The net of sword light surrounded Vista like an impenetrable fortress.
Clang, clang, clang, clang—!
Lasers collided with his blades in a rapid series of crisp, ringing notes.
Every strike shattered a beam with perfect precision, the sounds blending into a strange and beautiful melody across the brutal battlefield.
Vista danced through the dense rain of lasers, his movements so light and graceful that it hardly looked like a battle to the death. It felt more like an extravagant performance.
Every motion carried a refined elegance that drew the eye.
"Too slow. Far too slow."
Vista gave a faint smile, quiet confidence and disdain showing in his expression.
In the next instant, his swordsmanship accelerated sharply.
His blades moved so quickly that they became almost impossible to follow. The sword energy trailing behind them condensed into solid pink petals in midair.
The petals looked soft and delicate, as if they would wither at the slightest touch.
Yet each one carried astonishing power.
They gracefully deflected one deadly laser after another, turning attacks that should have killed him into harmless streaks of light.
Not far away, Marco stood tall with his eyes fixed firmly on the battle.
He suddenly opened his mouth and shouted with all his strength,
"Vista! There's an opening on the left! That's your chance!"
His voice cut clearly through the surrounding chaos and reached Vista's ears.
"I noticed it long ago!"
Vista answered with calm confidence.
His body turned with fluid elegance. The sword in his left hand remained firmly raised before him, forming an unbreakable defense, while the blade in his right shot forward in a swift thrust.
At that moment, a laser came screaming toward him from a particularly tricky angle, flashing with eerie light.
Vista showed no trace of panic.
With exquisite swordsmanship, he touched the tip of his blade against the incoming beam and shattered it with pinpoint accuracy.
The corner of his mouth rose slightly as he spoke with a hint of pride.
"My swordsmanship leaves no opening wide enough for even the smallest fly to slip through. No attack can hide from my blades."
He abruptly crossed both swords before his chest and took a deep breath, his chest rising as he gathered tremendous strength.
Then he called out,
"Let me show you the true—Rose Sword Dance!"
His sword style transformed completely.
The elegant rhythm became violently ferocious as countless sharp slashes erupted from his blades like a raging storm, sweeping forward with overwhelming force.
The sword energies crossed and collided, creating a dense and deadly zone before him.
Even more astonishingly, those seemingly chaotic slashes appeared to possess minds of their own.
They tracked the lasers streaking through the sky, weaving and dodging like living spirits before intercepting every beam with perfect accuracy.
Each collision between sword energy and laser erupted in blinding light and thunderous noise, as though the entire world were trembling beneath their battle.
When the final wave of lasers had been wiped away, Vista remained every bit as elegant as before.
He slowly returned both swords to their sheaths, his movements smooth and natural, as though he had just completed a graceful dance rather than survived a deadly clash.
Then he lightly adjusted the brim of his hat and smiled to himself.
"It seems I'm not quite old enough to retire yet. I can still handle a challenge or two."
Nearby, Crocodile watched with the corner of his mouth raised in contempt.
The cigar between his lips released a slow stream of smoke as he sneered,
"Hmph. An attack this weak is supposed to belong to Uranus? What a joke."
His right arm immediately began undergoing a strange transformation, expanding as it turned into sand.
In the blink of an eye, his normal arm had become a massive limb made entirely from flowing grains.
Countless particles of sand gathered wildly in the air under his control.
They ground and crashed against one another, producing a harsh, teeth-grating sound like a roar from the depths of hell.
Crocodile's low voice rang out, mixed with the howl of the desert wind.
"Desert Spada!"
Before he even finished speaking, a gigantic blade of sand had already taken shape.
It tore through the sky and slashed toward the enemy with overwhelming power.
Although the enormous blade, formed from billions of tons of sand, was not truly solid, the constantly flowing particles gave it terrifying cutting force. Wherever it passed, the air itself was sliced apart with a sharp scream.
The razor-edged sand blade slammed into the dense, dazzling swarm of lasers.
Yet instead of the deafening explosion everyone expected, an ear-piercing sizzling noise filled the air.
It sounded like countless tiny metal shards grinding together, or electricity shrieking as it passed through damp air.
Looking closely, the tiny grains of sand were spinning at unimaginable speed.
They rubbed and collided so violently that they created a remarkable effect—the immense energy within the lasers was being slowly ground away and dispersed by those seemingly insignificant particles.
The once-blinding beams steadily dimmed, as though their life were being drained from them little by little.
Crocodile watched from the side with a contemptuous expression.
He casually exhaled a curling ring of smoke, which drifted before him and partly concealed his face.
Then he lazily raised his left hand and swept it forward.
"Sables."
An invisible force seemed to awaken.
A second, even more violent sandstorm erupted from the ground and surged straight into the heavens.
The newly formed storm responded to the one created by Desert Spada, quickly surrounding the trapped lasers from both sides.
The two sandstorms became a pair of gigantic millstones, locking the beams attempting to break free firmly between them.
As the sand spun at extreme speed, its tremendous impact and friction mercilessly tore into every laser.