Jessica, Go Back to the Sea

Lu Ye's face was grim. Sitting between two Celestial Dragons in the stands, he was caught in a dilemma and wished he could leave at once.

The Mountain raised a huge hand and scratched his less-than-clever head, muttering to himself:

"Beat him to death, tear him apart, pull out his bones... so many orders. What am I supposed to do?!"

Hector raised a fist to the girl outside the wire fence, a cheerful smile spreading across his resolute face:

"Jessica, it's you! I knew I heard honor calling to me in my dream! Sorry I fell asleep just now. Did I fight bravely? I didn't disappoint you, did I?"

"Dad! Dad..."

Jessica pressed her lips tightly together like an abandoned little animal, tears and snot smearing her face. She held them back for a long moment before screaming at the top of her lungs, "Dad, stay alive! Don't die!"

Hector looked up at Polo the Mountain, who towered over him like a mountain, and muttered with a bitter smile, "That's a little hard to do..."

But Hector's sunny smile immediately returned, and he raised his fists:

"Don't worry, Jessica. Dad's a super-strong gladiator. I'll win!"

Freck impatiently picked up the microphone and urged him on. "The Mountain! What are you standing around for, you useless fool? I told you to kill him! Beat him to a pulp!"

The Mountain looked even more confused. "Beat him to a pulp too? The gray-haired little runt's orders are so hard to understand..."

Bang!

Seeing that the Mountain was still scratching his head, Freck flew into a rage. He drew a golden pistol and fired into the sky. "Start now! You two useless fools, fight right now!"

The Mountain still didn't move.

Hector removed the battered shield from his arm and raised his heavily bandaged fists. Armament Haki hummed as it coated his arms.

"In front of my daughter, even if I'm scared, I have to tough it out and keep throwing punches..."

With a low roar, Hector sprang into the air. His fists tore through the air with a thunderous roar as he rained blows down on the Mountain's face.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The furious barrage of punches sent the Mountain staggering backward. With every step, the ground beneath his enormous body shattered into rubble that flew in all directions.

"Useless! The Mountain, you useless fool, fight back!"

Freck jumped up and down, microphone in hand, hurling abuse.

The Mountain let out a deafening roar, raised a hand with all his might, and met Hector's fist with his own.

Rumble!

A deep crater exploded in the ground, and a powerful shock wave spread out from between them, sending stones flying across the already battered arena.

Hector flew backward more than a hundred meters, nearly leaving the arena. The Mountain also stumbled and fell on his backside.

"That hurt like hell!"

The Mountain spoke in a muffled voice, wiping the blood from his face.

The Mountain's already ugly face now had swollen, bruised eyelids. Hector had previously shattered half of one of his two fangs, and he spat the other onto the ground with a mouthful of blood.

"Why is he stronger than before?"

The Mountain scratched his cheek, then suddenly struck his fist into his palm as realization dawned. "Huh-looks like I forgot to use Tekkai!"

Hector gripped his left wrist with his right hand, drawing sharp breaths through his slightly parted lips. He did his best to steady himself and keep his legs from trembling with fear.

After that single clash of fists, the front half of his left forearm seemed to have been completely shattered.

"If I can't hit a vital spot, there's no way I can beat an enemy like this!"

Up in the gondola.

Freck shouted excitedly, "That's it! That's it! The Mountain, beat him up! Twist his arms off!"

Sitting amid the ruins, the Mountain suddenly gave an irritable roar and pounded his chest with his fists.

Again? Again?

Another new order?

Did this gray-haired little runt even know how to give orders?

If his master hadn't ordered him to obey Freck, the Mountain would have wanted to twist the top of his skull off.

"Idiot! Moron! Why are you hitting yourself? Go hit that human slave, hang him in the arena! Throw him into the water and feed him to the sharks!"

Furious, Freck grabbed the host's microphone and threw it at the Mountain. He didn't throw it hard enough, and it splashed into the shark pool, where a shark leaped up and swallowed it.

