Crocodile had just taken a breath to concentrate when Bullet's arrogant words reached his ears.
'What?! He dares to use me... Sir Crocodile... as his personal training weight?! Who the hell does he think I am!'
"I will grant your death wish right now!" Crocodile screamed. "Desert: Grand Funeral!"
Thoroughly enraged, Crocodile stopped thinking about conserving his stamina.
He had only one thought left: to kill Douglas Bullet, or at the very least, crush his arrogant bones to dust!
Underground, Bullet suddenly felt an overwhelming, astronomical pressure crashing down on him from all directions.
The impossibly heavy force made his chest feel weak, leaving him gasping for air in the dark.
CRACK!
The hard rock shell covering his body instantly shattered under the massively increased sand pressure.
Though his exposed skin sustained continuous, grinding damage, Bullet's eyes only grew brighter.
'This is it! This is the true feeling of a life-or-death battle!'
Bullet laughed maniacally inside the collapsing earth, while Crocodile desperately increased the weight and compression of the sand, attempting to crush the Demon Heir into a bloody paste right there in the desert.
'If this is all you have got, then it is my turn to make a move.'
A cold, lethal glint flashed in Bullet's eyes as he sensed Crocodile's stamina approaching its absolute limit.
This level of pressure still could not deal fatal damage to Bullet's monstrous physique.
Originally, Bullet wanted to wait and see how far Crocodile could push himself, but now he changed his mind.
Crocodile's limits did not matter; there would be plenty of time to train later.
This was Bullet's very first battle after joining Raleigh's crew, and he could not afford to stay buried and entangled with a rookie like Crocodile all day.
If Raleigh looked down on him for being too weak to escape a sand trap, Bullet would genuinely rather die.
His massive body withstood the endless, crushing pressure and the razor-sharp sand grains as he violently flexed his limbs.
Though this simple movement caused the abrasive sand to tear the skin right off his arms, Bullet paid no mind to the bleeding.
The intense pain only cleared his mind further.
Observation Haki exploded outward from Bullet's body, quickly locking onto Crocodile, who was standing above ground, continuously increasing the sand's weight.
"That is enough! I have no more time to play with you!" Bullet roared. "Sand Armor!"
Using the Clank-Clank Fruit, the sand directly around him—which was now heavily stained with Bullet's own blood—instantly adhered to his body under his command, forcibly forming a thick, earthen-yellow set of armor.
Above ground, Crocodile, who had been maintaining the Desert Grand Funeral with all his might, suddenly paled.
He never expected that Bullet could actually hijack and transform the very sand he was trying to control.
Now, the sand closest to Bullet's body had all been converted into the brute's personal armor, severing Crocodile's control and making the Warlord hesitate for a fatal split second.
BOOM!
A tremendous, earth-shattering explosion erupted.
The previously condensed yellow sand suddenly surged from the depths into the sky, forming a massive sand pillar.
A split second later, a massive, terrifying figure burst out from within the sands, charging straight toward Crocodile without looking back.
'Damn it! How is he so fast?!'
By the time Bullet emerged from the depths of the yellow sand, the bloody sandy armor on his body had already crumbled away, leaving only faint, bleeding scratches covering his heavily muscled skin.
Then, his massive figure vanished in the blink of an eye, reappearing directly behind Crocodile.
So fast—!
When Crocodile saw Bullet appear beside him out of thin air, a fleeting thought of escape crossed his mind.
However, Bullet's movements were far faster than the Desert King's thoughts.
An iron hand thickly coated in black Armament Haki mercilessly grabbed Crocodile by the face and slammed his head violently into the ground.
BOOM!
Crocodile's head smashed into the street, instantly creating a crater several meters wide in the hardened cobblestone.
Blood streamed heavily from Crocodile's forehead, the tremendous, concussive impact leaving his consciousness spinning in absolute disarray.
Bullet gave Crocodile absolutely no chance to recover.
He lifted the bleeding pirate's body into the air with one hand.
