One Piece: A Warlord's Path

Chapter 908: Chapter 908: The Resolve to Die

"Master Haunger..."

Sabo stared at Haunger’s lifeless body, a cold sense of shared tragedy welling up in his chest.

Of their original group of eight, most were now dead or severely wounded. Even this legendary Grandmaster, a man whose fame had spanned decades, had fallen so abruptly on this battlefield.

Perhaps Haunger had passed his prime in some respects, but his foundation remained formidable. Yet, he had been cut down with such terrifying ease.

"Lad, in today’s battle, it’s kill or be killed. There’s no time for idle thoughts, nya!" Master Nekomamushi stood beside Sabo, still puffing on his pipe, his eyes sharp.

"I always regretted never crossing paths with Master Haunger back then. Seeing him today, even like this, fills that gap," Duke Inuarashi added, gripping his sword and wiping a trail of blood from his lip.

The two of them had once served under Kozuki Oden and spent time aboard the ship of the Pirate King, Gol D. Roger. By a twist of fate, shortly after they had departed the crew, the Roger Pirates had clashed with Haunger and the Marines in the Aubrey Kingdom.

Now, over twenty years later, they finally met the man, not as enemies, but as allies in a desperate struggle.

Duke Inuarashi stepped forward, leveling his longsword at Aeridar. His voice was heavy with resolve. "Golden Ring Aeridar, you stole our sacred treasure and slaughtered countless warriors of our kingdom. Today, we settle this debt of blood!"

"The desperate howling of beaten dogs. Last time, I spared you only out of respect for Rayleigh-san," Aeridar said, looking down at Inuarashi and Nekomamushi with icy indifference. "Since you’ve come back to seek death, do you really think I’ll hold back again?"

"Good. We wouldn’t want you to, nya." Nekomamushi’s gaze turned feral, fixed on Aeridar as if he intended to tear the man apart with his bare teeth.

Aeridar’s lips pulled back into a grim, predatory grin. "Then come. It’s a pity I didn’t bring Zhurong with me. Otherwise, you could have spent your final moments reminiscing about its flames!"

"You bastard!"

At the mention of Zhurong, both Inuarashi and Nekomamushi bristled with rage. They harbored a deep, gnashing hatred for that fire-demon monster that had incinerated half of the Whale Forest.

In the next heartbeat, the Duke and the Master lunged simultaneously, flanking Aeridar in a coordinated pincer attack.

"Mere beasts trying to turn the world upside down!" Aeridar laughed savagely. His massive frame moved with unnatural fluidity, blurring out of existence as he shifted his weight.

"Impact Fist: Rapid Fire!!!"

Aeridar accelerated through the air, his fists becoming a flurry of afterimages. Each strike carried the weight of a mountain, the sheer force of his blows vibrating the very atmosphere.

Inuarashi and Nekomamushi fought back with desperation, their weapons clashing against the onslaught.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

Black iron fists met cold steel, sending sparks flying through the air. The rapid-fire clashing of metal rang out like a mechanical drum, creating shockwaves that rippled outward in white, explosive rings, sweeping across the battlefield like a hurricane.

The three moved at blinding speeds, shifting the epicenter of their battle across the ruins. Each step shattered the earth into deep craters; every stray gust of pressure brought down another skyscraper.

"Rankyaku!!!"

With a sudden roar, Aeridar unleashed a powerful horizontal kick. The force tore the air apart, sending a massive, vacuum-blade projectile screaming forward.

"Great Tengu!!!"

Inuarashi met the attack head-on, swinging his sword with everything he had to intercept the crescent-shaped vacuum blade.

CLANG—!

The screech of metal on air pressure echoed as a violent gale erupted. Inuarashi held his ground for only a few seconds before the sheer momentum of the vacuum blade began to push him back, his feet carving two thirty-meter-long trenches into the earth.

"BREAK!"

Inuarashi bellowed, his muscles bulging as he redirected the massive slash away from himself.

BOOM—!

The crescent blade spun off into the distance, slicing clean through the midsection of a five-star hotel. The upper twenty meters of the building slid off and crashed into the street, burying the area in a mountain of debris and dust.

"Nya!"

Suddenly, Nekomamushi leaped high above Aeridar’s head, gripping his double-headed trident with both hands and thrusting it downward toward Aeridar’s skull.

THUMP—!

A violent pulse of impact force erupted from Aeridar’s body, blasting Nekomamushi backward into the air.

In the blink of an eye, Aeridar stepped forward, the ground beneath him exploding from the pressure, and shot out like an arrow. His speed was so immense that he overtook the mid-air Nekomamushi in an instant.

"Impact Cannon!!!"

Aeridar let out a raspy, low growl. His punch punched a hole through the atmosphere, compressing the air into a solid, white pillar of pressure shaped like an elephant’s foot. Unlike a dispersing shockwave, this was a concentrated, armor-piercing strike.

BOOM—!

The world shook. The transparent pillar of air slammed Nekomamushi directly into the bedrock, carving a five-meter-deep crater into the earth. A geyser of dust and smoke shot hundreds of feet into the sky.

"NEKOMAMUSHI!" Inuarashi’s face paled as he cried out in horror.

"AERIDAR—!"

Sabo roared as he charged into the fray. His hands, coated in obsidian ’Dragon Claws,’ moved in a blur, colliding with Aeridar’s massive fists in a rapid-fire sequence of heavy thuds.

In less than ten seconds, the two exchanged hundreds of blows. Each collision sent rings of distorted air rippling outward, the ground beneath them splintering into a massive spiderweb of cracks.

However, the gap in raw power was too vast. After ten seconds of continuous clashing, Sabo’s arms were screaming in pain, and he could barely maintain the ’Dragon Claw’ formation.

BOOM—!

Aeridar saw his opening and hammered a fist into Sabo’s chest.

"Gah—!"

Sabo couldn’t react in time. He coughed up a spray of blood as he was sent hurtling backward. He vanished into a blur of black shadow, smashing into the ground hundreds of meters away with the force of a falling star, the impact leveling every building within a hundred-meter radius.

"When faced with men who have already resolved themselves to die... killing you is the best reward I can offer!"

Aeridar let out a thunderous roar, appearing before Duke Inuarashi almost instantaneously. His black iron fist, encased in a shroud of white pressure, descended like a falling hammer.

"AAAHHH!"

Inuarashi let out a final, defiant yell, his usual calm demeanor replaced by raw fury. Visible arcs of electricity danced along his longsword as he swung it upward to intercept the fist.

BOOM—!

The moment fist met steel, the earth buckled and collapsed into a massive bowl. Cracks appeared in the very air itself. A ring of white vapor exploded outward, a man-made hurricane that swept across the heaven and earth.

The shockwave radiated outward, shattering the surrounding ground into thick, jagged fissures that snaked toward the horizon.

"Hmm?"

Aeridar’s eyebrows shot up. He looked down at Duke Inuarashi, who remained standing perfectly upright, his sword held in a mid-swing stance.

A second later, the sword in Inuarashi’s hand shattered into a dozen pieces with a sharp crack. His eyes were wide, but the light of consciousness had already vanished.

Aeridar’s single punch had shattered the majority of Inuarashi’s bones and pulverized his internal organs. He was dead, but his spirit was so unyielding that his body refused to fall.

The former crewmate of the Pirate King, the Ruler of the Day of the Mokomo Dukedom, had fallen in battle.

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