22: Chapter 22 The Nightmare Ends

The setting sun sank into the horizon, outlining the ruins of Arlong Park like a dead giant beast.

The air was thick with the pungent, sickening smell of fresh blood.

In a pool of dark blue Fishman blood, Hatchan was huddled tightly in the corner.

Rice had sliced off his six thick octopus arms at the shoulders with a cold, ruthless hand blade.

At this moment, his face was deathly pale, and within those eyes that once seemed simple and honest, there was now only a near-maniacal, extreme terror.

He suppressed even his breathing, his body trembling like a sieve.

He had watched with his own eyes as Chew and Kuroobi were killed in seconds, and he had seen that massive sea beast's dignity crushed under a single foot.

And now, that shirtless young man with black hair and bronze-toned skin was stepping through the viscous blood, walking step by step toward their Captain.

This was a demon who harbored extreme murderous intent toward the Fishman race and possessed not a shred of mercy.

"Brat... how dare you, how dare you ruin my park to this extent!"

Arlong gritted his teeth, his blue muscles convulsing violently from extreme rage.

Looking at the Fishman corpses littering the ground, his fury and brutality instantly shattered all his reason.

"Wahahaha! I am Arlong! The Captain of the Arlong Pirates, destined to build an empire and rule the entire East Blue!"

Arlong roared madly, pulling a huge, heavy, jagged greatsword from the ruins behind him—the saw-blade "Zhanfeng"!

"Nature has granted us Fishmen strength ten times that of humans! My bones, my muscles—these are things that a fragile human like you can never compare to!"

Arlong dragged the saw-blade, the edge scraping across the stone floor, sending sparks flying and creating a harsh, grating sound.

He grinned sharply, revealing the row of white, steel-like jagged teeth in his mouth:

"Die! Lowly human!"

Arlong roared frantically, leaping high into the air. Gripping the heavy saw-blade "Zhanfeng" with both hands, he brought it crashing down toward Rice's head with the terrifying power to split mountains and shatter stones!

"Swish—!!"

The blade tore through the atmosphere, creating a piercing sonic boom.

Rice stood where he was, his black pupils devoid of even a ripple, his expression not changing in the slightest.

He had no useless words to spare.

Toward this self-righteous dead fish, he couldn't even be bothered to say a single word.

"Hum—!!"

The skin on Rice's bare upper body instantly refracted a cold, almost metallic luster.

Rice extended his left hand, and without any evasion, he caught that huge, descending jagged blade with one hand!

"Clang!!"

The deafening sound of metal clashing shattered the glass in the hall once more.

However, the full-force slash, touted as the strongest power in the East Blue, was frozen in mid-air the moment it struck Rice's left palm.

Rice's body didn't even sway, and the metallic luster on his left palm didn't show the slightest ripple.

"What?!"

Arlong's pupils constricted sharply.

"Crack!!"

Before Arlong could even react in shock, Rice's five fingers, which were clamped onto the blade, exerted force.

That huge, jagged blade, forged of refined steel and touted as unbreakable, was crushed into flying iron shards under the brute force of Rice's palm!

"Swish!!"

With a faint sound of breaking wind, Rice's figure moved forward like a ghost, closing the distance by half a foot.

Under Kuro's gaze of extreme terror, Rice's right hand, like a steel clamp, grabbed Kuro's jagged long nose—the part he claimed was the hardest and proudest—and the muscles on his arm tightened and exerted force in an instant.

"Crack!!"

"Aaaahhh!!"

Amidst the crisp sound of bone breaking, Arlong's hysterical screams rang out.

Rice exerted force with his five fingers, literally twisting Kuro's nose into two pieces of scrap metal!

"Too weak."

Blood gushed like a fountain from Arlong's mangled face.

"I'll bite you to pieces!!"

Intense pain drove Arlong into a frenzy. He opened his huge mouth wide, and that row of white, steel-like teeth—capable of easily biting through hard iron plates—snapped shut with a harsh, grating sound, biting madly toward Rice's face!

Rice ruthlessly smashed them with a punch.

"Wa... wahahaha! It's useless! Brat! My teeth can regenerate infinitely! Even if you break them, I can grow even harder teeth!"

"Regeneration?"

Rice emitted a cold, bone-chilling sneer in his heart.

He didn't speak; his left hand shot out like lightning, his palm clamping onto Arlong's powerful jaw like an iron hoop, and his violent finger strength forced Arlong's jaw to dislocate.

Subsequently, Rice's right-hand fingers reached directly into Arlong's bloody mouth, like a barbed iron rod brushing Arlong's teeth.