The Mountain felt as though his head were about to split open. He pounded his chest even harder, the muffled booms sounding like a drum.

Hector's eyes suddenly lit up.

Blood was now gushing from the wound Hector had opened in the Mountain's chest with his axe. He had clearly made the injury worse himself.

If not for the Mountain's terrifying size of nearly eight meters, Hector would even have suspected that he would bleed to death on his own.

Hector clenched his right hand into a fist. "I only have one hand left, and I don't have much stamina left either. At most, I have one chance to strike with all my strength..."

The weapons of many other gladiators lay embedded at all angles in the ground. Hector picked up a broken naginata and bound its handle to his left hand.

"Idiot, idiot! The Mountain, you moron, go hit him! Twist his neck!"

Freck gritted his teeth, unable to understand why a slave who obeyed Pops wouldn't follow his orders.

"Roar-"

The Mountain clutched his head and roared wildly, unable to bear Freck's incessant noise any longer.

Freck looked at Lu Ye in confusion. "Did you do something to the Mountain? Did you infect him with your madness?"

Lu Ye scoffed. "I'm more worried about catching your stupidity."

Freck clutched the microphone. "The Mountain! The Mountain..."

The Mountain grabbed two battered blades from the ground and thrust them into his ears. After a burst of excruciating pain...

The noisy world fell silent.

The Mountain turned to look at Freck, who was waving his arms and baring his teeth in the gondola but making no sound as his mouth moved. He grinned and muttered in a muffled voice:

"I just have to kill him, right? Why give so many orders? Smart people are such a pain..."

Slash-

A sharp blade stabbed into the back of the Mountain's neck, sending a stream of blood spraying out.

The Mountain flew into a rage and rose to his feet, shaking the ground. He spread his door-sized left hand, turned, and grabbed violently behind him.

Before it reached him, Hector felt a powerful gust and leaped backward repeatedly to dodge it.

But in his killing state, the Mountain was stronger and faster. His enormous body leaped with unreasonable force, and with a thunderous boom, the crater beneath his feet sank another dozen centimeters and split into a spiderweb of cracks.

A shadow fell over Hector. He looked up and saw what seemed to be a mountain falling on his head.

"Armament Haki, Cross Shield!"

He crossed his hands before his chest, coating his arms in Armament Haki.

Boom!

Hector flew hundreds of meters like a weightless scarecrow, rolled several times, and crashed into a pile of rubble, sending dust billowing into the air.

The Mountain's eyes went scarlet. With a roar, he plunged straight into the thick dust, his fists coated in Armament Haki like a bulldozer running at full power, turning the mound of earth into a crater in an instant.

At that moment, Hector's battered, blood-soaked body emerged from the rubble behind the Mountain.

Dragging his twisted right leg, Hector limped toward the Mountain. His toes scraped across the rubble with a rustling sound, like the wind in the birch woods of his homeland.

If the Mountain's ears could still hear, a single punch would have been enough to finish off Hector, whose life hung by a thread.

In the gondola, Freck held the microphone, his warning echoing through the arena for a long time through the loudspeaker.

But the Mountain had destroyed his own ears.

The naginata in his left hand was half as long again, but it should have been just long enough now.

Hector stood behind and to the Mountain's left, his right fist clenched as he gathered his strength. He squeezed every bit of power from his body into his indestructible Armament Haki, his black fist brimming with explosive force.

His broken left hand laboriously lifted the half-length naginata and hurled it with all its strength at the back of the Mountain's neck-

Smack!

The next second, sure enough, it was the left hand again!

The Mountain gave a furious roar, as though heaven and earth were splitting apart, and swiftly reached behind him with his left hand.

Bracing himself on his twisted right leg, Hector pulled his left leg half a step back and dodged the Mountain's huge hand. The instant the Mountain turned to face him...

Hector caught sight of the bleeding wound and, with an angry roar, drove his fist into it like a cannonball!

"Jessica, go back to the sea!"