Chapter 961: Capture

Chapter 961: Chapter 961: Capture

The atmosphere in the room instantly plunged into an awkward silence. The officers cast brief glances at Aeridar before looking at one another, utterly speechless. Finally, every eye in the room gravitated toward Hancock.

"Aeridar..."

Hancock’s face was flushed a brilliant crimson. Her beautiful eyes were locked onto Aeridar suspended in mid-air, her gaze radiating an affection so intense it was practically tangible.

Aeridar’s mouth twitched. Confronted by such raw, unadulterated adoration, even his thick-skinned face couldn’t help but burn with a hint of embarrassment.

"Tch."

Enel clicked his tongue in irritation and averted his gaze. As he looked down, his eyes caught sight of Catarina Devon through the massive crater. She was rushing toward the room’s balcony on the floor below, clearly intending to burst through the window and escape the Central Tower.

"Damn rat! I never gave you permission to leave!"

With a furious roar, Enel instantly vanished from the spot, leaving behind nothing but a blinding streak of lightning.

Enel’s outburst snapped everyone back to reality. Hancock’s delicate brows furrowed as she snarled in absolute fury, "Unforgivable! To dare project my perfect likeness onto that hideous form... I will personally ensure that old hag never leaves this place alive!"

Without a second thought, Hancock leapt down through the crater, pursuing her target straight into the 22nd floor.

Down on the 22nd floor, Catarina Devon was already sprinting across the room toward the balcony. She was a single step away from shattering the glass windows and making her clean break from the Central Tower.

Just a little further!

Staring at the glass facade ahead, she had never detested large, sprawling rooms more than she did right now, yet a gleam of triumph couldn’t help but surface in her eyes.

But at that exact moment, a chilling sense of dread washed over her, making her scalp tingle. Her Observation Haki flared with an alarm of an impending anomaly.

Before she could even register the warning, a bolt of lightning struck her at a speed that completely defied the naked eye.

Amidst the blinding discharge of electricity, Enel drove his foot violently into Devon’s flank. The sheer, kinetic force of the impact launched her across the room, reducing her to a blurred silhouette as she flew backward.

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom—!

In the span of two or three breaths, Devon’s body smashed sequentially through dozens of thick, reinforced interior walls, completely tearing a path from one side of the 22nd floor to the other.

Rumble—!

Finally, her momentum halted as she slammed into the exterior wall of the building. The impact embedded most of her body a meter deep into the solid concrete, creating a massive crater several meters wide. Interlocking fractures webbed across the surface, leaving a ten-meter-high, thirty-meter-long stretch of the tower’s facade looking like a shattered piece of porcelain, ready to collapse at a mere touch.

As billowing clouds of dust filled the 22nd floor, the dozens of pirates and guards stationed there watched the scene play out in sheer horror.

"Pfft—!"

Devon spewed a fountain of fresh blood, her complexion turning instantly deathly pale.

Before she could even catch her breath, another flash of lightning illuminated the room. Through the haze, she watched as Enel, holding his golden staff with lightning crackling fiercely around him, surged toward her like a thunderbolt.

"Damn it!"

Devon hissed in panic, her body instantly rippling and distorting like a mirage.

The next instant, Enel materialized right before her, thrusting his golden staff forward like a spear. With a deafening explosion, the staff passed clean through her shimmering form and buried itself into the fractured wall behind her. The kinetic force blew a massive hole through the exterior, sending a shower of jagged debris plunging toward the ground below.

Devon’s illusionary form vanished, only for her true self to materialize several meters away, her nine fluffy fox tails trailing behind her.

"Cough... I almost... died!"

She stared at Enel in sheer terror, coughing up blood continuously.

Just then, Hancock burst into the room, her beautiful face contorted with unbridled rage as she glared at Devon. "You wretched woman! How dare you defile my appearance! I will turn you into stone and shatter you to pieces!"

Before her sentence even finished, she raised a long, slender leg high into the air and brought it crashing down like a guillotine.

"Not good!"

Panic-stricken, Devon frantically activated her ability once more. Her body warped strangely, morphing instantaneously into the exact image of Aeridar.

However, though Hancock’s eyes widened slightly at the sight of Aeridar’s face, her execution did not falter for even a fraction of a second.

"I knew you’d try that trick again! You honestly thought you could deceive me?!"

Hancock’s fury reached a boiling point, and the speed and power of her descending strike actually amplified.

Realizing that her illusion was completely ineffective against the Empress, Devon didn’t even have time to raise her rapier to parry. She threw herself into a desperate roll across the floor to dodge the downward axe kick.

Boom—!

With a thunderous crash, Hancock’s heel shattered the floor beneath her, pulverizing the concrete into a rain of debris that caved inward. Another meter-wide crater opened up, blasting through to the 21st floor.

Aeridar and the other executives, who had just caught up to support them, couldn’t help but feel a cold shiver down their spines as they witnessed the absolute brutality of the strike. What a terrifying woman! they collectively thought.

This time, however, Hancock left her target absolutely no room to breathe. The moment Devon scrambled to her feet, Hancock unleashed a lightning-fast high roundhouse kick. The sheer velocity of her leg sliced through the air, creating a piercing, high-pitched screech.

"Perfume Femur!!!"

"Damn it!"

With no time to dodge, Devon instinctively brought her rapier up horizontally to block the incoming strike.

Clang—!

A sharp, metallic screech echoed through the hall as her red high heel collided with the blade of the rapier, instantly unleashing a powerful shockwave that swept outward.

Having mounted a defense in a state of utter haste, Devon stood no chance against Hancock’s overwhelming physical strength. She was blasted off her feet, flying a dozen meters down the corridor before slamming into the wall with a resounding crash, leaving a perfect human-shaped indentation.

Fortunately for Devon, she possessed some foreknowledge of Hancock’s abilities. The moment she blocked, she had coated her rapier in a dense layer of Armament Haki; otherwise, her weapon would have instantly petrified and shattered into dust, and the kick would have landed directly on her body.

Had that happened, a simple displacement would have been the absolute least of her worries.

At that moment, Aeridar stepped forward, placing his palm flat against the corridor wall as he bellowed, "Lion’s Threat: Earth Bind!!!"

Instantly, the floor and walls of the 22nd floor began to violently rumble and heave. The fractures surrounding Devon opened up rapidly, tearing away from the structural framework.

With a sudden clench of Aeridar’s fist, the detached masonry warped and converged, trapping Devon within a crushing vortex of stone. The debris rapidly compressed into a five-meter-high stone pyramid right in the middle of the corridor, tightly sealing her entire body inside and leaving only her bloodied face exposed to the outside air.

"Got you, Catarina Devon."

Aeridar walked over, his eyes looking down at her with a chilling, predatory focus.

"Captain! Let me slaughter this wench!"

"Aeridar, step aside and let me execute this hag for having the audacity to impersonate the two of us!"

Enel and Hancock advanced aggressively, both fully prepared to unleash a lethal strike to finish Devon off.

"Hold on!"

Aeridar raised a hand, stopping Enel and Hancock in their tracks. His expression turned grave as he spoke in a low, resonant voice. "We need to find out exactly what the Blackbeard Pirates are plotting first. If things are as I suspect... we might find ourselves waging war against two Yonko crews simultaneously!"

———————

Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over here ——— pa-tre-on.c-om/AlexandrusTL [remove the hyphen for normal access]