Facing Barrett's overwhelming barrage, a metallic storm of blades, missiles, and energy blasts, Ritter darted through the endless hail of fire in what appeared to be a rather desperate struggle.
As one of Pilurka's Four Generals, Barrett certainly wasn't lacking in resources.
When you were rich, you didn't conserve ammunition.
You drowned your enemy in it.
Wave after wave.
Relentlessly.
From the very beginning, Barrett had avoided direct clashes.
There were no head-on exchanges.
No contests of strength.
No weapon-to-weapon collisions.
He simply buried Ritter beneath endless firepower.
Ritter's crimson eyes narrowed.
Every projectile.
Every energy beam.
Every blade.
Nothing escaped his observation.
Black Tide swept through the air, deflecting attacks that threatened his life.
The blood mist surrounding him silently swallowed the remaining shockwaves and stray energy that slipped through his defenses.
To outsiders, the battle looked evenly matched.
In reality...
Ritter was already at a disadvantage.
The difference between them wasn't strength.
It was their power source.
Ritter's power came from his own body.
His stamina.
His spirit.
His Haki.
Barrett, on the other hand, was entirely different.
Everything he possessed came from his energy core.
He was like a machine.
As long as there was fuel, his output remained constant.
Ritter wasn't like that.
As his stamina declined...
His reaction speed declined.
His strength declined.
Everything declined with it.
Originally, Ritter had planned to wear Barrett down.
Once Pilurka's army finally clashed with the Allied Army below, countless deaths would provide him with an endless reserve of Life Force.
An inexhaustible battery.
But...
The two armies never collided.
Or rather...
Pilurka had already begun understanding Ritter's abilities.
In a way, Ritter alone had prevented an entire war from breaking out.
As long as one of Pilurka's generals could keep him occupied...
The main armies had no reason to fight.
Imu might have gained a slight advantage over Galvan.
But on the other two fronts?
Pilurka completely dominated.
Even if the Marines committed their strongest fighters, at best they could tie down one general.
Maybe two.
The remaining one would massacre the assembled kings with little effort.
It wasn't that the kings were weak.
Their opponents were simply monsters.
Without reaching that higher realm...
Even Admiral-level strength wasn't enough.
Ritter and Imu had long surpassed the ordinary standards of Admirals.
Even among Emperors there were enormous differences.
After all...
Big Mom's brute force couldn't be compared to the precision of a single slash from Shanks.
From the perspective of the spectators, especially the nobles who had never liked Ritter in the first place, the situation looked obvious.
The Mist Lord was completely suppressed.
He could do nothing except desperately defend himself.
"Hmph."
"So that's all he's got."
"I thought he'd be stronger."
"Turns out he's nothing more than a flashy fraud."
One royal representative sneered quietly.
Another nodded in agreement.
"In the face of overwhelming firepower, personal strength really doesn't amount to much."
Even beneath Barrett's cold metallic visor, his electronic eye flashed with satisfaction.
Just as expected.
The firing rate of the Thousand-Blade Arsenal increased yet again.
He intended to erase this troublesome pirate once and for all.
"Steelbone Style!"
"Metal Deluge!"
"Full Barrage!"
More blades.
More missiles.
More energy beams.
They poured forward like a broken dam.
The entire sky where Ritter stood disappeared beneath explosions.
Metal crashed endlessly against steel.
The battlefield became a sea of fire.
Yet...
At the very center of the storm...
A faint smile slowly appeared on Ritter's face.
"Yes..."
"That's it..."
"A little more..."
"So where are you hiding...?"
His voice was barely a whisper.
His eyes pierced through the smoke.
Through the explosions.
Through the flying debris.
They remained fixed on Barrett's massive frame.
More specifically...
On the Thousand-Blade Arsenal mounted across his back.
He wasn't attacking.
He was searching.
Barrett's assault looked chaotic.
Wild.
Completely overwhelming.
But Ritter knew better.
Technology represented order.
Order meant patterns.
Patterns meant weaknesses.
After every large-scale volley...
Certain sections of the arsenal briefly emitted tiny flashes of returning energy.
Whenever the firing mode shifted...
Some joints hesitated for an instant.
So slight that no ordinary eye could detect it.
To everyone else...
Those details meant nothing.
To Ritter...
A warrior who had survived countless life-and-death battles...
Whose perception of energy flow bordered on the supernatural...
They were impossible to miss.
"Third energy conduit beneath the left shoulder blade..."
"External protection plate around the main energy valve on the right waist..."
"And..."
"The central power matrix..."
"Slightly left of center..."
"Protected by triple rotating armor..."
Then Ritter immediately rejected his own conclusion.
"No."
"Wrong."
"Those can't be the real weak points."
"If I can see them..."
"Barrett certainly can too."
Naturally, Barrett had no idea what Ritter was thinking.
Watching Ritter continue struggling beneath the endless bombardment, he assumed the pirate had reached his limit.
The caution he'd developed after witnessing Imu's strength slowly disappeared.
Victory was within reach.
"It's over!"
"Pirate!"
Barrett's metallic voice thundered across the battlefield.
Every firing port on his arsenal glowed brilliantly once again.
At that exact instant...
The previous volley had just ended.
The next one had yet to begin.
All available energy surged toward the arsenal simultaneously.
For a fraction of a second...
The defenses protecting the rest of his body weakened ever so slightly.
That instant...
Was all Ritter needed.
He moved.
"Found you!"
Scarlet light erupted from Ritter's eyes.
The blood mist that had been protecting him suddenly boiled violently.
It compressed.
Shrank.
Then gathered entirely at the tip of Black Tide.
At the sword's point...
A tiny sphere of absolute darkness formed.
It spun faster and faster.
Expanding.
Twisting the very space around it.
Ritter completely ignored the remaining attacks.
Several energy blades sliced across his body, leaving shallow cuts.
He didn't even flinch.
His entire body transformed into a crimson streak that seemed to tear through space itself.
Its speed surpassed what the naked eye could follow.
"Mist God Style!"
"Cataclysm Point!"
This sword...
Made Barrett's pupils contract sharply.
But he didn't panic.
He instantly twisted sideways.
Slash!!
A deep metallic sound rang out.
Steel.
Energy shielding.
Both were pierced simultaneously.
The tip of Black Tide, condensed with terrifying destructive force, cut forward as effortlessly as a hot knife through butter.
For a brief moment...
Time itself seemed to stop.
A thin crimson line appeared across Barrett's back.
Just a graze.
Had he reacted even a fraction of a second later...
That strike would have seriously wounded him.
As for the trail of blood left behind...
To monsters standing at their level...
An injury like that barely counted as a wound.
Far away on the Blue Sea...
Someone currently protecting Ritter's kingdom while sporting bruises all over his face suddenly sneezed.
"That's right."
"Nobody walks away from fighting Ritter completely unharmed."
BOOOOOOM!!
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