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Chapter 110is out!!!! +40 advanced chapters monthly
Xunyang's pupils dilated to their absolute limit. He didn't even have time to flinch, forced to watch helplessly as the beam of light magnified in his vision.
"No!"
"Boiling Meteor Cannon!" Muyan let out a terrified scream, hurling a massive, terrifyingly hot sphere of water straight at Baishui. He was desperate to force Baishui to abandon his attack!
Bang!
His attack collided with a thin, shimmering barrier and stopped dead. That single, fragile-looking layer of light was an absolute defense.
Boom!
The beam completely obliterated Xunyang's head, incinerating him into drifting ash under its intense, merciless heat.
"You're next!" Baishui's eyes flashed with a razor-sharp glint.
The light particle barrier violently expanded, forcibly reflecting the boiling sphere right back at Muyan. Lost in his grief, Muyan couldn't possibly react in time. By the time he felt the agonizing spike in temperature, it was already too late.
"Ahhh!" Muyan screamed in absolute agony, his face instantly melting into a mangled, bloody mess. Clutching his ruined face, he stumbled backward in a blind panic.
"Photon Cannon!"
Baishui raised his right hand, leveling his index finger like the barrel of a gun, and fired a piercing laser.
Boom!
Denied any chance to defend himself, Muyan was blasted off his feet just like Larn had been. He crashed deep into the forest in a massive explosion, his fate unknown. But taking a direct hit from the Photon Cannon guaranteed he was either dead or critically wounded.
"Come out, Larn. I know you're not dead!"
Having dealt with Muyan, Baishui suddenly whirled around, aiming his finger-gun toward a seemingly empty patch of the woods.
"Cough... cough... as expected of Lornel Baishui. Your Observation Haki is as sharp as ever!"
From the smoking ruins of the forest, Larn staggered out. He clutched his chest, utterly battered and covered in blood.
"I really shouldn't have provoked a monster like you... but once the arrow leaves the bow, there's no turning back. I have to see this through to the bitter end!" Larn stared at Xunyang's headless corpse. A profound grief flashed through his eyes, his voice trembling with a mixture of pity and regret.
"Heh. We're already at this point. Do you really think words mean anything now?" Baishui chuckled dryly, his chest heaving.
Overusing his Devil Fruit was placing a crushing burden on his stamina, not to mention the heavy damage he had already sustained from Larn's previous strikes.
"Killing you is the only way to eliminate future threats!" Larn stood up straight, his gaze locking onto Baishui with deadly resolve.
"Then bring it on!"
Baishui didn't waste another breath. He kicked off the ground, rocketing straight toward the pirate captain.
Bang! The two clashed heavily, fist grinding against fist.
Larn brutally drove his knee up toward Baishui's stomach. Not daring to be careless, Baishui raised his leg to block, resulting in a dull, bone-rattling thud.
Both men pushed off each other, sliding backward. The moment their feet touched the dirt, they launched themselves forward again.
Bang! Larn threw a heavy punch, colliding with Baishui's guard before vanishing with a Soru. He instantly materialized behind the Marine, his index finger radiating an impossibly sharp aura as he stabbed forward.
Hum!
Baishui deployed his Photon Barrier, then clenched his fist. Five tentacles of solid light erupted outward, forcing Larn to immediately backpedal.
"Photon Cannon!"
"Rankyaku: Oversized!"
Both combatants unleashed their techniques simultaneously. The attacks collided in mid-air with a deafening boom, sending a massive shockwave tearing through the clearing.
Whoosh! Baishui vanished from his spot, instantly reappearing directly above Larn's head. He brought his leg down in a devastating axe kick. If this connected, Larn would be finished.
"Kami-e!" Larn scoffed.
His body suddenly fluttered like a weightless sheet of paper drifting in the wind, completely evading Baishui's heavy strike.
"Shigan: Bullet!"
Larn flicked his finger at the falling Marine. A high-speed phantom projectile shot through the air, reaching Baishui in the blink of an eye.
Baishui's eyes widened in alarm. He desperately twisted his body to dodge, but the projectile still grazed his scalp, sending a spray of blood into the air.
"Rankyaku: Sever!"
Pressing his advantage, Larn swept his right leg toward Baishui with the lethal sharpness of a honed blade. The hairs on the back of Baishui's neck stood up; with no time to counter, he didn't dare take the blow head-on.
Whoosh! Baishui flashed away, instantly deploying a Photon Barrier the moment he reappeared. A split-second later, the barrier absorbed a devastating kick, trembling violently under the sheer force.
Having landed his strike, Larn didn't hesitate for a microsecond, immediately springing backward. It was a perfectly timed retreat—an instant later, five Photon Tentacles whipped through the space he had just occupied.
