Along with Crocodile's final declaration, the entirety of Whiskey Peak began to shake violently.
"Sables!"
Crocodile's right hand slammed onto the ground as he let out a thunderous roar.
In an instant, the yellow sand in the center square of the harbor soared into the sky, transforming into a giant tornado connecting heaven and earth. It was no longer mere wind, but a death millstone composed of billions of grains of high-speed rotating sand.
The terrifying sand tornado expanded crazily, emitting a deafening roar. The buildings on both sides of the street were torn apart and crushed the moment they touched the edge of the Sand Storm. Wood chips and stones were sucked in, turning into fine powder in an instant.
"Run!"
"It's a... a Sand Storm! Help!"
The remaining bounty hunters in the distance let out heart-wrenching wails. The weapons and strength they took pride in were insignificantly small in the face of this natural disaster-like scene.
Some tried to escape, but within a few steps, they were caught by the suction of the Sand Storm. Their bodies were instantly dehydrated by the high-speed rotating sand, turning into mummies before being ground into dust that filled the sky, not even a bone fragment remained.
This was the true terror of one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, the king of the desert.
In this environment, he was essentially a walking human natural disaster.
Miss Valentine, who had already floated into mid-air and was rejoicing at her narrow escape, was nearly scared out of her wits by this apocalyptic sight.
She desperately tried to adjust her body weight, using the wind to flee further away. However, the gravitational pull of the Sand Storm was so immense that she felt like a fallen leaf in a tempest, liable to be sucked into the center of destruction at any moment.
Yet, at the very center of that storm of destruction, Ryoma stood perfectly still.
The violent sand cut through the air, producing a piercing shriek. However, as it approached within a meter of his body, it strangely stagnated.
A layer of visible, translucent frost covered his body. The extreme cold air emanating from him froze and shattered all the incoming sand.
A cruel smile appeared on Crocodile's hideous face. In his eyes, Ryoma was merely putting up a futile resistance.
The power of the Sand-Sand Fruit was not as simple as just creating Sand Storms.
"In the desert, you don't even have the right to struggle!"
He suddenly clenched his fingers, and the core temperature of the sand tornado rose sharply. The heat generated by the friction of the sand was enough to melt steel.
However, Ryoma's reaction exceeded his expectations. Facing this move that was enough to swallow everything, he slowly raised his right hand, spread his fingers, and lightly pressed down toward the ground beneath his feet.
"Eternal Silence Ice Thorns."
In the next moment, with Ryoma as the center, the earth burst open with countless cracks.
Countless thick and hideous ice thorns frantically surged out from underground. They were crystal clear throughout, their tips shimmering with a cold, grim light. In a savage and unreasonable manner, they forcibly pierced into the sand tornado against its direction of rotation.
Crack! Crack...
Those giant ice thorns were like a forest that had grown in an instant, forcibly tearing the sand tornado apart.
Ice and sand collided. The high-speed rotating sand was frozen, and the scorching core of the Sand Storm encountered absolute extreme cold.
Sss—
A massive amount of white steam erupted throughout the space, instantly creating a thick white mist that shrouded the center of the entire battlefield.
The wild laughter on Crocodile's face froze. Those sinister eyes couldn't help but reveal an expression of unbelievable shock at this moment.
His Sables had actually been forcibly torn apart in such a manner?
This level of freezing power...
Could it be the Logia-type Ice-Ice Fruit?
No, that should be the fruit of Marine Admiral Aokiji.
Just as his mind was reeling and he was questioning Ryoma's ability, an ice flower quietly bloomed within the white mist in front of him.
Ryoma's figure appeared like a ghost, almost face-to-face with him.
Crocodile's pupils constricted violently. He hadn't noticed how this man had gotten here at all.
"You seem to have some misunderstanding about my power." Ryoma spoke softly, bringing his fingers together.
An ice blade condensed to the extreme instantly formed in his hand, covered by an invisible and resilient power.
