Rebecca was awakened by Vic's words and used Geppo to fly back to the pirate ship. Wendy and the others were relieved to see that Rebecca was a little pale and had bloodstains on her lips. It was a miracle that she could come back unharmed after such an attack. Then Rebecca activated the power of the Float-Float Fruit and made the pirate ship leave the sea and fly into the sky.
"That's Golden Lion's Float-Float Fruit ability! Trying to run away and not want to drag this kid down with her? That won't do! You guys are a crucial part of this battle!"
Abraham laughed as he watched the pirate ship rise into the sky, then teleported after it. How could they let a pawn of their scheme escape the game? How could they use it then? That was something they couldn't allow, but their agents were no match for the pirates, so only members of their Holy Knights could intercept it themselves.
Vic had anticipated the three's thoughts and knew that they would object to Rebecca and the others leaving, so he had been keeping a close eye on the pirate ship's movements.
Seeing Abraham give chase, he immediately knocked Burns back and vanished in Inazuma. When he reappeared, he was already above Abraham's head, and a Golden Hook with Ryuo kicked Abraham's shoulder. Abraham flew out like a cannonball with a huge whistling sound.
After kicking Abraham, Vic pointed again, and a blue laser shot out from the lightning ball at his fingertip, heading straight for Burns, who was teleporting toward the pirate ship.
The laser beam blocked Burns's path. Dodging it would waste time and might allow the pirate ship to escape. But if he ignored it and rammed into it, he felt the beam of light threatening him again.
So he chose to confront it head-on, using his powerful Haki to disperse the blue beam of light before continuing forward. He knew that strong Armament Haki could counter abilities.
However, the blue beam of light was somewhat unexpected. When his fist, which was covered in Armament Haki, struck the beam, he found that his Armament Haki was being rapidly depleted, and his fist was radiating intense heat, as if it were about to melt him.
He could only continuously unleash his Haki to resist the intense heat before daring to teleport away from the pillar of light. When he looked at his fist, he discovered that the surface of his fist had been burned, revealing the white bone inside!
Burns ' face showed shock and bewilderment. That was a fist forged in lava, yet it had been burned by a beam of light. This was incomprehensible to him. Could there be a temperature higher than lava in this world?
"What kind of technique is this? Is it also a power of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit?"
Burns had given up chasing the pirate ship and floated in the air looking at Vic. If Vic knew the question in Burns' heart, he would definitely tell him that there are things much hotter than magma. If you hadn't gotten away in time, your proud fist would have been roasted, charred, melted, and disappeared.
While powerful Haki can indeed suppress abilities, the temperature of a laser is a secondary effect, outside the scope of abilities. Therefore, one can only rely on Haki to withstand it, which will continuously deplete Haki. If the Haki is not strong enough, the high temperature will instantly penetrate the protective layer and damage the body beneath the Haki.
"Go back here!"
Ignoring Burns's gaze, Vic disappeared again, because there was still someone chasing the pirate ship whom he needed to intercept.
Vic flashed to the bottom of the rising pirate ship and unleashed a massive Sword Gang at the oncoming Ralph.
Vic's speed in transforming into his elemental form using the Rumble-Rumble Fruit at full power was faster than that of the three. However, the three had been attacking him relentlessly with perfect coordination, and he couldn't simply move away, otherwise they would definitely turn their attention to others. This is why he remained in a passive position.
Therefore, he could only keep all three of them occupied. This time, the three of them separated in order to keep the pirate ship, so their speed was naturally no match for Vic's all-out effort. He could intercept them one by one.
At this point, Ralph was not far from the pirate ship. In this sudden and short-range situation, he could not dodge the slash that Vic suddenly appeared and struck. He could only gather his Ryuo on his longsword to take the hit head-on.
However, there was very little leverage to gain in the air, and Ralph was directly propelled away by the slash, eventually crashing straight into the sea, creating huge waves. The sea was split apart by the slash, like two separate oceans, which gradually closed up after a while, but Ralph had already flown out from the other side.
By the time the three of them stood facing Vic, the pirate ship had already entered the clouds and disappeared into the horizon. Vic's body trembled slightly, his mouth agape and his chest heaving dramatically. Clearly, using his full speed to intercept the three of them had taken a toll on Vic, and coupled with the intense battle of the previous few hours, Vic's condition had also declined somewhat.
"He's about to give up. If we push a little harder, we can keep him here. As long as we keep him here, nobody else matters!"
Abraham also noticed Vic's condition, a sign of declining combat prowess. His stamina, speed, and reaction time would all decrease, giving Abraham hope of taking down Vic. Their target had always been Vic; as for Rebecca and the others, with their strength, he could easily handle any one of them, and they weren't even worth his attention.
After Abraham finished speaking, he charged at Vic and slashed at Vic's face. Vic was calming his body's turmoil and did not dodge the attack, but instead raised Blood Wither Dry to block it.
After a clang of metal on metal, Vic leaped backward using the force from Abraham's longsword, dodging Burns ' follow-up punch, but was still slashed on the arm by Ralph's sword.
Vic leaped backward using Geppo, glanced at the wound on his arm, then turned back to take a deep breath. Since his shoulder was pierced, he hadn't used his ability to heal the wound quickly, leading the three to believe that healing small wounds might already be Vic's limit.
The wound that pierced his shoulder was quite severe, Vic could no longer heal it in a short time, or it would consume even more energy. In such a dangerous battle, Vic dared not do that, which made the three of them feel that they were gradually gaining the upper hand in the battle.
Seeing that Vic was injured again, the three exchanged glances, not wanting to give Vic a chance to catch his breath, and prepared to take him down in one fell swoop. They then chased after Vic in a pincer formation.
Vic took a deep breath and stopped retreating. Instead, he took the initiative to attack Abraham. He held a sword wrapped in Armament Haki in each hand. The moment he got close to Abraham, the Haki on the swords surged and danced outside the blades, like ink freely seeping into rice paper, or like a squid in the sea with tentacles hidden in the sprayed ink, ready to stretch out and tighten around the enemy's neck at any moment.