku, and the person aboard Kotetsujō at that moment was none other than the family's eldest daughter-Ayame Yomogawa.
She had just finished exchanging supplies with other stations and was now on her way back to Kongoukaku.
Inside Kotetsujō's carriage, the atmosphere was heavy and oppressive.
Before you continue