Garling's face showed no shift in emotion as he spoke calmly, "Gulando, perhaps death will be a release for you."
Gulando sneered, answering, "You're still so self-righteous."
Garling ignored the taunt and addressed Lloyd, "Lloyd, before the Blood-Blood Fruit spirals completely out of control, its core will be exposed. Gulando will be extremely weak then. With your current speed, you can defeat him."
Garling could still remember the moment his own Father had lost control. Because he hesitated and failed to seize the opportunity to strike decisively, his Father had managed to regain a fraction of awareness and yield. That experience had cost Garling dearly, and so he warned Lloyd to act without hesitation. Otherwise, given Gulando's relentless personality, even if he regained a moment of clarity, he would never surrender.
Lloyd nodded. He intended to buy more time until Gulando entered the unstable period Garling described, then destroy him in one decisive strike.
Gulando shook his head and said, "Garling, you are too naive. Do you really think I would repeat Father's mistakes? How much do you really know about this Blood-Blood Fruit?"
Garling frowned, asking, "What do you mean by that?"
He only received a chuckle in reply.
Gulando glanced at his final clone. The clone walked forward and dissolved into a pool of bright blood that merged entirely into Gulando's body.
At the moment of merging, Gulando's aura surged explosively. His upper clothing tore under the strain of bulging muscles, and his conical hair turned stark white and spread outward.
A massive blood aura shot toward the sky. Gulando's eyes were blazing crimson, his expression grotesque and ferocious. He spat shimmering blood from his mouth, veins bulging on his face as if they might burst at any second.
Despite his reckless blood absorption, Gulando should have lost control long ago. Logically, his mind should have fractured from the strain. The reason he had managed to hold himself together until now was that he had pre-generated a large number of clones to disperse the burden of power absorption.
This was also why Lloyd had not initially sensed a significant increase in Gulando's strength. Gulando had assumed his clones would be sufficient to overwhelm Lloyd, but he had not expected that after obtaining the Vampire Fruit, Lloyd's power would rise so dramatically.
Now Gulando was forced to recall all his dispersed strength into his main body, pushing himself to the brink of losing control.
But none of that mattered anymore, because Gulando had long since discovered a method to resolve the loss of control that typically plagued a Blood-Blood Fruit user.
His gaze toward Lloyd warped into pure fanaticism. Gulando licked his lips with a long tongue, letting out a beast-like roar as he lunged at Lloyd with feral intensity.
Though his body had grown in mass, his speed not only remained swift but had become terrifyingly fast.
Even Lloyd with his speed enhancement could not react in time and was seized in Gulando's grasp.
Gulando looked upon Lloyd with a sinister grin and began to clutch him, but his arms passed straight through Lloyd's body. Gulando's smile froze in place.
Only then did it occur to him — Lloyd had used the same ability back in the Holy Land. That move, which he had never named, was the shameless and frustratingly unavoidable Kamui.
Lloyd had activated Kamui, becoming intangible and passing through Gulando's body, choosing instead to observe him quietly.
When Lloyd learned that Gulando was on the verge of losing control, the idea to activate Kamui had immediately occurred to him. With Kamui active, Gulando's previously amassed power became meaningless. He flailed and rampaged, destroying the surrounding terrain in wild frenzy, while Lloyd simply remained in place, calm and untouchable, watching Gulando's impotence play out.
Seconds ticked by. Gulando's skin began to writhe with blood-red veins. Blood streamed from his eyes, making his face resemble that of a hellish demon.
Unable to stand the torment, he ceased his attacks and began ripping at his own flesh with both hands. Large patches of skin tore away, only to regrow instantly, but the new skin pulsed with writhing blood blisters that drove a maddening itch through him.
"Ah ah ah!!!"
A scream full of agony echoed across the battlefield. Gulando's eyes bulged, his eyeballs nearly popping from their sockets. Suddenly, his gaze locked onto Garling.
With Gulando targeting him, Garling's expression turned grave. He drew his sword and held it before his chest. In the next instant, Gulando was upon him, spewing a foul stench from his mouth.
"Garling! Let me use your body first!!!"
Conqueror's Haki erupted instantly from Garling, shaking the ground layer by layer. He slashed at Gulando, voice cold, "You have gone mad!"
Gulando made no effort to evade. He allowed Garling's blade imbued with Conqueror's Haki to cut into his chest.
The strike knocked him back only a few steps, and the wide gash in his chest rapidly healed.
Gulando lunged again, hooking with Garling, grinning wildly.
"I am not mad yet, Garling. If you give me your body, I will never lose my mind!"
Garling fended off his attacks, voice composed but stern, "What are you even talking about?"
Gulando claimed he was not insane, but in truth he had already slipped into complete frenzy. His laughter twisted and unhinged as he shouted,
"Ha ha ha! Father told me the way to prevent the Blood-Blood Fruit from going out of control long ago!!!"
"What??" Garling's eyes widened in shock.
A savagely venomous expression crossed Gulando's distorted face. With hatred burning in his voice, he continued,
"The method is simple, you only need to take the body of a close kin before losing control!"
Garling was shaken deeply. His movements stalled as Gulando's words struck him. In that moment, he took a solid blow from Gulando, spitting a mouthful of blood as his body flew backward.
But Gulando did not pursue. His eyes were fixed instead on the blood Garling had coughed up. He opened his mouth wide and inhaled the blood directly into his body.
As he absorbed that blood, a faint glimmer of clarity flickered in Gulando's eyes. Suddenly, he snapped his hand backward and grasped the tip of the sword that was lodged behind him.
At the same time, Lloyd exited Kamui and appeared beside Garling in a blur.
Garling steadied his breathing, still winded, and stared at Gulando.
"What did Father tell you back then? Why did he never tell me?"
Gulando sneered, his voice twisted and bitter, "Of course he never told you, because you were the one he valued the most. Even if he died, he never thought to take your body!"
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