Chapter 357: Battle in Rainbase

Chapter 357: Chapter 357: Battle in Rainbase

Chapter 357: Battle in Rainbase

While Wapol made his dramatic entrance at the inn, the confrontation between Axel and Crocodile continued inside Rain Dinners.

Outside, a low rumbling rolled through Rainbase.

The City of Dreams, one of Alabasta’s brightest and most prosperous cities, had begun to tremble.

Crocodile remained seated as though nothing unusual was happening.

He knew exactly what the noise meant.

The Rebel Army.

Reports from the Baroque Works Millions had already told him enough to reconstruct what Axel had done.

He had redirected the rebels away from Alubarna and toward Rainbase.

Crocodile was not concerned.

"So this is your backup plan?"

A faint smile appeared on his face.

"You brought the Rebel Army here."

He leaned back.

"Unfortunately for you, I’m a hero in this country."

"To those fools outside, I’m practically a guardian deity."

"Baroque Works has even been supplying food and water to support parts of their rebellion."

Crocodile stared at Axel with his small black eyes.

"So tell me."

"How exactly do you intend to convince them to attack the man they believe is their benefactor?"

His smile widened.

"And in the face of overwhelming strength, schemes are meaningless anyway."

He expected some reaction.

Concern.

Annoyance.

Perhaps even hesitation.

Instead, Axel looked almost amused.

Then he glanced down at the food in front of him.

Dust from Crocodile’s earlier attack had covered most of it.

Axel sighed.

"Wasteful."

A cup lifted from the table without being touched and drifted toward his hand.

Robin, still standing nearby, picked up a capped bottle of fruit wine and poured him a fresh glass.

Her faint smile suggested she had no intention of interrupting.

For now, she was content to watch.

Crocodile noticed Axel’s complete lack of concern.

His expression darkened.

"What?"

"Did I say something wrong?"

Axel took a drink.

"No."

He set the glass down.

"You’re right."

Crocodile narrowed his eyes.

"In the face of enough strength, most schemes are pointless."

Axel looked directly at him.

"Just like Operation Utopia."

The room went quiet.

Robin’s eyes shifted.

Crocodile’s face changed.

Axel continued as if discussing something trivial.

"The entire purpose of your plan is to obtain Pluton."

"But if you were already strong enough to accomplish whatever you wanted, why would you need an Ancient Weapon?"

He paused.

"Is it because of Whitebeard?"

The temperature in the room seemed to drop.

Crocodile stared at him.

Operation Utopia had not even been fully launched yet.

Very few people knew its true purpose.

Yet Axel had named it directly.

Then he brought up Whitebeard.

That name touched something entirely different.

Since obtaining the Sand-Sand Fruit, Crocodile had risen quickly.

There were few people in the world he was willing to acknowledge as beyond his reach.

Whitebeard was one of them.

His expression became murderous.

"You want to die, brat?"

Sand appeared around him.

There had been no wind.

Yet a storm began forming inside the room.

Robin immediately covered her eyes with one arm while keeping her vision clear through the gaps between her fingers.

She was genuinely surprised.

Crocodile was rarely this easy to provoke.

He preferred controlling people.

Manipulating them.

Watching them struggle until they realized every move had already been anticipated.

What had Axel touched?

Whitebeard?

Was that name enough to break through Crocodile’s usual composure?

The sandstorm intensified.

Decorations tore loose from the walls.

Tiles cracked and lifted from the floor.

Robin sprouted additional arms from her body with the Flower-Flower Fruit, shielding herself from the flying debris.

More arms bloomed along the ground and around her legs, anchoring her in place.

Then the wind changed.

Robin’s eyes widened.

The sandstorm had been spinning clockwise.

Suddenly, it reversed.

Not naturally.

It was forced.

The entire flow began rotating in the opposite direction.

Crocodile’s voice came from inside the storm.

For the first time, there was unmistakable surprise in it.

Robin abandoned her position.