With a casual swing, the ice blade slashed toward Crocodile's neck. Crocodile remained where he was, his face still carrying a hint of contempt for such a useless attack. Physical attacks were useless against someone like him who could elementalize.
In the next second, all the expressions on his face completely froze. He saw a flash of pitch-black color. The surface of the ice blade in Ryoma's hand was covered with a layer of deep, ink-like black substance.
That was... Armament Haki!
By the moment Crocodile realized what it was, it was already too late.
A surge of intense pain and a bone-chilling coldness hit him. It was a sensation he hadn't felt for far too long since becoming a Logia Devil Fruit User.
The cigar in Crocodile's mouth slipped out silently, falling onto the sand.
He stared with wide, disbelieving eyes at Ryoma's face, which held a faint trace of mockery. A trickle of blood slowly seeped from his neck as a clear bloody line appeared.
He... was injured?
By a guy he thought was just audacious and lucky to have survived until now? Wounded by an ice blade imbued with Haki while he was in his elementalized state?
"I never said..."
Ryoma's voice rang out in the thick mist, clearly reaching his ears. "...that I am a devil fruit user."
These words stung Crocodile more than the wound on his neck, feeling utterly absurd.
Not a devil fruit user? Then what was with all these ice thorns filling the sky?
Crocodile did not hesitate, however. In the first instant, he elementalized his entire body to pull away and create distance.
High in the distance, Miss Valentine nearly fell from the sky as she lost the wind support due to the collapse of the Sand Storm.
The bounty hunters who were lucky enough to survive also fell into a collective daze, unable to believe what they were seeing.
That king of the desert, one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, was actually bleeding?
In the center of the battlefield, Crocodile slowly raised his hand to touch the wound on his neck. The warm, moist sensation on his fingertips was so real.
"Kuhahaha... Kuhahahahahaha!"
He suddenly erupted into a fit of wild laughter, filled with uncontrollable violence and bloodthirsty excitement.
How many years had it been? How many years had it been since anyone had made him taste the flavor of pain?
"Interesting! You bastard, you're truly interesting!"
Crocodile turned around abruptly. At his severed neck, the wound actually stopped bleeding under the wriggling of the yellow sand.
"Desert Spada!"
Crocodile swung his right hand in a rage. His arm instantly turned into sand and extended into a giant crescent-shaped sand blade, sweeping toward Ryoma with the terrifying property of dehydrating everything.
An ice flower flashed beneath Ryoma's feet, and his figure instantly vanished from the spot.
The giant sand blade missed, violently slashing into a peak made of cactus rocks behind him.
That mountain peak, dozens of meters high, was silently sliced open the moment it touched the sand blade. The cut was as smooth as a mirror, and the upper half of the mountain crashed down, smashing onto the ground and kicking up a cloud of dust.
The power of a single strike was actually this great!
Crocodile's killing intent boiled. He stared at the spot where Ryoma had disappeared, a powerful thought surging in his heart.
If such a powerful guy could not be used for his own purposes, then he must be completely eliminated right here. He must not be allowed to become an obstacle to his plans.
Before he could even search for Ryoma's trace, an extreme coldness attacked from behind. Ryoma's figure appeared directly behind his back.
Crocodile reacted extremely quickly. The giant gold hook on his left hand, laced with scorpion venom, stabbed toward Ryoma's heart like a bolt of lightning.
Facing this fatal strike, Ryoma did not dodge or evade, he simply raised his right hand.
A layer of pitch-black Armament Haki covered it. He actually caught that cold, shimmering gold hook with his bare hand.
The collision between metal and flesh produced the sound of clashing steel.
In the next second, a surge of extreme cold erupted from Ryoma's palm, frantically spreading along the gold hook.
Crack... Crack... Bang!
The gold hook began to freeze inch by inch from the point of contact, eventually shattering completely with a crisp sound.
"It seems your throne..."
Ryoma casually brushed off the powder on his hand, his calm voice ringing out clearly.
"...isn't that stable either."