"Squish! Crack!"

"Aaaahhh!!"

The first row of steel teeth was ripped out by Rice using just two fingers, bringing with it large chunks of flesh and bone fragments.

Immediately after, Rice's finger strength pierced deep into Arlong's gums like steel needles, crushing the bone marrow tissue responsible for tooth regeneration into dust!

"Second row."

"Third row."

"Fourth row..."

The bloody and cruel torture played out in the silent courtyard.

Rice's expression was so calm it was chilling.

Amidst Arlong's inhuman screams, which gradually faded from high-pitched to weak and desperate, he rhythmically and pleasurably pulled out every single row of white, sharp teeth from Arlong's mouth!

Each extraction was accompanied by the sound of Arlong's jawbone being crushed to pieces.

By the end, Arlong's entire mouth had turned into a mangled, completely collapsed bloody hole; let alone steel teeth, not even a shred of bone or gum remained.

His racial talent, his regeneration, was completely destroyed before Rice's kind and gentle wrists!

Hatchan, who was slumped in the pool of blood nearby, watched this scene, his face covered in tears, snot, and blood from fear, his whole body huddled in the corner, trembling violently.

This black-haired human was a demon king a thousand times more brutal than they, the Fishmen, were!

Rice casually wiped the blood from his hands onto Arlong's tattered shirt.

His gaze fell upon the red sun tattoo in the center of Arlong's chest.

Rice extended his index finger, pointing at the bright red mark, and coldly uttered a sentence devoid of even a shred of warmth:

"A dead fish like you, who only dares to bully civilians in the shallows, is not worthy of this mark."

"You don't even have the qualifications to carry Tiger's shoes."

After speaking, Rice's right hand shot out, his five fingers piercing into the flesh of Arlong's chest like steel nails.

"Squish!!"

Under Arlong's gaze of absolute terror, Rice remained expressionless. With a forceful tug of his five fingers, he ripped the entire piece of chest skin bearing the Sun Pirates' mark—flesh and all—right off Arlong's chest!

"Aaaahhh!!"

Arlong let out the final, piercing scream of his life, and a massive amount of blood gushed from his chest.

His arrogant self-esteem, his dream of an empire, were stripped away completely and violently by Rice in that instant.

Arlong could no longer stand; the pain caused him to collapse beside the pool in Arlong Park, gasping for his final breaths.

Rice bent down and picked up the broken half of the saw-blade "Zhanfeng" that had fallen nearby.

Although it had lost its teeth, the broken blade, weighing dozens of catties, was still a lethal weapon in Rice's hands.

"Die."

Rice held the blade with one hand and, without any flourish, brought it down in a vertical slash!

"Swish—!!"

The snow-white blade light flashed through the air.

There was no unnecessary collision, only a smooth, slicing sound.

Arlong's massive, sturdy blue body was instantly split perfectly in two from head to toe by his own saw-blade "Zhanfeng"!

A massive amount of blue blood showered down like a rainstorm.

The leader of the greatest evil in the East Blue, with a bounty of 20 million berries—Arlong, was dead!

An incomparable silence descended.

The entire bay seemed as if time had stopped.

Except for the whimpering of Sea Cow Mohmoo shivering in the corner of the pool, the only sound left in the courtyard of Arlong Park was the crisp dripping of blood onto the stone floor.

Rice casually tossed the broken saw-blade aside and brushed the dust off his hands.

And that towering blue tower still stood intact.

And behind Rice.

Having witnessed the entire Arlong Pirates be wiped out by Rice with near-demonic, brutal methods, Nami, Nojiko, and the village policeman Genzo were frozen, as if carved from stone.

Nami looked at Arlong's corpse, split in two, and the nightmare that had been pressing down on her chest for eight full years finally turned into a flood of catharsis in this instant.

"Sister... we are truly free."

Nami clutched her blood-soaked shoulder, collapsed to the ground, and wept loudly.

Nojiko rushed over with red-rimmed eyes, and the two sisters held each other tightly in the afterglow of the setting sun.

All this humiliation, misunderstanding, and grievance vanished into thin air along with their tears in this instant.

Genzo stood to the side, and hot tears fell from his eyes, which were filled with the weariness of the world.

They turned their heads to look at the young man standing amidst the ruins and the rain of blood.

Under the last ray of red light from the setting sun, Rice's figure looked like a Shura demon walking out of the abyss, yet he radiated a dazzling, god-like light of salvation that they could not look directly at.

The nightmare of Cocoyasi Village was completely shattered on this day.