"Rankyaku!"
Seeing the tentacles pursuing him, Larn kicked up a barrage of azure wind blades, shredding the incoming light constructs to pieces.
"Photon Barrage!"
Aiming his left hand like a pistol, Baishui unleashed a blinding storm of concentrated light spheres. Spreading his glowing wings, he drafted right behind his own barrage, diving aggressively at Larn.
"Rankyaku: Squall!"
Clearly not expecting Baishui to use his own attack as cover, Larn kicked out a flurry of wind blades to intercept the barrage. When he spotted the Marine breaking through the glowing dust, he faltered in surprise.
"Photon Cannon!"
That singular moment of hesitation was all the opening Baishui needed. A piercing beam of light shot forward, carrying lethal intent.
Larn's instincts screamed danger. He used Soru to vanish instantly.
"Photon Barrage!"
But Baishui refused to let his advantage slip. Anticipating the dodge, he aimed his left hand toward Larn's front-left blind spot and fired another massive volley of light spheres.
Larn materialized right into the line of fire.
There was absolutely no time to activate Tekkai, and bare flesh was not enough to withstand the bombardment. Larn was blasted backward, coughing up blood with every explosive impact.
"Goodbye," Baishui said coldly, narrowing his eyes as he aimed his right hand.
A highly concentrated, needle-thin beam erupted from his finger. Under Larn's horrified gaze, it pierced straight through his chest.
"Gahhh!" Larn roared in absolute agony, the sound shaking the heavens. Having your heart obliterated was a pain beyond human comprehension.
"Photon Cannon!"
Baishui fired again. This time it was a standard-sized beam, but he wasn't aiming at Larn. He was aiming behind him.
Behind the pirate captain, the injured Laura had been creeping closer. Just a few more steps, and she would have been in striking distance. Even injured, even as a woman, she radiated a deadly threat that Baishui couldn't ignore. He couldn't let her close the gap.
"No!" Larn shrieked, his voice tearing his throat to shreds.
What happened next left Baishui deeply shaken, burning an image into his mind that he would never forget.
As if knowing she couldn't survive the blast, Laura opened her arms, completely abandoning her defenses to embrace the incoming beam. She was slowly incinerated into a charred corpse, not uttering a single sound.
"I'll kill you!"
Despite violently coughing up blood, Larn—who should have been dead on his feet—went completely berserk. Eyes bloodshot like a maddened bull, he charged Baishui with reckless abandon.
Bang! Baishui naturally didn't dare be careless, bracing himself to block the assault. But he quickly realized Larn knew he was a dead man walking; every strike was a suicidal, all-or-nothing blow.
The moment Baishui blocked the initial strike, Larn followed up with a vicious kick, leaning his upper body forward to drive a savage elbow strike into Baishui's guard. It was an onslaught of pure frenzy.
Even with Baishui's quick reflexes and solid defense, an impossible surge of power suddenly erupted from Larn's dying body—Conqueror's Force—sending the Marine flying like a ragdoll.
His bones groaned and cracked loudly upon impact, and he spat out a mouthful of blood.
But the exertion was the final nail in Larn's coffin. He vomited a massive pool of blood, his life force instantly plummeting to zero.
"Laura... I'm coming with you." Larn collapsed onto the ground, gently pulling the charred, unrecognizable remains into his arms. His eyes softened. "Laura... in our next life, let's be together again."
With those final words, Larn's breathing stopped.
Far away, Baishui slowly dragged himself up from the dirt, gasping heavily. His chest was visibly caved in, his face deathly pale.
"To think... a dying strike... could be that powerful!" Baishui struggled to calm his boiling blood, fighting the urge to vomit again. The trauma was so severe his vision had started splitting into double images.
"Gegege! Lornel Baishui, time to die!"
A sinister laugh suddenly rang out. Baishui's heart stopped. His vision violently snapped back into focus as cold sweat drenched his back.
Muyan, his face a mutilated ruin of flesh, was charging at him, holding a massive, boiling sphere of water. If that hit, Baishui would be dead, or permanently crippled.
But after taking Larn's final strike, Baishui was completely out of gas. He couldn't use his Devil Fruit powers anymore. His situation was infinitely perilous.
"Hahaha! Let's see what you do now!" Muyan crowed triumphantly, seemingly aware that the Marine was paralyzed.
"Photon Tentacles!"
Baishui bit his lip hard, forcibly wringing the absolute last drops of stamina from his body. Two finger-thick light tentacles shot from his back, wrapping tightly around a nearby tree.
