Chapter 347: The Decisive Strike

Up on the surface, Xiao Kai, who had fully resigned himself to death moments earlier, stared dumbly at the man standing beside him.

"You... Are you really Brother Hu? Weren't you..."

Smack!

Brother Hu cuffed Xiao Kai lightly on the back of the head. "You little brat, are you that eager to see your Brother Hu dead?!"

"B-But..."

"No buts! You must've heard my nickname, 'Two-Lives Hu,' right? All she did back there was snap off my tail," Brother Hu grinned, flashing his teeth.

"My Devil Fruit is a Zoan-type: the Gecko-Gecko Fruit. My tail has regenerative properties."

"Whoa!" Xiao Kai's eyes went wide. Sure enough, Brother Hu was swishing a tail that was nearly larger than his actual body.

So that was it.

Brother Hu was a gecko user. What had been ripped in two earlier was merely that colossal tail, which was why he had survived unharmed.

"Brother Hu, those people..."

"That's right. They are the true power behind our Dark Clan—an Emperor crew, the Dragon Flag Pirates!"

"Their captain is our Lord Drake! I'm the one who called him over," Brother Hu said, hooking a thumb toward his chest with undeniable pride.

The reality was that after Im had grabbed him, she assumed he was dead. He seized the opening to relay the intelligence up the chain immediately, connecting directly to the Dragon Flag Pirates' frequency to brief Drake on the situation.

That was the sole reason Drake and his crew had arrived with such blistering speed.

Xiao Kai stared in a daze at Kenshin and Bell before catching sight of Kuzan, who was lounging casually atop a massive boulder nearby, watching the spectacle like an amused bystander.

Arcing bolts of lightning crackled relentlessly around Kenshin's body like a thunder god descending to the mortal realm. Every gesture, every strike, every draw of his blade radiated absolute might.

Is this... the Dragon Flag Pirates I've dreamed about for so long?!

RUMBLE...

Suddenly, the earth shook violently. The ground fractured open as a colossal mass erupted from the subterranean depths, bringing an ocean of black mist that blanketed the entire mountain ridge in an instant.

A solitary figure soared into the sky. Drake's eyes blazed with intense luminescence as he strode across the open air, blade in hand, his visible aura radiating outward.

Fissures in the spatial fabric spread continuously around his frame.

One man, one sword, commanding the very heavens.

To Xiao Kai, the sight was nothing short of a divine war god descending upon the world.

This is... Lord Drake!

The supreme master behind the Dark Clan, powerful as a deity.

With him on the field, victory was guaranteed.

That was the absolute conviction shared by everyone present.

"Im! That scorched-earth wasteland of an island—that was your doing, wasn't it?" Drake lifted his chin slightly, glaring at the surging, turbulent mass of black mist.

"Just what is your ultimate goal?!"

"You again! Brat, I advise you to back off while you still can. Otherwise, the consequences will be far beyond what you can bear," the black mist coalesced into a colossal, sneering face in the sky.

"Is that so?! Then by all means, let me see these consequences of yours!" Drake smiled faintly, entirely unfazed by her empty threats.

Raising a single hand, he drew boundless spatial energy into his grip. When dealing with that incorporeal mist, only spatial manipulation offered a clean counter.

Spatial force coated the edge of his blade, churning with violent sword energy. Drake's eyes narrowed; he knew victory and defeat would be decided in a split second.

They understood each other's capabilities intimately, and Im dreaded the devastating sealing technique Drake had used to suppress her previously.

What she didn't know was that Drake could no longer execute that specific move—the Demon Warder lacked the necessary energy reserves.

At the same time, Im was stripped of a physical vessel. In this state, their baseline strength was evenly matched; securing victory demanded a single, lethal strike.

He could not grant Im a single second to breathe, nor could he allow her to exploit the evasiveness of her ethereal form.

BOOM!

The black mist plunged from the sky in a predatory swoop.

Im opted for a preemptive strike. The instant she moved, her true essence shifted through the mist.

While everyone's attention was fixed on Drake above, the black mist behind Ain condensed rapidly, solidifying into a humanoid silhouette.

Haha, she's mine!

Once this vessel is secured, every last one of you will die!

Inside Drake's sea of consciousness, the System shrieked frantically: [Hurry, move! There's no time! That girl Kaya is the exact vessel she's hunting for!]

Drake's eyes snapped wide, brilliant light erupting from his pupils. Twisting his grip, he unleashed a sweeping slash.

The suffocating mass of black mist hovering over the entire island was cleaved cleanly in two, allowing sunlight to flood back over Syrup Village.

The breathtaking sight left the villagers—young, old, men, and women alike—frozen in absolute awe.

Is he... a god?!

Not only the villagers, but even Im widened her shadowy eyes in disbelief.

Shaken, she lunged her hand toward Kaya beside Ain with desperate speed.

"Ain, fall back!" Locke roared, sweeping his bo staff horizontally with bone-crushing force.

Im dissolved instantly into black mist, rendering Locke's strike completely ineffective.

The mist was not a physical body; even strikes infused with Armament Haki could not make contact with a tangible form.

"Damn it!" Locke's pupils shrank. Against this incorporeal phantom, his brute strength was entirely neutralized.

In the next heartbeat, Im reformed into a humanoid shape, extending a massive shadowy claw.

Ain and Kaya had zero room to evade.

"Did you really think I'd let you have your way?"

Drake materialized directly before Im, his spatial blade cleaving the massive dark claw cleanly in half.

Simultaneously, the surrounding atmosphere compressed with terrifying density, creating an absolute vacuum around Im's coordinates.

The pinnacle domain of spatial manipulation: Absolute Vacuum!

In this world, every living entity without exception relied on a fundamental element.

Oxygen.

Now, he could generate a vacuum zone at will—an unblockable, absolute kill-switch.

The sprawling black mist shrank visibly at a rapid pace; deprived of Im's concentrated energy output, more than half of the dark canopy dissolved into nothingness.

"It's over, Im!" Drake locked his gaze on the trapped entity, preparing to channel his full power to purge the world's greatest scourge once and for all.

With this, his final quest would be completed.

Everything would draw to a close...

BOOM!

"The person capable of killing me does not exist in this world!" Im shrieked toward the heavens, causing the localized space to fracture under her rage.

"A pinpoint of sword light, where dimensions bloom!" Drake closed the distance, the tip of his blade blazing with brilliant radiance as he drove a piercing thrust straight through Im's spectral chest.

The application of spatial power had distinct echelons: mobilizing space, manipulating space, utilizing space, and ultimately—creating space!

Blinding light erupted from the sword's tip as newly forged spatial dimensions expanded outward, pinning Im, who had been on the verge of breaking the spatial cage, firmly in mid-air.

A piercing, agonizing shriek tore through the heavens, a sound terrifying enough to make anyone's skin crawl.

In her current state, Im lacked physical flesh; all the onlookers could see was a grotesque visage formed from churning black mist.

Right now, that massive face was contorted in unbearable agony.

"Kenshin!" Drake bellowed.

"Understood!" Kenshin, coated entirely in crackling lightning, vaulted high into the clouds before plunging straight down like a falling meteor.

"Lightning Flash: Eternal Realm!"

The turbulent spatial energy fused seamlessly with the descending apocalyptic lightning.

The two forces resonated and amplified each other, expanding exponentially as the cleansing storm of spatial lightning scoured the writhing black mist down to the atom.

After what felt like an eternity,

a deafening detonation echoed across the sky, painting the firmament in vibrant, multicolored light. The black mist was blasted into oblivion by the radiant shockwave, and the harrowing shrieks gradually faded into absolute silence...