This was no longer somewhere she wanted to stand.

She released the arms anchoring her legs and let the force push her backward. More arms bloomed along the staircase, catching and guiding her upward until she could leap toward a side passage.

Boom!

Rain Dinners shook violently.

Out on the gambling floor, even the most hopeless gamblers finally stopped staring at their cards and dice.

Tables shifted.

Glass shattered.

The floor trembled.

"Earthquake?!"

"Get out!"

People rushed toward the exits.

Robin glanced back once.

Cracks raced across the walls like fractures through an eggshell.

The building would not survive much longer.

She immediately disappeared into a shortcut leading outside.

Moments after she emerged onto the street, Rain Dinners began to collapse.

Robin stared at the casino.

Shock lingered in her eyes despite her calm expression.

She had known Axel was dangerous.

But she had not expected him to fight Crocodile on equal footing.

Crocodile’s old bounty was only eighty-one million Berries.

On paper, that looked insignificant beside Axel’s four hundred million.

Robin knew better.

Crocodile’s bounty had been frozen when he became a Warlord.

It said very little about his current strength.

She had personally seen what his Sand-Sand Fruit could do.

If Crocodile truly wanted to devastate Alabasta, he possessed the power to turn enormous stretches of the kingdom into dead desert.

Axel’s bounty was different.

The World Government specifically wanted him captured alive.

Robin had long suspected the strange condition was tied to some secret the Government wanted from him.

As for the rumors that Axel had fought a Marine Admiral...

She had dismissed them.

It sounded absurd.

Robin had once encountered Kuzan before he became an Admiral.

Even then, she had seen enough of his power to understand just how monstrous the Navy’s highest combatants were.

A child gaining the upper hand against an Admiral?

Impossible.

Or so she had thought.

Robin watched the collapsing casino.

"So this is what a battle between monsters looks like..."

For the first time in a long while, a deep sense of helplessness surfaced within her.

Could she really reach the end of her own journey?

Could she truly uncover the history hidden in the Poneglyphs?

The closer she came to that truth, the more certain it was that the World Government would stand in her way.

And compared to the full power of the World Government, even the Seven Warlords were ultimately only convenient pieces on the board.

Could someone like her really push through that?

A nearby gambler recognized her.

"Wait."

"Isn’t that the manager of Rain Dinners?"

Several people turned.

"What happened inside?"

Robin looked toward the ruined casino.

"Crocodile."

She said only the name.

That was enough.

Several people immediately backed away.

Crocodile’s reputation might be heroic among ordinary citizens, but his name also carried fear.

One confused civilian shouted,

"Is Lord Crocodile fighting someone?"

"Did some pirate come here looking for trouble?"

By the time they turned back toward Robin, she was gone.

She slipped into a deserted alley and found a position where she could continue watching Rain Dinners from a safe distance.

The violent tremors ended quickly.

Too quickly.

Then something worse happened.

The remains of Rain Dinners began turning into sand.

The transformation spread from the lower structure upward.

Walls dried.

Cracked.

Collapsed.

Within seconds, the towering casino and even the giant golden Banana Crocodile above it were swallowed into a massive surge of sand.

People standing too close finally realized the danger.

"Run!"

But some were too late.

Tons of cascading sand buried them beneath the ruins.

Robin reacted instantly.

Arms bloomed from surrounding walls, rooftops, and ledges.

She used them as temporary footholds, moving across the buildings and away from the spreading destruction.

The sandification did not stop with Rain Dinners.

It expanded.

One building after another dried and crumbled.

The ground itself began to change.

Moisture vanished.

Stone cracked.

Earth broke apart and collapsed into fine sand.

All three stages happened almost at once.

At this rate...

Robin’s expression tightened.

An hour.

Maybe two.

That might be enough for the Sand-Sand Fruit to turn all of Rainbase into dead wasteland.

Then, just as though the city itself had cried out...

The spreading sand stopped.