Just as the boiling sphere was about to crush him, the tentacles violently yanked him backward, dragging him across the dirt like a dog, narrowly avoiding ground zero.
Sizzle!
He had dodged in time, but the edge of the attack still grazed him. It felt like boiling oil splashing onto bare skin. A hand-sized chunk of flesh on his abdomen was instantly corroded away, hissing gruesomely.
Baishui bit down hard on his teeth to stifle his screams, the veins on his forehead bulging in grotesque agony.
Ironically, the excruciating pain from the chemical burn cleared his head, temporarily masking the crushing pain in his chest.
"So you dodged! Let's see how a man at his absolute limit fights me!" Muyan sneered. Though he had taken a direct hit earlier, his condition was far better than Baishui's current state. Unless the Marine could pull off one more attack, it was over.
"Corrosive Rain Shower!"
Muyan clenched his fist. A sphere of water materialized in his hand, rapidly expanding before firing a dense, inescapable barrage of corrosive droplets in a 360-degree radius.
"Hahaha! Lornel Baishui, rot to the bone!" Muyan laughed, already picturing Baishui melting into a skeleton.
"Soru!"
Defying all logic, Baishui—whose body should have been far past the breaking point for a high-intensity Rokushiki technique—vanished from his spot.
"So what if you use Soru?! You still can't dodge this!" Muyan roared with absolute confidence. The entire area was his domain. The moment Baishui reappeared, he would die.
"Is that so?"
An icy, undeniable voice whispered from directly behind Muyan. His body froze solid.
"Photon Cannon!"
Baishui squeezed out the very last particles of light in his body, forming a weak, fragile beam. He pulled the trigger.
Pierce!
It lacked power, but at point-blank range, it was lethal. The beam punched straight through Muyan's heart.
"Your attack really was 360 degrees. Unfortunately, that twenty-centimeter blind spot right behind your back... was your one fatal flaw," Baishui whispered.
"Impossible..." Muyan's face twisted in sheer disbelief, his eyes filled with overwhelming unwillingness as he collapsed.
The moment Muyan hit the ground, Baishui's throat spasmed. He violently vomited another mouthful of blood. Blood began to seep from his nose, his ears, and even his eyes.
"I can't fall!"
Baishui bit his tongue. The metallic taste of blood and the sharp pain did little to stop his body from swaying dangerously toward the dirt.
"Are you kidding me? How can I fall here?!" Baishui snarls, fists clenched so tight his knuckles popped. Veins bulged on his forehead as, through sheer, monstrous willpower, he forced his battered body to stand completely straight.
But the moment he straightened up, the world spun violently. The earth heaved beneath his feet, refusing to let him balance.
Just as he was about to collapse, his arm hooked over a low-hanging tree branch, arresting his fall. The rough bark tore a long, bloody gash across his arm, but he stayed upright.
"Food..."
His stomach was completely hollow. His vision faded to white, blurring out the world, but his appetite roared to life like never before.
Rip!
He actually bit directly into the tree bark, tearing a chunk off and chewing it furiously. The bitter, astringent sap tasted like the elixir of life, soothing his ravaged body.
He gnawed off more than half the bark on the trunk before he finally felt somewhat stable.
Half an hour later!
Relying on a sliver of recovered stamina, Baishui caught a decent-sized green snake and devoured it raw. The snake's gall bladder was incredibly bitter, but it worked wonders for his internal injuries.
Two days later!
It took Baishui two full days to track down a wild Transponder Snail in the wilderness. He retrofitted it into a working Den Den Mushi and dialed Fleet Admiral Sengoku, requesting an immediate evac.
In his current state, if he didn't get proper medical treatment soon, he'd be left with crippling, lifelong injuries.
Sengoku's Marine warship arrived at the island the very next day. The commanding officer was a Rear Admiral Baishui didn't recognize. But when the officer surveyed the aftermath of Baishui's battle, he was struck completely dumb.
Nearly half the island had been leveled.
Larn was an opponent the Rear Admiral wouldn't dare face himself. That 200 million Beri bounty of his was from two years ago. God only knew what his actual bounty would be worth now. But the fact that Baishui single-handedly annihilated the entire Wild Beast Pirates earned the Rear Admiral's absolute, genuine respect.
True monsters are born in the new generation. Baishui was living proof.
Upon returning to Marine Headquarters, Baishui was immediately rushed to the hospital.
The tale of him wiping out the Wild Beast Pirates solo spread through Marineford like wildfire.
Rumors swirled about what rank Baishui would be granted. In light of this insane achievement, people even dug up his past exploits of earning the Medal of Honor.
Even without this battle, as a newly enlisted Marine, his previous track record was already enough to earn him the rank of Ensign.