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Chapter 439: Exhilarating! The Pure Thrill of Combat!
Teach narrowed his eyes, a cruel smirk hooking the corner of his mouth.
"Another fool rushing to his grave."
He didn't ease off the accelerator; instead, he stomped it down even harder. The Jeep's speed had already hit over eighty kilometers per hour. At this speed, crashing into any living creature would only result in shattered bones and pulverized flesh.
"Zehahahaha! I don't care who you are, get ready to be turned into meat paste!"
Teach honked the horn frantically, the ear-piercing sound echoing through the empty valley. The man ahead seemed to hear the commotion. He slowly turned around.
It was an incredibly cold, stern face. Eyes as sharp as a falcon's calmly locked onto the roaring Jeep.
It was Dracule Mihawk.
The World's Strongest Swordsman appeared exceptionally low-key at the moment. He hadn't brought his supreme blade, the Black Blade Yoru—capable of cleaving icebergs—into the dungeon. The cross on his back was actually just an abandoned iron frame he had ripped off a roadside utility pole.
Mihawk watched the rapidly approaching Jeep, his eyes completely devoid of ripples. He didn't panic and dodge like a normal person would. He simply stood quietly in the middle of the road, letting the fierce wind whip the edges of his clothes.
"Scared stupid?" Teach flushed red with excitement. He could already picture the sight of Mihawk being blasted a hundred meters into the air.
Just as the Jeep closed within ten meters of Mihawk, he moved. His movements weren't fast; they even seemed somewhat sluggish. He slowly reached back with his right hand and grabbed the rusty iron frame.
No. It wasn't an iron frame.
It was a heavily rusted Crowbar, its front end bent from impact. The crowbar was even stained with patches of dried, dark red rust.
Gripping the crowbar with one hand, Mihawk lowered his stance, assuming a textbook Iaijutsu drawing stance. His gaze was dead-locked onto the exact center of the Jeep's hood. In this world devoid of flying sword auras, he could still sense the rhythm of moving objects.
"Since there is no sword," Mihawk muttered softly, his voice instantly drowned out by the engine's roar. "I will just have to test this iron bar." He tightened his grip on the rusty crowbar.
The smile on Teach's face froze in an instant. From the man carrying the cross, he felt a sudden, bone-chilling cold that made him feel as if he had plunged into an icehouse. That chill was somehow even more terrifying than Garp's fists.
Is this guy... insane? Teach instinctively tried to jerk the steering wheel. But it was already too late.
Carrying destructive kinetic energy, the Jeep slammed viciously toward the solitary figure standing in the middle of the road. The crowbar in Mihawk's hand sliced through the air, emitting an extremely faint whistle.
Teach gripped the steering wheel in a death grip, the sweat on his palms making the plastic wheel slip slightly. He stared wide-eyed through the windshield at the rapidly approaching man.
Dracule Mihawk. That name represented the absolute pinnacle of swordsmanship on the seas. Teach knew the man's strength perfectly well. Even though everyone was reduced to ordinary humans now, seeing Mihawk strike that initiating stance still made his heart skip a violent beat. It was an oppressive aura carved directly into his bones.
Teach's right foot on the gas pedal even slightly relaxed for a fraction of a second. Did this guy find some kind of exploit in the game? Could he actually launch a flying slash on this island? What if that rusty iron rod actually cleaves the car—and me—in half? The engine's roar echoed across the empty highway. The distance was less than thirty meters.
Teach swallowed hard. A ruthless glint flashed across his fat, scarred face.
I call bullshit! The shop owner named Blake had made it crystal clear: there were absolutely no supernatural powers here. Everyone was a mortal of flesh and bone, with two arms and two legs. Why wouldn't a two-ton chunk of iron hurtling at eighty kilometers per hour crush a crippled swordsman wielding a broken iron rod?
Teach let out a beast-like roar from his throat. Not only did he refuse to hit the brakes, but he pressed his entire body weight onto the gas pedal. The Jeep's exhaust pipe blasted out a thick cloud of black smoke as its speed surged once more.
In the middle of the road, Mihawk maintained his flawless crouching draw stance. His breathing was terrifyingly steady. In a world without Observation Haki, he relied on the ultimate dynamic vision cultivated through years of sword practice to capture every single bounce of the Jeep. The slight deviation caused by the tires rolling over a pebble. The rusty texture on the front hood. And Teach's distorted, twisted face in the driver's seat.
