53: Chapter 53 The Final Countdown in the Sandstorm

Blood-stained paper swirled continuously in the gloomy air.

The stiff parchment, marked with the Baroque Works insignia, fell from the cracked granite fissure overhead, striking precisely against the edge of the pig-iron center pillar on the main deck of ship.

The surface was covered with dry yellow sand debris, and the edges were charred black from high-temperature burning.

In the central core, a huge cross was drawn in dark red, dried beast blood.

Princess Vivi bent down, her cold fingers tugging at the paper.

The moment her sky-blue eyes took in the small print on the paper, her pupils instantly constricted to the size of pinholes.

Cold sweat seeped down her fair neck, soaking the rough linen collar.

"This is... an elimination order signed by Crocodile."

Vivi's voice was hoarse, permeated with a chilling sense of despair.

Nami walked quickly down from the helm.

She snatched the paper, her gaze sweeping over the structural diagram of Alubarna Royal Plaza, meticulously drawn in charcoal.

Directly below the diagram, a long string of complex numerical coordinates was heavily marked in black ink.

"Two million tons of special power gunpowder."

Nami lowered her head to read the annotation behind the coordinates, and her clear eyes were instantly filled with horror.

As a top-tier navigator, she possessed precise mathematical intuition regarding the power of physical explosions.

After rapidly calculating the detonation velocity and shockwave radius in her mind, her breathing came to a complete halt:

"Two million tons... If detonated deep underground, the resulting physical shockwave could tear the entire city of Alubarna apart within seconds. The one million troops fighting on the surface, along with hundreds of thousands of civilians, would all be turned into blood and mud splattering the sky. Not even a complete skeleton would remain."

"That madman."

Paula's curvaceous body leaned against the bulkhead, her slender fingers crushing the edge of the mahogany door frame from the force.

Her long black hair fluttered slightly in the sultry underground airflow:

"He never intended for us high-ranking agents to survive from the very beginning. The million troops, the King's Guard, the underground agents—they are all just funeral offerings he's using to bury this country. In his eyes, human lives are just rags to wipe clean this desert."

Mikita bit her red lips, gripping the back of the bench with a pale face.

Rice stepped onto the center of the cold deck.

He reached out with his calloused hand and took the blood-stained diagram from Nami.

He didn't look at the complex written instructions; his pitch-black eyes were locked firmly onto the coordinate point representing the center of the explosion.

It was the base of the giant clock tower located on the west side of the Royal Plaza.

"Nami, stabilize the keel of ship."

Rice crumpled the diagram into a ball, his iron-like fingers exerting force to crush it into a pile of powder that fell through his fingers:

"Paula, Mikita. Come with me and skin that Crocodile."

As soon as he finished speaking, Rice leaned forward, his legs slightly bent.

The Qi and blood in his body boiled over in an instant.

The power of lightning he had devoured in the midst of the storm on the Loguetown execution platform now surged wildly outward along his spinal nerves.

Strands of thick, bright blue electric arcs traveled at high frequency beneath his skin, creating bursts of ear-piercing, physical thunder.

[Iron Body · Hard · Full Power].

Pitch-black Armament Haki spread frantically from the soles of his feet, wrapping around his entire tall torso in an instant.

His arms, chest, and face turned completely into a pure black that swallowed all light. Under the stimulation of the electric light, his bones emitted a series of crisp sounds similar to pig iron colliding.

Boom!!

Rice stomped his feet violently against the steel deck. The entire Counterwind sank a few inches under the reaction force, sending intense black ripples across the water surface.

His figure shot into the air like a black cannonball swimming against the current, charging straight toward the layer of granite foundation dozens of meters thick above him.

[Shave · Thunder Flash].

[Moonwalk · Chain Explosion].

In mid-air, his feet continuously stepped on the air.

Every time he exerted force, he smashed a pale white sonic boom cloud in the void.

The violent compression of the airflow caused the stagnant pool below to surge with waves several meters high.

He was less than three meters from the black rock wall above.

Rice pulled his right arm back to the limit of his body, his thick forearm muscles twisting tightly like steel cables.

Conqueror's Haki turned into several substantive black electric arcs, tightly entwined around the surface of his fist.

"Open... for me!!"

A muffled roar exploded in the underground cavity.

