"Waaah~ Such a huge, snowy-white fox, Nahamah!"
"She looks pretty strong, Lilith."
"She's perfect! Judging by her aura, she must be an ice-type magic beast. I want her as my pet, Nahamah!"
Surprisingly, Lilith and Nahamah seemed delighted by Guren's arrival, showing no signs of alarm or tension at all.
"Listen carefully! These two can only be harmed by Devil Fruit abilities and Haki. Don't waste time with anything else!"
Crocodile flew in nearby, his voice low and grave.
Whatever the case, the appearance of Esdeath and Guren had definitely just saved his life.
"We've already received that intel, Lieutenant General Crocodile. In fact... it's likely we know even more than you."
Guren spoke loudly, her vulpine jaws parting to project her voice.
"What?"
Crocodile furrowed his brow. He couldn't wrap his head around what she meant.
Wasn't he the first high-level fighter to clash with these two demons?
How could there possibly be information he didn't know?
But Lilith and Nahamah weren't interested in wasting another moment.
"Magic Ice Spell!!"
"Magic Flame Spell!!"
In an instant—
The southern region of the Land of Swamps was engulfed once more in a storm of pitch-black fire and frost that blotted out the sky.
Its sheer darkness made it resemble a boiling sea of thick black clouds.
"So strong!"
Guren's fox eyes narrowed sharply. She could feel it—a wave of intense heat and penetrating cold.
"Let's go, Guren!"
Esdeath had already activated the powers of her Mythical Zoan: Kirin Fruit.
Her body, now in hybrid form, stood taller and more imposing, bearing the distinctive features of a Kirin.
Guren raised her nine snowy-white tails behind her—
Each tail tip gathering a frigid, brilliant blue energy.
[BOOOOM!!!]
The next instant, a massive ice-blue blade of energy surged forward, roaring with the chilling force to freeze even the land itself.
Surrounded by nine beams of bluish-white light, the blast tore through layers of air—
Slamming head-on into the tidal wave of fire and ice hurtling toward them from above.
When these forces collided in the skies above, the very heavens and earth of the Land of Swamps instantly lost all color.
Countless pockets of air, caught between extremes of heat and cold and subjected to unimaginable power, were immediately transformed into violently destructive shockwaves that tore through the battlefield.
The spectacle was breathtaking—but the outcome was far from favorable.
As expected, the jet-black flames and pitch-dark frost devoured Esdeath's blade light and the energy cannon fired by Guren at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Forced into retreat, Guren had no choice but to leap away with Esdeath still perched on her shoulders, narrowly avoiding the aftermath of the black flames and frost.
Fortunately, Lilith and Nahamah weren't focused on them at the moment.
Because Crocodile—his body transformed into a mass of yellow sand—had silently closed the distance and was now right in front of them.
"Desert Great Sword!!!"
From the ferocity etched across his face and the violet lightning coiling around his sandblade-forged arm, it was clear—he was going all out, aiming to pierce straight through Lilith's chest.
Back when he slaughtered those lesser and mid-tier demons...
Crocodile had keenly noticed that these demons possessed hearts.
And if they had hearts, then that had to be a vital weak point. Why else would they exist?
Such simple logic made him firmly believe he was right.
[BOOMMMMM!!]
The surging black fire and jagged black ice, like monstrous crashing waves, swept down furiously to meet the incoming Desert Great Sword—and then poured directly onto Crocodile's body like an unrelenting torrent.
"Aaaaaaaaghhh!"
Once again, Crocodile experienced the horrifying agony of being scorched and frozen at the same time. Enveloped by black flames and dark frost, his entire figure was blasted backward through the air.
His anguished scream echoed across the battlefield—raw and unfiltered—before he crashed down like a falling meteor, shattering a wide stretch of the frozen ground below.
"Ah! Aaaah! I can't… hold back anymore!"
"Magnificent!"
"That cry of pain and despair from a human… it's the most exquisite sound in existence! No matter how many times I hear it, it never gets old!"
Lilith and Nahamah suddenly became wildly ecstatic, their blood-red lips parting into savage grins filled with fangs, laughing maniacally without restraint.
It was obvious—Crocodile couldn't withstand the combined assault of Lilith and Nahamah.
The problem was, no one could share the burden of Lilith and Nahamah's attacks for him.
Guren and Esdeath's attacks, as things stood, could do little more than serve as a distraction.
They had come to understand this clearly.
"Guren, cover me!"
With that shout, Esdeath—now in her Human-Beast Form—suddenly dashed forward.
