First, though, he had to survive the immediate crisis.
"Looks like I'll have to expend some stamina," Wilder sighed. His expression turned icy as an even greater torrent of swamp erupted madly from his body.
BOOM!
With a deafening roar, the pinkish-purple sword wave finally slammed into the mass of swamp suspended in mid-air.
"What is he trying to do?" Smoothie looked up at the sky, her brow furrowed slightly.
The nearby soldiers watching the scene didn't notice the finer details. Seeing the swamp in the sky completely enveloped by the massive sword wave from Smoothie, they erupted in excited cheers.
"Whoa! Hahaha! Lady Smoothie is incredible!"
"All hail Lady Smoothie!"
"He's finished this time!"
"Anyone hit by Lady Smoothie's sword gets completely drained! No one has ever survived it, and Wilder will be no exception!"
Crack! Crack!
But just then, the distinct sound of something cracking echoed from the sky, reaching everyone's ears with perfect clarity.
The soldiers' expressions froze. Their cheers died in their throats as they looked up at the sky. The immense purple sword wave was... shattering.
Shattering...
Shattering...
ing...
Everyone who saw it was utterly dumbfounded.
A moment later, a massive explosion thundered from the sky. The pinkish-purple sword wave completely disintegrated, vanishing without a trace.
Once the sword wave was gone, the scene within was revealed.
When they got a clear look, everyone, including Katakuri and Smoothie, wore expressions of disbelief and shock.
"What is that...?" Smoothie tilted her head back, her mouth moving, but her voice was barely a whisper.
In the sky, a house-sized mass of swamp was plummeting downwards. The terrifying part was that this irregular, spherical swamp was now covered in sharp, enormous, hardened spikes, protruding densely from the central sphere.
It looked like a...
Sea urchin?
The giant spikes growing on the swamp sphere weren't stationary. They seemed to be alive, constantly extending and retracting at incredible, completely irregular speeds. Each movement was accompanied by a sharp whistle.
Most importantly, they were coated in Armament Haki.
It was, without a doubt, a living sea urchin.
In truth, this was a technique Wilder had developed based on a sea urchin, which he had named Starfall: Sea Urchin.
The rapidly extending and retracting spikes were a form of intense, percussive attack. This move combined offense and defense, using the layers of spikes on the sphere's exterior as a defensive barrier formed by constant attacks. The sphere itself was composed of an outer layer of swamp, a middle layer of non-Newtonian fluid swamp, and an innermost layer of hardened swamp. At its very center was Wilder himself, completely assimilated into the swamp.
Thwump! Thwump! Thwump!
The urchin's spike-like tentacles extended and retracted rapidly and ceaselessly, creating a series of sonic booms. The force of a single tentacle's strike was enough to demolish a building. With so many spikes firing at once, its power was easily equivalent to a hundred punches thrown in an instant. Anything caught in its path would not have a good end; the best-case scenario would be to last a few extra seconds before being obliterated.
Smoothie's pinkish-purple sword wave was a perfect example.
The giant "living sea urchin" fell from the sky, crashing straight down. It slammed into the ground, causing a violent tremor as a shockwave of air and dust radiated outwards.
It was clear from the impact that its weight was far greater than its size suggested. A moment's thought was enough to imagine the immense compression the swamp had undergone to form such a behemoth.
Everyone stared at the "sea urchin," too shocked to speak. The visual impact was simply too great.
They had lived for decades and had never seen a sea urchin that big.
Whoosh!
After the giant urchin landed, it kicked up a cloud of dust and thick smoke, obscuring everyone's vision.
Swish! Splat!
Suddenly, thousands of sharp spikes shot out from the urchin. They moved with incredible speed. Katakuri and Smoothie's expressions changed as they leaped and flickered away, dodging the incoming projectiles.
"Aaargh!" The soldiers, however, weren't nearly as fast. Before they even realized what was happening, they were pierced through by the sudden assault.
Squish! Splat!
The sound of sharp objects piercing flesh rang out again and again, followed by sprays of blood and falling bodies.
These spikes were different from before. They had been imbued with immense compressive force before being unleashed, and they flew out in a dense, omnidirectional barrage that covered the entire area.
