Even Whitebeard had once been challenged by Klocke Dahl.
His pride was naturally enormous.
This was also why Kaito's Conqueror's Haki had still failed to completely make Klocke Dahl submit until now.
Klocke Dahl, who felt that Lafayette was looking down on him, was naturally unhappy.
However, remembering that he had promised Lafayette three opportunities to attack before the battle, he temporarily suppressed his irritation.
He would teach the other man a lesson later.
"Mm?!"
Suddenly, while Klocke Dahl was thinking, the continuous whistling sound he had been hearing suddenly became overwhelming.
His head felt as though it were about to explode.
His vision blurred, and dizziness immediately washed over him.
The sudden change caused his control over the sand to falter.
The sand wall that had been blocking Lafayette's slashes instantly lost its shape and collapsed onto the ground.
Now!
Lafayette's eyes flashed.
He had been waiting for an opportunity like this.
Without the slightest hesitation, he seized the opening.
"Requiem: Straight Pierce!"
His figure shot forward through the scattered sand.
The cane sword in Lafayette's hand, coated in Armament Haki, thrust forward with incredible speed.
The slender blade pierced directly into Klocke Dahl's chest.
Blood and sand erupted simultaneously.
Blood sprayed from the front of Klocke Dahl's chest where the sword had entered.
But behind the wound...
There was sand.
Something's wrong!
Lafayette, who had successfully pierced Klocke Dahl, didn't feel the slightest bit pleased.
He immediately noticed the abnormality.
His expression changed.
Without hesitation, he pulled his sword back and retreated.
Boom!!!
Almost the instant Lafayette withdrew...
The pile of sand left behind by the collapsed sand wall suddenly transformed into a miniature sandstorm.
Violent winds swept in every direction, kicking up enormous amounts of dust.
If Lafayette hadn't retreated quickly enough, he would have been swallowed by the sandstorm.
But the sandstorm had only just begun.
As Lafayette rapidly retreated, several enormous blades of sand suddenly emerged from within the storm.
They tore through the air and chased after him with frightening speed.
"Paper-Paper Fruit: Multiple Paper Walls!"
Seeing the enormous sand blades cutting toward him, Lafayette's pupils contracted.
He immediately created one paper wall after another while retreating.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The enormous sand blades possessed terrifying destructive power.
When the first paper wall was struck, it was almost instantly torn apart.
Then came the second.
Then the third.
One paper wall after another was shredded.
Nearly ten paper walls were completely destroyed before the enormous sand blade finally exhausted its momentum and scattered across the ground.
Lafayette looked toward Klocke Dahl.
The Shichibukai's expression was extremely grim.
A hole had been punched through the clothes covering his chest.
Beneath them was a bloody sword wound.
Although the blade had not pierced very deeply, it was still enough to prove that Lafayette's attack had genuinely injured him.
As for why the sword had only caused such a shallow wound despite piercing through his chest...
The answer was simple.
Klocke Dahl had broken free of the hypnosis at the critical moment.
He had then used active elementalization to resolve the rest of the sword's penetration, transforming the affected portion of his body into sand.
Meanwhile, Lafayette had created more than ten paper walls in rapid succession and retreated dozens of meters.
Once his Observation Haki sensed that the enormous sand blade had disappeared, Lafayette immediately leaped into the air.
Two enormous white paper wings extended from his back.
With a powerful flap, Lafayette rose into the sky and looked toward Klocke Dahl through the remaining paper walls.
"Paper-Paper Fruit: Thousand Feather Barrage!"
The paper wing, which stretched five or six meters in length, suddenly produced countless smaller paper feathers.
They were fired toward Klocke Dahl like bullets from a machine gun.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
A violent exchange erupted.
The moment Lafayette strafed Klocke Dahl with his paper feathers, Klocke Dahl also locked onto his position in the air.
A large amount of sand erupted from Klocke Dahl's body.
The grains were compressed into countless sand bullets.
They shot toward Lafayette in a barrage of their own.
Paper feathers and sand bullets collided violently in midair.
Pieces of paper and grains of sand scattered everywhere.
Neither side gave the other any room to breathe.
"Paper-Paper Fruit: Spiral Guns!"
The cane sword formed through the Paper-Paper Fruit retracted into Lafayette's body.
In the next instant, two spiral-shaped paper guns condensed in his hands.
While continuing to fire the countless paper feathers from his wings, Lafayette suddenly climbed higher into the air.
Then he hurled the two newly formed spiral guns toward Klocke Dahl.
They tore through the air with an intense piercing sound.
In almost an instant, the two spiral guns arrived before Klocke Dahl.
"Heavy Sandstorm!"
A far more violent sandstorm suddenly erupted around Klocke Dahl.
Countless grains of sand were swept into the raging storm.
The powerful wind struck the two incoming spiral guns and forcibly blew them off course.
They crashed into the open ground nearby, leaving two deep holes behind.
The sandstorm continued to rage.
In the blink of an eye...
The entire martial arts arena was swallowed by the storm.
Lafayette was swallowed along with it.
The sandstorm was filled with countless razor-sharp grains.
Its destructive power was terrifying.
An ordinary person caught inside would have their body torn apart in an instant.
Lafayette was no exception.
His body was quickly shredded by the violent sandstorm.
However...
What was torn apart wasn't flesh and blood.
It was countless pieces of paper.
The Paper-Paper Fruit was a Paramecia Devil Fruit, but it was a special type of Paramecia.
In addition to allowing its user to create and manipulate paper, it also granted the user a special paper-like body.
In other words...
Lafayette could transform his body into countless pieces of paper, allowing him to disperse and neutralize attacks against him.
The shredded pieces of paper quickly gathered together.
They reassembled into Lafayette's body.
And that wasn't all.
The moment his body finished reforming, a layer of white armor immediately covered his body.
The countless grains of sand within the storm continued rubbing violently against the armor, leaving scratches across its surface.
However, this level of damage was far from enough to seriously injure Lafayette.
The armor could also be repaired.
Even if the damage wasn't immediately restored, the sandstorm still couldn't easily reach Lafayette's true body beneath it.
Lafayette descended from the sky.
The moment his feet touched the ground, two sharp spikes extended from the soles of his feet and pierced into the earth.
They anchored his body firmly in place, preventing the powerful sandstorm from carrying him away.
"Paper-Paper Fruit: Prelude—Breaking Soldiers!"
Combining his swordsmanship with the abilities of the Paper-Paper Fruit, Lafayette used his Observation Haki to lock onto Klocke Dahl's position.
Two cane swords formed in his hands.
He thrust both blades forward.
The slender swords rapidly extended.
Then they twisted and curved like living creatures, weaving through the raging sandstorm.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
The two blades tore through the storm and shot toward Klocke Dahl.
A massive wall of sand suddenly rose.
Klocke Dahl's Observation Haki had already detected Lafayette's attack.
He immediately created a huge sand wall in front of himself.
The two blades pierced into the sand wall.
However...
They couldn't break through.
The blades became firmly lodged in the middle of the sand wall.
The raging sandstorm continued to howl around them.
For the moment, the battle between sand and paper had reached another deadlock.
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