Everything was within his calculations. Mihawk's brain spun rapidly.
The essence of swordsmanship lay in the transmission of power and the breaking of weaknesses. Even with just a rusty crowbar in hand, as long as he pinpointed the most fragile stress point on the vehicle's chassis, he could use the car's own massive kinetic energy against it. By jamming the crowbar into the gap of the front axle in the millisecond of impact, the principles of leverage would be more than enough to send this unbalanced scrap iron tumbling and disintegrating into the air.
This didn't require Haki. It only required absolute precision and perfect mastery of timing.
An air of solitary pride emanated from Mihawk's eyes. He wanted to prove to the rules of this world that the true realm of a swordsman could never be erased by the mere restrictions of mortal flesh.
Ten meters. Five meters. Three meters.
The gale flattened the stray hairs on Mihawk's forehead. He could even smell the low-quality machine oil radiating from the Jeep's radiator.
Now. Mihawk's wrist snapped with power, his core muscles driving his shoulder. Treating the rusty crowbar as a Supreme Grade Sword, he swung it forward in an absolutely perfect arc.
There were no wasted movements in this strike. It was a textbook display of power generation technique. The tip of the crowbar thrust with unerring accuracy toward the steering tie rod on the inner side of the Jeep's front right wheel.
BANG! A deafening collision of metal detonated on the highway, immediately followed by an agonizing screech of friction.
The scene Mihawk had envisioned did not occur. The Jeep did not flip. The chassis did not disintegrate. When the rusty crowbar made contact with the high-speed steel front axle, it failed to cause even a tenth of a second of resistance.
The massive kinetic energy violently blasted the crowbar right out of his hands. A tremendous reactionary force traveled back up Mihawk's arm and surged through his entire body. His proud swordsman's power generation technique, honed to perfection, became an absolute joke in the face of raw, uncompromising physical mass.
The Jeep's solid bumper slammed squarely into Mihawk's chest.
Crack, crack, crack. The crisp sounds of multiple ribs fracturing simultaneously rang out.
Mihawk was launched into the air like a torn ragdoll. The cross tied to his back with scrap wire completely shattered mid-flight, scattering rusty iron pipes and screws in every direction. His body traced a tragic, miserable parabola through the air, flying a full dozen meters before crashing heavily onto the asphalt at the edge of the road.
He tumbled five or six times across the ground. His white shirt was shredded into strips by the rough pavement. Large pools of blood trailed behind him, painting a shocking, gruesome red streak across the highway. He finally skidded to a complete halt, his head slamming into the concrete barrier by the road.
The Jeep swerved erratically down the road for a short distance before Teach slammed on the brakes, the tires leaving two long black skid marks on the pavement.
Once the vehicle stopped, Teach panted heavily, his chest heaving violently. For a split second back there, he genuinely thought he was going to be flipped over by a guy holding a glorified fire poker.
Teach turned his head and looked into the rearview mirror.
In the mirror, the aloof, World's Strongest Swordsman was lying motionless in a pool of his own blood, like a dead dog.
After a brief silence, an incredibly piercing, manic laughter erupted from the center of the highway.
"Zehahahaha! Zehahahahaha!"
Teach laughed so hard tears flew from his eyes. He frantically beat the steering wheel with his uninjured left hand, completely ignoring the agonizing pain that flared from his broken wrist.
He had actually been intimidated by a guy holding a fire poker. He actually believed the bastard could cleave a car in two. And the result? That was it? That was it! Teach pushed the car door open and squeezed his massive, obese body out of the Jeep. Dragging his feet, he walked step by step over to Mihawk.
Mihawk wasn't dead yet. His vitality far exceeded that of an ordinary person. But right now, he didn't have the strength to move a single finger. His lungs had been pierced by his broken ribs, and every breath brought up a massive amount of bloody froth. His previously sharp, eagle-like eyes were now bloodshot and filled with bewilderment.
He seemed to still be wondering why his perfect strike had failed. Why the principles of leverage hadn't worked.
Teach stood towering over the man who, in the past, even the Four Emperors had to give face to. He raised his foot, clad in a tattered leather shoe, and mercilessly stomped down on Mihawk's face, grinding his heel into it forcefully.
"I thought you had some kind of earth-shattering trump card." Teach spat a mouthful of bloody saliva onto the ground. "Striking such a cool pose. Giving me that terrifying glare. I almost pissed my pants, you know that!?"
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