In a single moment, a large number of soldiers' bodies lay dead outside the ruins. The spikes didn't stay lodged in them; they passed straight through, continuing with considerable force to slam into distant buildings, burying themselves deep within the walls before finally stopping.
Crack!
Having lost its tentacles, the sea urchin was now just a sphere. Katakuri and Smoothie stared at it, their faces grim.
Just then, a faint sound came from the sphere. A crack appeared on its surface. Both of them held their breath, their eyes fixed on the fissure.
The crack gradually widened, accompanied by a continuous soft cracking sound.
But then, the sphere suddenly went still.
"Smoothie," Katakuri said in a low voice, his eyes still locked on the sphere.
"Right." Smoothie knew what he meant without him having to ask. She raised her greatsword and brought it down with formidable force.
FWOOSH!
A rainbow-hued blade of energy erupted from her sword, tearing across the ground as it shot towards the sphere.
BOOM!
As expected, the sword wave tore the sphere apart. A brilliant pinkish-purple light flared, and then the sphere split in two, exploding in a shower of scattered swamp.
As the dust settled, both of their gazes fell upon the sundered sphere. A second later, their pupils couldn't help but tremble.
"He's gone," Katakuri said, an "I knew it" expression on his face.
"Damn it! That guy..." Smoothie gritted her teeth, her eyes scanning the surroundings.
The sphere had been torn open, but there was no sign of Wilder inside. It was empty, save for some residual swamp.
"There." Just then, Katakuri, who had closed his eyes for a moment, snapped them open. He spoke a single word and shot towards a patch of ground.
Alerted by Katakuri, Smoothie immediately followed, charging over with her greatsword in hand.
BOOM!
The ground erupted in a wave of earth. White mochi and a pinkish-purple sword wave struck in unison, tearing the ground open and revealing a deep, dark space below.
"Honestly, can't you let me rest for a second?" A slightly exasperated voice came from the space below. A tall figure then leaped out. Swamp instantly poured from his right arm, coalescing into a giant fist coated in Armament Haki, which he brought down on Katakuri's head.
Gurgle!
White mochi erupted, also forming a giant fist on Katakuri's arm, similarly coated in a thick layer of Armament Haki.
The next second, the two giant fists collided heavily.
A violent shockwave blasted out from between the two fists, the roar of the impact deafening.
The two men stared at each other, their faces contorted in grimaces, their clothes whipping about in the fierce wind.
Feeling the immense weight from the swamp fist, Wilder's eyes narrowed slightly, his brow furrowed. Just as I thought...
That heavy feeling once again confirmed his earlier suspicion. In terms of pure offensive power, his swamp was slightly lacking. Compared to Katakuri's mochi, he had to expend more energy to maintain the swamp's offensive integrity, just to prevent it from disintegrating on impact.
Right now, the feeling Wilder got from the mochi and the swamp was that the former was like steel and the latter was like stone. Although both had powerful striking force, if they collided, the swamp would be the one to lose out.
The analogy might not be perfect, but it was enough to illustrate his current disadvantage.
What Wilder had to do next was break this trend. The danger he had faced in mid-air had given him an idea. There was only one way to overcome this disadvantage: he had to induce a qualitative change in his swamp. He had to make it extremely dangerous. Only then could he change the current situation.
And the method was...
Corrosion.
Looks like I'll have to find a way to change the battlefield. Feeling the swamp clashing with the mochi gradually becoming unstable, Wilder's gaze shifted almost imperceptibly towards the crowd of fighting soldiers in the distance.
A group of lower-ranking soldiers.
With a plan in mind, Wilder secretly withdrew some of his power. The result was unsurprising. The swamp fist, which had been locked in a stalemate with the mochi fist, instantly disintegrated and scattered.
Katakuri seized the opportunity. His eyes flashed, and his fist shot forward, aiming straight for Wilder.
BANG!
Wilder dodged, quickly moving from his spot. The mochi fist slammed into the stone block where he had been standing, creating a large crater.
"Hmph..." Katakuri retracted his hand with dissatisfaction. He looked at Wilder, a scornful smile on his lips. "Is dodging all you can do, Wilder?"