Then, with a powerful, full-arm swing, he hurled Crocodile's body like a ragdoll toward the distant buildings.
Another series of destructive, thunderous crashes echoed as Crocodile's body tore through three separate stone houses.
Thick smoke billowed from the shattered structures.
Having endured two devastating, Haki-infused physical attacks, Crocodile was nearly at death's door.
Yet, he truly possessed the unyielding potential of a Grand Line powerhouse.
Injuries that would have instantly killed any normal man only took Crocodile mere seconds to regain his clarity from.
Feeling the broken bones aching throughout his entire body, the killing intent in Crocodile's eyes grew almost tangible.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. To remain conscious after such severe injuries... I now believe you actually have the potential to become a true powerhouse." Bullet waved away the thick smoke and slowly walked through the rubble, appearing right before Crocodile.
"Rise."
Using his remaining, unbroken index and middle fingers, Crocodile weakly formed a hand sign, desperately channeling his Logia ability.
Two streams of yellow sand silently coiled like snakes around Bullet's ankles as twin, massive sand walls erupted from the ground, slamming inward to crush the brute.
Simultaneously, under the visual cover of the swirling sand walls, Crocodile swiftly retreated from the wrecked buildings, dragging his broken body away.
Tch.
'As expected of Crocodile... to still devise an escape method in this battered state.'
Bullet retracted his fists to his sides, then explosively thrust them outward.
A powerful shockwave, accompanied by white, howling air currents, blasted directly into the two sand walls.
BAM!
Unsurprisingly, the sand walls shattered instantly under Bullet's raw physical strike, but Crocodile had already vanished from the rubble.
Bullet's cruel, mocking voice echoed far through the ruined town.
"Where are you going, little rat?"
Hearing this, Crocodile spat a mouthful of blood fiercely onto the ground, his eyes shadowed with deep, venomous gloom.
'Just wait until I come back... next time, I will definitely kill you!'
With that thought, Crocodile charged rapidly toward the perimeter of the town.
To escape the island, he had to break through the encirclement formed by the Marine soldiers and quickly find a boat.
But as Crocodile was still strategizing his escape route, a massive, terrifying shadow fell over his path.
Huh?
Turning his head, Crocodile was met by a massive, Haki-coated palm.
CRASH!
Once again, Bullet slammed Crocodile hard into the ground.
The violent impact to the back of his head nearly made the Warlord completely black out.
Immediately after, Bullet's thick, tree-trunk-like leg swung viciously toward Crocodile's left calf.
CRACK!
"ARGHHHHHHHH!"
Crocodile's left shin was brutally snapped in half by the merciless kick.
Only then did Bullet finally release his grip on the pirate's face.
The severe, blinding pain jolted Crocodile back to full consciousness just as he was about to faint.
His remaining hand desperately manipulated the dirt into sharp sand-blades aimed at Bullet's calf, but such a weak attack was completely disregarded by the Demon Heir.
A simple, invisible layer of Conqueror's Haki rendered Crocodile's final, desperate assault utterly useless.
Tap... tap... tap...
The rhythmic sound of military boots echoed across the quiet street as Vice-Admiral Raleigh approached, accompanied by Gion.
Looking down at the proud Desert King, who was now lying in the dirt like a beaten, dead dog, Raleigh spoke with a cold, condescending tone.
"Crocodile, let us revisit the terms we discussed earlier." Raleigh smiled down at the broken pirate.
"Do you think you will agree to my rules this time?"
The polite smile on Raleigh's face made it seem as if he was offering Crocodile a friendly, beneficial business deal—that is, if one completely ignored Crocodile's battered, bleeding body, the destroyed town surrounding them, and Bullet's twisted, bloodthirsty grin standing right nearby.
"Cough... Marine... I would rather die—"
Thud.
Before Crocodile could even finish his defiant sentence, a polished white military boot stomped heavily on his head, pressing his bloody face directly into the dirt.
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