The black iron heavy fist struck the granite foundation, which was dozens of meters thick, head-on.

Rumble——!!

The physical world collapsed on a large scale at this moment.

The muffled roar conducted wildly outward along the hard rock layers, triggering high-frequency resonance throughout the underground cavity.

The granite fault, dozens of meters thick, couldn't even withstand a single second under the impact of the black iron fist; the central area was smashed into powder splashing across the sky the moment it was touched.

Countless giant boulders weighing several tons were shot wildly in all directions, carried by the shockwave, smashing dense deep pits into the rock walls.

The intercepted underground spring water followed the huge gap that had been blown open, turning into a black water column with a diameter of dozens of meters, shooting into the sky.

A huge vertical passage with a diameter of over fifty meters was forcefully bored through the foundation of Alubarna by Rice using pure physical violence.

Rice didn't stop; stepping on the gushing water column, he passed directly through the dozens of meters of rock and landed in the intense sunlight on the surface.

Below, Mikita reached out and grabbed Paula by the waist.

Paramecia-type Float-Float Fruit ability activated.

She instantly adjusted their weight to an absolute lightness of one kilogram.

With a light tap of her toes on the deck, the two graceful figures, borrowing the airflow from the rising water column, soared up along the vertical passage like two leaves dancing in the windless air, following closely behind Rice.

The hot, dry wind, carrying scorching yellow sand, rushed towards them in an instant.

This is Alubarna Royal Plaza.

What met their eyes was an endless ocean of blood.

A full million rebel soldiers in tattered clothes and King's Guard troops holding steel spears were currently engaged in a frantic hand-to-hand battle like mad dogs across this huge plaza, which stretched for several kilometers in length and width.

The sound of steel blades hacking into flesh and bone, the screams of the dying, and the neighing of warhorses intertwined into a deafening, physical cacophony.

The air was filled with the rich smell of blood and the dry scent of yellow sand.

Boom!!

The stone floor in the center of the plaza suddenly collapsed over a large area.

A huge deep pit with a diameter of fifty meters formed with a roar, and the sky-high water column, mixed with countless granite fragments, blew hundreds of soldiers fighting nearby dozens of meters away.

Large patches of white mist spread rapidly in the scorching yellow sand, reducing visibility in the surrounding area.

Rice, barefoot, landed steadily on the edge of the broken stone slab.

His white shirt snapped in the dry sandstorm, and his violent, bloodshot black eyes swept coldly across the bloody battlefield.

Paula and Mikita landed lightly on either side of him. The sand beneath the two women made a faint melting sound when it encountered the high heat radiating from Rice's skin.

The sudden underground explosion and the sky-high black water column caused the soldiers within a radius of hundreds of meters to stop fighting instantly.

They stared blankly at this black-haired youth with his bare chest, still wreathed in blue lightning, their hearts filled with incomprehensible terror.

"What is that thing? A monster that crawled out from underground?!"

A rebel soldier dropped the steel sword in his hand and screamed in a hoarse voice.

Two hundred members of the King's Guard simultaneously turned their spears, aiming at the edge of the central pit.

But no one dared to take a step forward.

The violent pressure on Rice, tempered by the heavenly lightning of Loguetown and Garp's physical arts, made the knee joints of these ordinary soldiers creak and go weak.

Rice ignored these miscellaneous soldiers. His gaze pierced through the flying yellow sand and locked straight onto the towering white marble royal palace platform ahead.

On the edge of the platform stood a person.

That person was nearly 2.5 meters tall, wearing a heavy, dark green plaid fur coat.

His left hand was a huge poisonous hook made of pure gold, refracting a cold, dazzling luster under the scorching sun. Inside that poisonous hook was filled with scorpion venom capable of dissolving blood and causing suffocation within seconds.

He had a half-smoked cigar in his mouth, and thick, blue-gray smoke drifted upward along his cheeks.

Seven Warlords of the Sea, Crocodile.

Crocodile stood on the platform, looking down at this young anomaly who had forcibly bored a passage from underground and broken through all his defenses.

There was a hideous scar across the bridge of his nose, and at this moment, the scar appeared unusually distorted as his eye muscles twitched.

When his gaze swept over Paula and Mikita behind Rice, his left arm, holding the pure gold poisonous hook, stiffened slightly.

