"Hey, you over there."
Zoro slowly straightened up and took Wado Ichimonji out of his mouth. His gaze swept over the wreckage inside the shop before settling on Lin Xuan. "Can I still buy swords here? I accidentally broke two of mine just now."
"Still thinking about buying swords at a time like this? You're hopeless, Moss Head."
Another lazy voice followed immediately.
A blond young man in a black suit strolled over to the still-twitching mantis corpse with one hand in his pocket. He raised a foot clad in a gleaming leather shoe and stomped hard on its head as though crushing a cigarette butt.
Crack.
The teeth-grating sound of shattering finally marked the end of the monster's life.
Sanji exhaled a smoke ring, but he never even glanced at the monster on the ground. Instead, his gaze instantly locked onto Isuka, who had fallen amid the broken glass. His cold expression instantly turned into heart-shaped eyes. "Ah! Beautiful Marine lady, are you hurt? How dare that damned bug dirty your clothes! Even ten thousand deaths wouldn't be enough!"
Lin Xuan leaned against the battered wall, watching the two unexpected arrivals as his fingers lightly tapped his sword's hilt.
But the farce apparently wasn't over yet.
Heavy, thunderous running sounds drifted faintly out of the mist farther down the street. The ground began to tremble rhythmically, and even the swords on the racks hummed along with it.
"Roar!"
A roar even more savage than the mantis's pierced the curtain of rain.
Lin Xuan turned toward the end of the street. A huge, chimpanzee-like black silhouette was crashing wildly through the buildings in its path. On the rooftops ahead of the monster, a purple figure held something aloft as she fled frantically through the rain.
The purple figure leaped through