"Ah..." Wilder spread his hands and smiled faintly. "You're a Sweet Commander, after all. The pressure on me is quite immense, you know."
Katakuri didn't want to waste any more time on words. The battle had already dragged on for too long, and he had a growing sense of unease, as if he had fallen into Wilder's trap.
This guy is stalling...
Suddenly, this thought occurred to Katakuri, and his expression turned ugly.
That's right. From the beginning, his initial goal was to take out Smoothie. My intervention prevented him from succeeding, so... he's playing along, tying both of us down by himself to reduce the pressure on the other battlefields.
Having figured this out, Katakuri couldn't help but give Wilder a few more glances. This guy... is even more troublesome than I thought.
With this in mind, he turned his head to the side to look at Smoothie, who was on guard, and shouted, "Smoothie! This guy is trying to stall us! Don't hold back anymore! Let's finish him quickly!"
"Understood." Hearing this, Smoothie's expression grew serious, and she raised her greatsword.
Seeing this, Katakuri turned back to Wilder, the killing intent in his eyes undisguised.
The next moment, both of them moved at the same time. Their speed was so great that even Wilder felt immense pressure.
Faced with their pincer attack, for a moment he could only retreat continuously, desperately dodging the relentless onslaught.
"Your road ends here today, Wilder," Katakuri said coldly as he attacked with his hardened mochi.
Wilder continued to retreat, not responding to the statement.
"Heh, it seems Morass has reached the end of its rope today," Smoothie sneered, swinging her greatsword to unleash waves of energy.
As they attacked, they also used words to try and affect Wilder's emotions. Wilder was too busy fending them off to respond. All he could do was constantly dodge, constantly retreat. The further he retreated, the farther he got from the ruins, gradually approaching another battlefield where soldiers were fighting.
The pressure Wilder felt wasn't an act. Smoothie and Katakuri were truly worthy of their titles as Sweet Commanders. Caught between their coordinated attacks, Wilder was truly experiencing their power.
As his mind raced, Wilder also observed the changes on the battlefield, especially the one with the soldiers that he was most focused on. Compared to Big Mom's powerful army, Morass's strength was in its quality.
Usually, Morass's soldiers fought two-on-one against Big Mom's soldiers. The terrifying thing was that even so, Morass's soldiers were still struggling.
The battlefield there was widespread. After all, they were just foot soldiers, unable to contain their fights to a small area like the stronger combatants. Instead, the soldiers' battle was a close-quarters affair, chest-to-chest and back-to-back. The personnel were densely packed, but their sheer numbers meant the battlefield they occupied was the largest.
The battlefield Wilder was watching had about two thousand of Big Mom's soldiers and three to four thousand of Morass's. Naturally, such numbers created a large battlefield, covering a vast area. Fierce fighting was scattered everywhere, and people were constantly falling. And because of the large number of people, even though the battlefield was large, the crowd still seemed a bit dense.
Just then, Big Mom's soldiers noticed Wilder being beaten back by Smoothie and Katakuri. They were stunned for a moment, then burst out laughing.
"Hahaha! Look! Look! Isn't that the king of Morass, Wilder? What's going on? Why is he constantly retreating?"
His voice attracted the attention of others, who looked over. A wave of mockery erupted. The soldiers turned their heads, blocking attacks from Morass's soldiers while taunting, "Hahaha! Isn't that your king? What's wrong with him? Getting beaten so badly."
"I'm starting to think all he knows how to do is run, hahaha!"
"Don't worry, don't worry, he's just your king. I won't laugh at you for that. Eek... such a weak king is too shameful to be seen, hahaha!"
Hearing the taunts from Big Mom's soldiers, the soldiers of Morass gritted their teeth, their faces as black as coal. They didn't say anything, but the swords they swung at their enemies became heavier, faster, and more frequent.
This, in turn, caused the pressure on Big Mom's soldiers to increase dramatically. They no longer dared to pay attention to the other fight and turned back to focus on their own deadly clashes.
"Well then, this is the place." Wilder, who had been fighting while retreating, dodged another attack from Katakuri and Smoothie. A strange smile played on his lips. The next moment, he stepped repeatedly on the air, his body soaring upwards, and in a flash, he was high above this battlefield.