The scene was terrifying, utterly overwhelming.
High in the sky, a dense swarm of thousands of sharp spikes began to pour down like a torrential rain, covering the entire area. A single glance upward was enough to see the countless points aimed directly at you.
A sharp whistling filled the air. Only then did everyone snap out of their stunned paralysis. The color drained from their faces; the soldiers, in particular, turned a bloodless, deathly pale.
"Run!" Smoothie and Katakuri, standing atop the rubble, roared in unison, their voices filled with urgency.
But by the time the words left Katakuri's mouth, his usual calm was gone. It was already too late.
The dense barrage of spikes descended, blanketing the battlefield. In an instant, the sickening sound of sharp points piercing flesh echoed everywhere.
Squish! Splat!
"Aaargh!"
Screams erupted as the soldiers, completely unable to defend against such a wide-scale, indiscriminate attack, were run through by the spikes raining from the sky.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Body after body collapsed to the ground.
Watching this unfold, Katakuri's eyes turned bloodshot. His clenched fists trembled with the sheer force of his grip.
Beside him, Smoothie was the same. Neither of them could just stand by and watch their people be slaughtered.
BOOM!
Smoothie swung her greatsword with a furious roar, unleashing a colossal wave of purple sword energy that shot toward the heavens.
In a flash, the descending spikes in its path were incinerated like paper meeting flame, turning to ash and vanishing completely. But there were still more, a much larger area of spikes that the sword wave hadn't touched. They continued their straight, deadly descent, plunging downwards faster than gravity alone could pull them.
BOOM!
Just then, Katakuri made his move. A massive amount of white, sticky mochi secreted from his body, spreading out in all directions the moment it appeared, forming a protective canopy that resembled a tsunami cresting and crashing downwards.
Thwack! Thwack!
The rain of spikes plunged into the mochi. More and more followed, until the entire white dome began to solidify, its surface covered in a dense forest of black spikes that dotted its pristine surface.
Even so, a large area remained unprotected by Katakuri's mochi dome. The spikes struck true. In an instant, dozens of soldiers were impaled. They staggered forward a few agonizing steps before collapsing, never to move again.
Still, the actions of the two Sweet Commanders had saved many lives. If not for their intervention, the casualties would have been far more catastrophic.
But the result was still the loss of over a hundred soldiers. Katakuri's eyes were crimson, and the sound of his teeth grinding together was audible.
"WILDER!" he bellowed. With a single, powerful step, his body vanished with a boom, and he shot towards the pile of rubble.
He knew now, of course, that he had been tricked. The only thing he couldn't understand was how. His Observation Haki had clearly seen the lifeless form crushed beneath the boulder. Why, then, was there this sudden, new attack?
Katakuri landed on the pile of rubble and stomped his foot down. BANG! A shockwave of air blasted outwards from his position, sending the surrounding stones flying and clearing a large open space.
With the obstructive rubble gone, Katakuri's eyes immediately fell upon the massive boulder in the center. He stared at it, his expression growing darker by the second.
He strode forward, step by step, until he stood before the boulder. Reaching out, he grabbed a corner and, with a grunt of effort, heaved it into the air, revealing the "corpse" beneath.
Crrrack.
Looking down at the "body" at his feet, Katakuri's eyes filled with a blazing inferno of rage. He wanted nothing more than to find someone—anyone—and kill them to vent his fury. His eyes were locked on the ground, his pupils trembling with anger. His hands were clenched into tight fists, and his teeth ground together so hard they creaked.
This wasn't a corpse at all. The thing at his feet was clearly a mud sculpture. Its appearance was identical to Wilder's, a perfect match in size and shape. The sculpture was even posed in the shape of a dead man.
Seeing this, Katakuri was speechless, his face a mask of grim fury.
Tap.
Just then, Smoothie walked up beside him. She looked down at the "Wilder" at their feet, and her shoulders began to tremble with rage.
