Wasn't Crocodile strong?
No, he was undoubtedly a very powerful man.
But the blame for his swift defeat lay with the simple fact that, as a transmigrator who knew the future, Darian was far too familiar with Crocodile's exact abilities and fatal flaws.
He knew the ultimate weakness of the Sand-Sand Fruit: water could bind the sand, forcibly preventing him from transforming into his intangible elemental state.
Crocodile was the type of character who relied entirely on his Devil Fruit ability. As for his physical martial arts and his Haki, they had withered away and been rendered useless after he was taught a brutal, traumatic lesson by Whitebeard in the New World.
A loser who has lost his faith and his will to fight cannot wield the power of Haki.
Crocodile's defeat at Darian's hands was inevitable from the moment the Warlord attempted to obtain the Ancient Weapon Pluton through cowardly scheming and reliance on external power rather than his own strength.
Sizzle!
With a sickening squelch, Darian pulled his water-coated hand out of Crocodile's pierced chest. Without the support of his Devil Fruit powers holding his ruined organs together, Crocodile's body fell backward powerlessly, hitting the sandstone floor with a heavy thud.
After shaking his arm, Darian used his Frictionless ability to effortlessly slide the dark blood off his skin. In an instant, his arm was perfectly clean, making him look as if he were entirely untouched by the gruesome violence he had just committed.
Watching Crocodile's eyes glaze over as he rapidly lost his life, Darian still had a cold smile on his face. It could only be said that humans are truly creatures with a terrifying ability to adapt to slaughter.
But soon, Darian's smile fell. He looked somewhat dejected and cursed in regret. "Damn it! The Sand-Sand Fruit!"
Despite his intense frustration at losing out on such a powerful Logia ability, Darian understood that killing Crocodile quickly and decisively was undoubtedly the best outcome if he didn't want to risk Robin's life or cause the tomb to collapse. Capturing a desperate Logia-user alive to harvest their fruit was on a completely different level of difficulty than simply executing them.
The ambient sandstorm in the cavern finally settled. Robin and King Cobra cautiously walked over from the shadows.
"I won. You're my woman now," Darian said, flashing a charming smile at Robin as he wiped his hands on his sweatpants.
Robin simply smiled her enigmatic smile and completely ignored his claim.
Darian didn't feel awkward at all. That was just how his dynamic with Robin worked. If he didn't want to use brute force to break her, he could only slowly wear down her defenses with persistence.
But soon, Darian successfully commanded Robin's full, undivided attention.
As Robin approached, the faint firelight from her oil lamp illuminated the massive stone tablet beside her.
Glancing at Crocodile lying dead on the ground, his blood pooling around him, and then looking up at the ancient inscriptions on the Poneglyph, Darian let out a soft murmur.
"So this is the famous Poneglyph? It's written in that strange cuneiform script," Darian mused aloud, rubbing his chin. "To think it says the Ancient Weapon, Pluton, is currently hidden in Wano Country! Is it really necessary to bring war and disaster to an entire desert kingdom just for a set of directions?"
"What...?! You can actually understand what's written on it?!"
Hearing Darian's casual murmur, Robin stopped dead in her tracks and stared at him with wide, completely shocked eyes. Even though Robin suspected Darian was deliberately trying to get her attention, the accuracy of his statement was impossible to fake. She couldn't help but ask.
Upon hearing that the legendary warship Pluton was in Wano Country, King Cobra trembled, his pupils contracting as he inadvertently learned a tremendous, world-shaking secret.
Rarely getting to see Robin's cool facade break into genuine surprise, Darian smiled slightly and replied in his usual, teasingly nonsensical manner. "Of course I can't actually read what's on the stone, Robin. But my Devil Fruit ability allows me to passively sense the deepest thoughts of women who secretly have feelings for me."
Hearing what Darian said with such a straight face, Robin couldn't help but freeze, a sudden spike of panic piercing her calm exterior.
Thinking about Darian's wildly lecherous life on the ship—always either flirting with some woman or on his way to bedding one—and how fiercely devoted Nami and the others were becoming to him, Robin genuinely began to suspect that Darian possessed some sort of demonic mind-reading ability when it came to women.
Robin began to deeply doubt herself, a terrifying realization creeping in: Do I actually have feelings for him?!
Thinking of the absolute depravity Darian engaged in...
The sudden thought of the explicit "train bento" position he had put Carmen in on the deck, the loud slaps of flesh, the white droplets she had seen hitting the wood, and the shameful fact that she had to relieve her own intense arousal with her fingers that night while listening to them... it all flooded Robin's mind.
Seeing Robin momentarily lost in panicked self-doubt, Darian was genuinely surprised. Could it be that Robin has actually been reacting to my harassment this whole time?
