"Yes, Captain!"
"Everyone, back to your stations!"
"Turn the rudder! Follow the passage the captain opened and regroup with the main fleet!"
The crew aboard the three rescued ships immediately acknowledged Kaito's orders.
Without hesitation, they hurried back to their posts, steering the ships through the channel Kaito had carved into the frozen sea toward the harbor where the rest of the War Pirates were trapped.
"Ah la la..."
"So you're trying to send them away?"
"I'm afraid I can't allow that."
Just as Kaito spotted Kuzan for the first time, Kuzan had already found him as well.
Seeing Kaito slice open a passage through the ice to let the three ships escape, Kuzan calmly removed one hand from his bicycle's handlebars.
An overwhelming chill instantly gathered around his right arm.
Then he swung it forward.
"Ice Block—Pheasant Beak!"
The accumulated cold exploded outward.
In the blink of an eye, it condensed into an enormous ice pheasant with its wings fully spread.
The giant bird screamed across the frozen sea at terrifying speed, charging directly toward Kaito and the escaping ships.
This really couldn't have happened at a better time.
Kaito drew his second golden saber.
Watching the enormous ice bird rushing toward him, a grin slowly spread across his face.
Boom!!
A brilliant golden flying slash burst from his blade.
Wrapped in violent winds, the enormous slash tore a deep trench through the glacier as it rose upward, meeting the ice pheasant head-on more than thirty feet above the frozen sea.
A heartbeat later—
The two attacks collided.
BOOM!!
It was like two natural disasters crashing together.
The Golden Slash Wave smashed directly into the gigantic ice bird.
The glacier shook violently beneath the impact.
A deafening explosion echoed across the sea.
Ice fragments flew in every direction while violent shockwaves swept across the battlefield.
The Golden Slash Wave split the ice bird apart.
At the same time, the exploding bird shattered the slash itself.
Both attacks vanished simultaneously.
Only an enormous crater remained in the glacier, exposing the seawater far below.
He's stronger than the intelligence reports suggested...
Kuzan's eyes narrowed slightly.
That brief exchange had already told him one thing.
Kaito was significantly stronger than Marine Headquarters had estimated.
Still...
The realization didn't make him nervous.
It merely surprised him.
Compared to a slight misjudgment of strength...
Successfully locating the War Pirates was far more important.
Marine Headquarters possessed one of the world's greatest intelligence networks.
The reason Kuzan had failed to find the War Pirates during his previous mission to West Blue wasn't because Marine intelligence was inadequate.
It was because Kaito had coincidentally hidden on an uninhabited island.
No intelligence network could locate someone who left behind no trace.
This time, however, things were completely different.
After leaving Shimotsuki Village, the War Pirates had sailed directly toward Reverse Mountain.
Unlike their unpredictable movements in West Blue, their route through East Blue was obvious.
Tracking them became far easier.
That was why Kuzan had secretly entered East Blue...
And finally caught up with them.
Whoosh!
After dispersing Kuzan's attack, Kaito fixed his sharp gaze on the admiral in the distance.
The next instant—
His knees bent.
The glacier beneath his feet exploded into a crater.
His body transformed into a blur as he launched himself forward.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Kaito's speed was astonishing.
Every time his foot touched the ice, another crater erupted beneath him.
Each step carried him hundreds of yards across the glacier.
Within only a few moments...
The distance between him and Kuzan had shrunk to only a few hundred feet.
Kuzan's Observation Haki immediately locked onto Kaito's astonishing speed.
Without hesitation, he abandoned his bicycle and leaped into the sky.
Crack!!
A torrent of freezing air erupted from his palms.
Almost instantly, an enormous sphere of ice over three hundred feet in diameter condensed above him.
Using another burst of freezing wind as propulsion—
Kuzan hurled the gigantic frozen sphere downward like a falling meteor.
It crashed toward Kaito at incredible speed.
Zing!!
Without slowing down in the slightest, Kaito swung his right-hand saber.
A massive Golden Slash Wave erupted skyward.
His eyes never left the descending ice sphere.
His expression remained completely calm.
The slash cleaved straight through the enormous frozen meteor.
The colossal sphere split cleanly in half with almost no resistance.
The Golden Slash Wave continued onward without losing momentum, racing directly toward Kuzan.
Advanced Armament...
A crimson gleam flashed through Kuzan's eyes.
His Observation Haki immediately sensed the powerful Armament Haki infused into the incoming slash.
He frowned slightly.
Kaito was proving even more troublesome than expected.
Only those who had mastered the advanced application of Armament Haki could infuse flying slashes with Haki itself.
That meant...
Long-range attacks were just as dangerous to Logia users as close combat.
The slash reached Kuzan in an instant.
It sliced directly through his body.
His figure split neatly into two halves—
But what fell onto the glacier wasn't flesh.
It was ice.
The two frozen halves landed heavily upon the glacier.
Cold mist immediately gathered around one of them.
Moments later, Kuzan's body reformed from the ice.
Rather than dodging...
He had simply used active elementalization to avoid taking damage.
As his body reappeared, an ice saber condensed in his hand.
He raised it immediately.
Boom!!
Kaito's golden saber slammed heavily into the frozen blade.
A visible shockwave exploded outward.
Kuzan successfully blocked the strike.
Yet...
The instant their weapons collided—
His expression changed.
The strength behind Kaito's strike was overwhelming.
Kuzan's feet sank deeply into the glacier.
His arms bent under the pressure.
Even the ice saber was steadily being forced backward toward his own body.
That kind of strength...
Is this guy another monster on the level of Charlotte Linlin?
Surprise flashed across Kuzan's face.
Without hesitation, he placed his other hand against the ice blade as well.
Only then did he barely manage to stop the saber from collapsing against him.
Looking across the crossed weapons, he stared at Kaito in astonishment.
Kaito paid no attention to Kuzan's reaction.
His right-hand saber remained locked against the ice blade.
At the same time—
He smoothly swung the golden saber in his left hand upward from below, aiming directly at Kuzan's legs.
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