"So..." Katakuri's voice was dangerously low, each word bitten off. "Where is he now?" As he spoke, his murderous eyes scanned the surroundings.
Smoothie's expression was just as ugly. "Mom was right. That guy is nothing but a filthy sewer rat! He must be hiding underground!"
Underground!
Katakuri's gaze swept the area. "Of course I know he's underground! That attack just now, those arrow-like things, they shot up from the ground! What I want to know is how he did it. To fool my Observation Haki, he must have been hiding deep. But could he still launch an attack with such a massive range and power from that far down?"
Hearing this, Smoothie fell silent. She remembered how Wilder had broken two of her ribs with a single exchange.
"All we can say is that we underestimated him from the very beginning."
"Found him!" But just then, Katakuri's eyes snapped open as he shouted. At the same time, his body shot towards a patch of earth.
Startled, Smoothie quickly turned to look.
BOOM!
Suddenly, the calm ground began to churn. Then, a massive swamp hand erupted from the softened earth.
It was as if it had anticipated Katakuri's arrival. Just as he charged forward, the hand swung down, slapping at him with immense force.
BANG!
A deafening, dull thud echoed. Katakuri, his face impassive, raised his left arm, coated it in Armament Haki, and swung it viciously. BAM! The giant hand instantly disintegrated into a spray of mud.
But Katakuri didn't stop. A large amount of mochi poured from his right hand, coated in Armament Haki. The massive wave of mochi surged like a great dragon, plunging headfirst into the softened ground.
BOOM!
Countless globs of swamp were sent flying outwards. It was only then that Smoothie, standing behind him, realized that the entire patch of land had been unknowingly transformed into a swamp pit.
Gurgle... Gurgle...
The mochi poured in at an incredible speed, filling the swamp pit in an instant. More importantly, when the swamp tried to obstruct the mochi, it was effortlessly pushed aside and dispersed. Katakuri's entire arm had transformed into mochi, continuously secreting more and channeling it forward. The mochi connected to his arm didn't just drift aimlessly; under his precise control, it moved freely, like an extension of his own limb.
His Observation Haki had already locked onto the figure within the swamp. The mochi surged through the mire, converging on the target from all directions, preparing to surround and annihilate him.
BOOM!
Just then, the swamp exploded violently. Katakuri's expression turned cold, and before he could react, he looked up.
A figure shot out of the swamp, appearing before Katakuri in an instant and delivering a powerful kick.
Katakuri raised his left hand and threw a heavy punch, the kick and fist colliding with tremendous force.
"Finally decided to come out, have you?" Katakuri looked up, a cold smirk on his face as he looked at Wilder. "Smoothie! Now!"
"Hm?" Wilder sensed something and was about to move, but in the next moment, a figure had already appeared behind him, a hand reaching out to grab him.
"Got you. Die, Wilder," Smoothie's voice, thick with suppressed rage, came from behind. Wilder just smiled faintly, his body dissolving into a pool of mud in an instant.
Splat!
Smoothie's hand passed right through the mud. But a second later, a foot coated in Armament Haki swept across, striking the pool of swamp at the waist.
BANG!
The swampy mass was sent flying, crashing into a distant boulder and cracking it. Wilder reformed his body, wiped a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, and stood up. He looked at Katakuri and Smoothie and grinned. "Well now, this is something else. This teamwork of yours is deadly."
Despite his words, Wilder's heart was heavy. The fight had been going on for some time, and it was safe to say he hadn't gained any advantage. In fact, their coordination was nearly perfect.
Wilder had to admit it: he was feeling the pressure.
There was another issue that bothered him. Just now, when he was hiding underground and Katakuri's mochi had rushed in, Wilder discovered that his swamp was completely unable to destroy the mochi. Instead, his own swamp, in its non-hardened state, was simply pushed aside.
So, man-made stuff really is something else.
Swamp really couldn't compare to mochi, whether in terms of stickiness or its use as a bludgeon.