The gray ash on the surface of the cigar fell rustlingly under the blowing wind, hitting the marble railing.

"Miss Doublefinger, Miss Valentine."

Crocodile's voice was hoarse, carrying a chilling texture unique to the master of the desert.

His voice penetrated the battlefield of thousands of meters, clearly drilling into everyone's ears:

"It seems that the beast from the East Blue not only crushed my agents but also saw through my bottom line. You two idiots, daring to bring outsiders to trample on my turf. You should know very well what the consequences of betraying Baroque Works are."

Paula stepped forward. On the surface of her slender fingers, black thorn steel needles flashed with cold light in the sun. Her voice was cold, without any retreat:

"Crocodile, your 'Utopia' plan was a lie from the very beginning. Two million tons of power gunpowder... you even included us in the cleanup list. A piece of trash who can casually wipe out his own subordinates doesn't deserve my continued loyalty."

Mikita snorted coldly, tossing the steel weight in her hand in mid-air, her eyes full of contempt for having seen through the conspiracy.

Rice stepped forward.

His feet stepped into the scorching sand, leaving a charred mark several inches deep.

"Crocodile."

Rice slowly raised his right arm.

Pitch-black Armament Haki condensed on the surface of his knuckles again.

His voice was not loud, but it carried a violent rhythm of pig iron colliding, instantly overpowering the noise of the million troops on the plaza:

"I said it before: today, I will personally peel off this Seven Warlords of the Sea skin of yours. The power gunpowder you buried underground won't save your life. Not a single one of your agents will escape."

"Mwahahahaha!!"

Crocodile let out a hysterical laugh.

His right hand swung down violently, and his entire right arm completely disintegrated in an instant, turning into countless high-frequency flowing yellow sand particles.

[Desert Spada].

The violent sand flow surged wildly from his palm, turning into a giant sand blade tens of meters long in mid-air, composed of countless high-speed rotating sand blades.

The sand blade tore through the sky, carrying a terrifying physical sharpness capable of slicing the earth open, slashing straight toward the top of Rice's head.

The sand blade rubbed violently against the air, bringing out bursts of ear-piercing, sharp shrieks.

Rice did not move.

His left hand, wrapped in black iron brilliance, swung upward suddenly.

His palm met the heavy strike formed by yellow sand head-on.

Bang——!!

Amidst the muffled sound of physical collision, that Desert Spada, capable of cutting through warships, was shattered by the violent power of Conqueror's Haki the moment it touched Rice's palm, turning back into harmless loose sand that fell with a rustling sound.

Crocodile's pupils constricted suddenly.

He turned his head abruptly and extended that pure gold poisonous hook, pointing at the huge clock tower on the far west side of the plaza.

At the top of the clock tower, the huge bronze hand was emitting a clear "click" sound. There were only three minutes left until the final hour.

And in the shadows inside this clock tower, two figures in Baroque Works agent uniforms were, along the pure steel winch staircase, slowly aiming a fuse torch several meters long at the special heavy-duty detonator that led directly to the two-million-ton gunpowder depot underground.

Even more terrifyingly, Crocodile's lower body completely turned to sand at this moment.

Tens of thousands of tons of yellow sand beneath the entire Alubarna Royal Plaza boiled over under his control.

[Ground Death].

Countless flat stone floors weathered into disintegrating sand particles in an instant.

A sky-covering, destructive sandstorm formed with a roar in the center of the Royal Plaza.

The sandstorm formed a giant black sand vortex with a diameter of hundreds of meters, tearing at all the stone buildings on the surface while frantically pouring down the vertical passage Rice had just smashed, aiming straight at ship deep underground!

Countless tons of heavy yellow sand, like a yellow waterfall, carried the physical weight capable of suffocating all living things as it plummeted wildly down the passage.

He wanted to, before detonating the explosives, use ten thousand tons of yellow sand to bury the entire steel warship underground, along with Nami, Vivi, and the others, alive in the endless darkness!

At the very center of the storm.

Crocodile's body turned into a mass of quicksand, suspended in mid-air.

He looked down at Rice below, and a cruel smile belonging to a victor appeared on his scarred face:

"It's too late, brat from the East Blue. Whether you go to save those women on your ship or stay here to watch this country turn into scorched earth, the choice is yours."