A furious roar followed.

"AXEL!"

Something shot out of the ruins.

Crocodile.

His body was hurled high into the sky.

Gone was his calm, immaculate appearance.

His clothes were torn.

Cuts marked his body.

Blood stained the corner of his mouth.

Even his usually perfect slicked-back hair had been disturbed, several strands hanging over his forehead.

Axel followed him.

He kicked off the shifting sand below.

The loose ground should have offered almost no leverage.

Instead, force exploded beneath his feet and launched him upward.

Behind him, the sand-filled wind gathered into a concentrated stream, driving him forward like a living booster.

Crocodile frowned.

He immediately understood what Axel was doing.

Axel wanted him away from the ground.

And Crocodile also knew he could not completely avoid the next attack.

He made his decision in less than a second.

His body transformed into sand.

Axel reached him.

A crude wooden blade was in his hand, fashioned from a piece of broken timber.

Armament Haki coated its surface.

His body twisted freely in midair, adjusting his angle with impossible precision.

Then he slashed upward with everything behind the strike.

Crocodile’s elemental body was forced solid where the Haki touched.

But he had anticipated the angle.

Clang!

His golden hook intercepted the wooden blade.

The impact rang through the air.

Crocodile had the higher position.

Yet he was the one being pushed back.

His arm trembled.

A violent vibration traveled through the hook and into his shoulder.

Axel’s wooden blade began forcing its way past his defense.

Then Crocodile released his strength.

Axel’s eyes sharpened.

Crocodile abandoned the block entirely.

The golden hook slipped free.

And from beneath it, his left arm shot forward.

A hand capable of draining moisture rushed toward Axel’s body.

It was a concealed attack.

Crocodile had hidden the true state of his arm behind the hook, keeping it as a weapon and disguise.

He expected surprise.

Instead, Axel reacted.

Crocodile’s eyes widened.

"How did you kn..."

Axel’s wooden blade reversed direction.

The motion looked almost unnatural, as though inertia had simply ceased to matter.

He pulled the blade back and slashed again.

Bang!

The strike smashed into Crocodile.

His body was launched away once more, this time at a downward angle.

Axel watched him fall.

In truth, he had not predicted the hidden arm itself.

Most people would never willingly abandon a weapon they had used for years in the middle of a clash.

But Axel’s control over force made him extremely sensitive to changes in pressure.

The instant Crocodile relaxed his defense, Axel noticed.

That warning was enough.

A half-remembered image also flashed through his mind, confirming the possibility a fraction too late to matter.

The real limitation was his body.

Thought could move quickly.

Nerves and muscles could not always follow at the same speed.

Even after recognizing the danger, there was still a physical delay before he could change the blade’s angle.

Fortunately, it had been enough.

Axel did not give Crocodile time to recover.

He redirected the forces around his body.

His acceleration spiked.

Then he chased after Crocodile like a falling meteor.

Crocodile hit the ground first.

Bang!

A split second before impact, the earth beneath him turned to sand.

Instead of smashing against solid ground, his body plunged into the softened surface and dispersed much of the force.

Axel landed immediately afterward.

Boom!

His impact was lighter.

Crocodile had already disappeared into the sand.

Axel clicked his tongue.

"Annoying."

Fighting a Logia user inside terrain perfectly suited to their element was troublesome.

He tightened both hands around the wooden blade.

Then drove it into the ground.

The earth shuddered.

Axel poured vector force downward.

The surface remained mostly intact.

Below it, however, destruction spread in every direction.

Layers of compacted earth fractured.

Support structures within the ground broke apart.

The damage extended outward through nearly a hundred meters beneath the surface.

From above, the area still looked stable.

Underground, it had become hollowed and shattered.

Like a building whose foundation had been destroyed.

Axel pulled the wooden blade free.

Then stomped.

That final disturbance was enough.

Crack!

A fracture raced across the ground.

Then another.

And another.

The entire area beneath him split open.

....

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