Of course, what Wilder was concerned about wasn't how powerful Katakuri's mochi was. It was that after fighting for so long, he found that his own swamp couldn't gain the upper hand. He had been pondering this problem throughout the fight, and now, he had an answer.
Without resorting to his most stamina-draining abilities and techniques, there was only so much Wilder could do. The most versatile and fundamental tactic was to clash head-on with his swamp. For example, forming his swamp into fists, palms, and various other shapes to fight against the mochi.
But the crux of the problem, Wilder now realized, was that even then, his swamp couldn't break through Katakuri's Armament Haki-infused mochi. And in terms of offense, that mochi was stronger than his swamp.
This was clearly a very practical method; swamp coated in Armament Haki was definitely not weak.
That was the key.
It could be said that Wilder had finally met an opponent whose ability was not only similar to his own, but superior in terms of sheer quality.
He had felt it during their exchanges. Whether it was when Katakuri's mochi entered the swamp tunnel he had assimilated, forcefully pushing his swamp aside, or in their several clashes, the mochi's powerful defense and offense had put his swamp at a disadvantage.
This was the problem that was preventing him from gaining the upper hand. And how to break this stalemate was what Wilder had been constantly thinking about during the fight.
Now, he had his answer.
To break this stalemate, he had to make his swamp superior to Katakuri's mochi.
He had to make his own swamp capable of damaging the mochi. He had to completely reverse the situation, going from being slightly countered to completely countering his opponent. Only then could he break this deadlock.
How do I do that? Wilder frowned, his mind racing.
But in battle, your enemy won't give you much time to think, nor will they let you stand still and strategize. Though it seemed like a long time, all of this had happened in an instant.
Hearing Wilder's words, Katakuri and Smoothie changed their approach. They wouldn't be so direct this time. Through the previous exchanges, they had a general idea of the situation and had already decided to alter their tactics.
They exchanged a glance. Katakuri no longer rushed towards Wilder at top speed. Instead, he advanced at a brisk walk, and as he did, he swung both arms back, secreting a large amount of mochi.
WHOOSH! A dull roar cut through the air as Katakuri's arms, now swung back, shot forward.
With the motion, his arms transformed into mochi, stretching out infinitely as they shot towards Wilder.
The twin mochi fists reached Wilder in the blink of an eye. Just as he was about to dodge, a sword wave attacked him from behind.
He had no choice. He had to elementalize ahead of schedule. In an instant, he secreted a large amount of swamp, compressed it, and then detonated it. The swamp blast propelled his semi-elementalized body into the sky, allowing him to dodge the attack.
But he hadn't expected it. He had just dodged the attack and was still in mid-air when Smoothie, down below, looked up, her dangerous eyes locking onto him.
She raised her greatsword and swung.
A pinkish-purple sword wave shot directly at Wilder.
And it wasn't over. On the other side, Katakuri also made a move, but not to attack Wilder. Instead, he bent down and pressed both palms to the ground.
With a sudden roar, a massive amount of mochi erupted from his palms, covering the surrounding area in the blink of an eye. A thick layer of mochi, glowing with a faint white light, now coated the ground. Having done this, Katakuri looked up at the sky, a cruel smile on his face.
By now, the sword wave had arrived.
Sizzle!
A small portion of the swamp beneath Wilder was touched by the sword wave. It made a soft hissing sound and rapidly withered.
Wilder felt an extreme sense of danger coming from behind him. For the first time, he couldn't help but curse inwardly. He had never seen such insane, perfect coordination.
He could see exactly what Katakuri's move was for. It was to cut off his retreat. Even if he managed to dodge this attack in mid-air, he would eventually have to fall. And at that time, the mochi below wouldn't pass up such a golden opportunity. It would likely surge up and engulf him completely.
The sizzling sound grew louder in his ears; it was the sound of the swamp beneath him being dehydrated by the encroaching sword wave.
I've got it!
But just then, a thought flashed through Wilder's mind. His eyes, which had been hidden within his swamp form, suddenly materialized, shining brightly.