She stepped swiftly across the sky using Moonwalk, rushing toward Lilith and Nahamah. In her hand, the flower-shaped sword—essentially a transformed Nichirin Blade—swept out a barrage of dense, radiant azure slashes.
At the same time, high above, she summoned a true iceberg, vast and towering, to descend from the skies like a falling mountain.
Meanwhile—
Coughing up blood and in an even more battered state, Crocodile launched himself upward like a sand pillar soaring to the heavens, accompanied by explosive sonic booms as he attacked Lilith and Nahamah from below.
In the distance, the massive Guren swung her nine long tails behind her—each one wrapped in Armament Haki—like thick, powerful spears, encircling Esdeath to intercept the oncoming black flames and black frost, shielding her as she advanced.
The battle suddenly intensified to a fever pitch.
[BOOM!]
A violent burst of black fire exploded into a massive fireball, blasting Guren's nine tails and Esdeath backward. At the same time, a torrent of flames surged skyward, instantly evaporating the iceberg that had been descending overhead.
But just a second later, Nahamah heard Lilith cry out in pain again.
"Hm?"
Nahamah turned her head.
She saw that Lilith's left hand had been severed—cut clean off by a sandblade crackling with violet lightning.
But Crocodile wasn't in much better shape.
His chest had been pierced by countless shards of jagged black ice.
Enraged, Nahamah launched a ball of black fire straight at him.
But as if anticipating the attack, Crocodile scattered into yellow sand just in time, narrowly dodging death.
"Kuaha—ha—ha—ha—!"
That ragged, gasping laugh echoed once more.
High in the sky, Crocodile reformed his body from sand, using one hand to melt away the black ice lodged in his chest. Facing Nahamah's glare—seething with murderous intent—he sneered coldly: "Next time… it won't just be your hand. I'll cleave through that black flesh of yours—and the heart beating inside it."
Yet deep down, Crocodile couldn't help but sigh to himself: Still not strong enough. If I were, that last strike should've been enough to cut clean through her chest from behind.
At the same time, his gaze shifted to Guren and Esdeath.
Charred marks had appeared on several of Guren's nine tails—some more pronounced than others.
Esdeath, on the other hand, had emerged mostly unscathed, thanks to Guren's protection.
Still, Crocodile had to admit—those two had definitely come through for him just now.
Without Guren and Esdeath, he knew he wouldn't have had any real chance of injuring Lilith.
"Pain... It's been centuries... and you're the first human to make me feel this sensation—not just once, but twice! Aaaagh! I want to kill you… I want to torment you!"
Lilith screamed, her mouth stretched in a frenzied grin as she held up her severed arm.
"Don't worry. You're going to get a full taste of pain—and of death. That's a promise."
Crocodile shot back coldly.
But he knew better than anyone the state his body was in.
After taking hit after hit from black fire and black ice, he was already covered in wounds from head to toe.
Even with Life Return working overtime to stabilize and restore him, it did little against such severe burns and frostbite.
If it weren't for his awakened Sand-Sand Fruit letting him offset some of the effects through its 'desiccation' rule, combined with his Armament Haki and tenacious life force, he wouldn't have lasted this long at all.
But right then and there, Lilith regrew her severed hand in full view of everyone.
"I may not specialize in flesh-type magic," she cooed, "but this level of injury? Child's play, little humans~~"
Nahamah followed with a cold tone: "This is why no world's humans have ever defeated us top-tier demons. Compared to your fragile bodies, ours are nearly immortal."
Crocodile snorted in disdain at her words.
"You think regrowing a limb makes you immortal?"
"I expected more from so-called demons—but you're just a bunch of laughable frogs in a well."
If only his own Life Return had reached that level...
He would've gladly demonstrated the same trick.
"Oh? Then let's see if your bodies can still regenerate... after we cut them to pieces!"
Lilith and Nahamah spoke in unison, their voices cold and laced with malice.
In the next instant—
A towering sea of pitch-black flames and an endless storm of frost swept forth once again.
Guren, Esdeath, and Crocodile had no choice but to grit their teeth and continue the grueling fight.
And among them, Crocodile—being the main offensive force—was pushing himself the hardest.
At the same time—
Esdeath could clearly feel the vast disparity in strength between the two sides. A fierce frustration welled up within her—along with an even stronger thirst for power.
"The weak have no right to live. The weak can only cling to the strong. That's why I must become stronger—stronger than anyone else. Only then... will I survive."
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