However, just as they tried to pull their triggers and light the fuse-
Standing at the edge of the breach, Kirishima Bupai leaned forward slightly, lowering his center of gravity like a cheetah about to pounce.
"Humm-clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!"
He made no move to draw his blade, yet a piercing whistle tore through the air as though space itself had been ripped apart.
Several transparent slashing waves, almost impossible to follow with the naked eye, swept through the pirates gathered below like the Grim Reaper's scythe.
"Splat, splat, splat, splat-!!!"
It was like slicing through melons and vegetables, whether the pirates were holding up muskets, loading cannonballs, or trying to turn and flee.
As long as they stood in the path of those invisible slashes, their bodies, the weapons in their hands, and the ground beneath their feet were sliced cleanly apart like fragile paper.
Severed limbs, mangled bodies, shattered firearms, and splintered decking flew everywhere.
Screams rose one after another, but cut off abruptly in less than a second.
In the space of a single breath, the dozens of pirates who had been so menacing a moment earlier were almost all dead or wounded.
All that remained was a mess of dismembered corpses and a few lucky survivors cowering in corners, so terrified they had lost control of their bowels and bladders, their will to fight utterly gone.
Kirishima Bupai slowly straightened as though he had done something utterly trivial.
His gaze turned toward the Marine soldiers inside the hotel lobby, who were just as stunned with terror but still held their weapons aimed at him.
"Hmph." A cold, quiet snort.
Kirishima Bupai did not strike immediately. Instead, he looked down from above, his voice carrying clearly throughout the deathly silent lobby:
"I'll give you one chance."
As