A flurry of highly compromising thoughts flashed through her mind, and Robin couldn't help but blush furiously at the thought that Darian might actually be reading her dirty fantasies right now. She had developed an undeniable physical attraction to this arrogant jerk.
But Robin was Robin, a survivor of twenty years on the run. She quickly forced down her blush and regained her stoic composure.
"This text isn't about Pluton!" Robin lied sharply, crossing her arms defensively. "It was just Crocodile's paranoid fantasy. It's merely a record of this country's ancient history, nothing more!"
The faster and more aggressively Robin refuted him, the more Darian felt that Robin truly harbored hidden feelings for him; otherwise, she wouldn't have been so flustered and desperate to hide it.
King Cobra might have been skeptical of the two pirates' bizarre dynamic, but Darian knew the true course of history in this world. The Poneglyph stored in the Alabasta Royal Tombs explicitly recorded the news that Pluton was resting beneath Wano Country.
While verbally refuting him, Robin was also internally kicking herself, wondering why she was even arguing so childishly with this bastard.
"Cough... cough!"
Ultimately, it was King Cobra's awkward coughing that broke the highly ambiguous, tense conversation between the Captain and the archaeologist.
"Gentlemen... and lady," Cobra said, looking incredibly weary. "Although I am not sure what exactly is written on this huge stone tablet, I must humbly request that you do not tell anyone in the outside world about what transpired here tonight."
Seeing Cobra's deeply worried expression, Darian nodded and comforted the old King. "Don't worry, Your Majesty. We know exactly how serious this matter is."
Although he said that to keep the peace, Darian was thinking to himself, 'Although I'm not immediately interested in digging up a giant battleship, compared to letting Pluton fall into the hands of Momonosuke—the useless son of Kozuki Oden—it's definitely best if Pluton eventually falls into my own hands.'
Robin did not answer Cobra, but Cobra didn't push the issue. The simple fact that Robin had actively lied to Crocodile to protect the secret of Pluton showed that she was, in her own way, reliable.
Dragging Crocodile's heavy, bleeding corpse by the ankle, Darian and the others walked out of the oppressive, humid tomb.
Fortunately, Cobra was a kind and honorable man. If he had triggered the secret self-destruct mechanism to bury Darian and the others alive to protect the Poneglyph—like he had attempted to do in the original timeline—Darian would have been in a very difficult, annoying situation.
After all, Darian had just finished thoroughly claiming the King's only daughter in the royal bedchamber. It would be incredibly awkward if Cobra tried to bury him under tons of rubble right after that.
Ultimately, only Darian, his crew, and a few top-tier figures in the Alabasta kingdom learned the absolute truth of Crocodile's death.
As one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, Crocodile was a public face of the World Government's power. The fact that Alabasta, a massive founding member state of the World Government, had to rely on a wanted pirate rookie to execute a Warlord to save their country was incredibly humiliating for the Marines.
However, some things simply cannot be hidden on a grand scale.
In an effort to quell the remaining civil disputes, the truth of Crocodile's syndicate plotting was broadcast throughout the country. And because Darian had spectacularly held off the entire rebel vanguard the day prior, his godly deeds had already spread far and wide among the commoners.
The World Government's intelligence network was incredibly sharp. After receiving the confidential reports from Smoker and Tashigi, the Marine Headquarters immediately analyzed the situation and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was the "White Emperor" Darian who had crushed Crocodile.
However, the fact that Crocodile's execution was not loudly publicized to the global press was something the World Government was relatively satisfied with, as it allowed them to spin the narrative to save face.
But because Darian had killed a Warlord and seized control of the narrative in Alabasta, the Marines naturally elevated Darian to the status of a massive, top-priority threat.
While the exact details of Darian killing Crocodile didn't hit the front page of the World Economy News, his bounty was quietly and significantly increased by Marine Headquarters. Possessing a terrifyingly versatile Devil Fruit, a ruthlessly competent crew, and the audacity to topple a Warlord, this inexplicably high bounty would soon bring a wave of new troubles to Darian's doorstep.
Of course, Darian didn't really care about the Marines' political posturing. He welcomed the challenge.
The massive internal strife of the country was not so easy to stop overnight. The next day, in order to help King Cobra completely stabilize the morale of his troops and the wavering rebel factions, Darian spent the entire day standing visibly on the city wall of Alubarna, projecting his overwhelming aura to ensure peace.
After the sun finally set and the city quieted down, Darian returned to the palace. Exhausted and covered in sand, he headed straight to the grand royal bathhouse to soak in the massive, heated tub and relax his sore muscles.
However, as he sank into the steaming water, his enhanced hearing picked up the unmistakable sounds of splashing, laughter, and playful chatter coming from the women's bathhouse right next door.
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