Faced with the desperate, all-out strike of the two vice admirals, Neferpitou did not choose to clash head-on. Instead, the scarlet in her eyes grew even more feverish.
"Dead toys… are the best toys of all."
She murmured softly. A ripple of nen spread out from her as the center, surging across the field. Her ability, "Toy Repairer," was unleashed at full power!
The corpse of Vice Admiral Yamakaji, who had just lost his life, suddenly twitched!
Then, under the horrified gazes of Momonga and Strawberry, Yamakaji's body staggered to its feet like a marionette yanked upright by invisible strings!
Yamakaji's vacant eyes snapped open. The half-broken blade in his hand was being manipulated by unseen nen threads as it hacked viciously toward the charging Vice Admiral Momonga at the very front!
"What?!"
Momonga's guts went cold. Never in his wildest imagination had he expected Neferpitou to desecrate a fallen comrade's corpse like this—using it as a weapon to attack him!
The suddenness and sheer wrongness of it shattered Momonga's composure in an instant.
He was forced to face an attack coming from the body of his dead comrade. For a time he was left flustered and on the back foot, danger closing in at every swing!
Neferpitou used Yamakaji's corpse as a meat shield, constantly driving it forward to launch attacks against Momonga and Strawberry.
On the other side of the harbor battlefield, far from the clash of the top-tier combatants, the fighting was just as brutal and deadlocked. Former rear admiral Gasparde and Doberman were locked in a life-and-death struggle.
By now, Gasparde had long since lost his former arrogance. His gaudy purple outfit was in tatters, and his body was covered in deep sword wounds that laid bone bare, blood pouring out until he was practically soaked into a man of scarlet.
His power to turn any part of his body into soft candy was being heavily restrained by Doberman's Armament Haki.
Gasparde panted violently, eyes fixed on Doberman with a vicious glare. At this moment he fully understood the gap between himself and a Marine Headquarters vice admiral.
Doberman's breathing was somewhat uneven as well, and he had a few extra wounds on his body, but overall his condition was far better than Gasparde's. It could be said that Gasparde's attacks had barely troubled him.
Looking at the man before him—once a fellow Marine, now standing on the opposite side, yet still strong enough to hold him here for so long—Doberman felt a stab of regret. But more than that, he felt killing intent toward this traitor.
If someone like this were allowed to roam free, he would certainly cause even greater losses for the Marines in the future.
At this moment, the corner of Doberman's eye swept across the entire battlefield. The deaths of Vice Admirals Stainless and Yamakaji only made the anxiety in his chest burn hotter.
The overall situation on the battlefield was getting worse and worse for the Marines! Every second of delay might lead to irreparable consequences.
Doberman knew he had to get rid of this stumbling block Gasparde as fast as possible and go support his comrades!
"Gasparde! Your resistance is meaningless! Betray justice, and there is only one road left—death!"
Doberman no longer held anything back. He coated his long blade completely in Haki, the tip of the sword locking straight onto Gasparde's heart. This strike was meant to end his opponent once and for all!
Gasparde's pupils shrank sharply. He wanted to dodge, but his heavily injured body reacted half a beat too slow.
For a moment he could feel death drawing closer and closer, and despite himself he wondered: if he had left the Lulusia Kingdom at the very start, would everything have turned out differently?
"So this is the end?"
A trace of despair flashed through Gasparde's mind.
At that hair-trigger instant—
A small figure burst out from the rubble!
A longsword flashed up in front of Gasparde, intercepting Doberman's blade and knocking its trajectory aside.
"Clang—!!!"
Because of the sudden interposed sword, the tip of the blade veered off course and failed to pierce Gasparde's vital point!
Doberman's heart jolted. He immediately turned his head to look at the interloper who had suddenly appeared.
It was a girl who looked barely into her early teens, around ten years old at most, a longsword gripped in her hand. It was Kuina, who had rushed over.
However, the tiger's mouth of her sword hand had split open, blood seeping out. Clearly, blocking Doberman's all-out blow just now had been anything but easy for her.
"A little girl?"
Doberman's brows knit tightly, his expression turning solemn.
He could feel it clearly: despite her age, that previous parry had fully displayed this girl's extraordinary courage and mastery of swordplay.
Just how many monsters did the Lulusia Kingdom have hidden away?!
Kuina forced herself to ignore the pain shooting from her shoulder. Her eyes were locked firmly onto Doberman.
She knew very well that in her current condition, she had absolutely no chance of victory against a Marine Headquarters vice admiral in his prime.
But she could not back down!
She did not know Gasparde, but the fact that he had managed to keep a vice admiral tied down for so long meant that he, too, was a comrade fighting alongside them, a part of the resistance against the World Government!
Without looking back, her voice trembling slightly as she fought to endure the pain wracking her body, she shouted, "Hey, gummy freak! Can you still move?!"
Gasparde was taken aback for a moment. He looked at the little girl who had suddenly appeared and saved his life, and then burst into rough, manic laughter.
"Hahaha! Little brat! I'm the great former Marine rear admiral Gasparde! You think a few little cuts are going to take me down?!"
He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, forced his battered body upright, and once again staggered to his feet. His flesh began to writhe as the Soft-Candy Fruit's power activated once more. Battle lust flared up in his eyes again.
"I can keep fighting for another hundred years!!"
Of course, that was just talk. Both he and Kuina knew very well that their bodies were already at the very limits of what they could endure.
But in a desperate situation like this, that very extremity only ignited an even fiercer fighting spirit in them.
Doberman stared at the strange pairing before him: a gravely injured former Marine traitor, and a girl who looked far too young. His sense of foreboding only grew stronger.
He could not drag this out any longer!
"Since you're so bent on dying, I'll oblige you both!"
Doberman let out a low roar and finally stopped hesitating. His long blade swept out, thrusting toward Kuina and Gasparde at the same time, every strike aimed straight at a vital point!
However, with Kuina's arrival, the flow of the battle shifted in an instant!
Kuina's strength and Haki were far inferior to Doberman's, but she had inherited the essence of what Beth and Teresa had taught her and was especially skilled at spotting flaws in an enemy's attacks.
Using her agile footwork and sword techniques, she could always disrupt Doberman's offense at the most critical moment and open a window for Gasparde.
As for Gasparde, despite his heavy injuries, his combat experience was rich. Together, he and Kuina formed a strange yet perfectly complementary pairing.
Doberman felt the pressure mounting! Under the coordinated assaults of the two, his offense was repeatedly broken. More than once he nearly had a vital spot sliced open by Kuina's longsword.
"Damn it!"
The longer the fight went on, the more alarmed Doberman became. He discovered that, for the moment, he genuinely could not finish off these two battered opponents!
Especially that little girl—her talent for swordsmanship was downright terrifying. As long as she was given the time to grow, she would definitely become a swordsman whose name shook the entire sea in the future!
Just how many monsters was the Lulusia Kingdom hiding?!
(End of Chapter)
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