Chapter 337: The Fall of the sweet commander

Tatsuya's expression was calm.

He walked step by step to where Katakuri had fallen.

He looked down at the strongest sweet commander, who had lost the ability to fight, and slowly raised his right hand.

Shusui, wreathed in deep black flames, emitted a low hum, its cold blade hovering slowly over the defeated man's broad chest.

With just a few inches of downward pressure, he could easily pierce this once-impenetrable body.

However, Tatsuya did not strike the killing blow immediately; his gaze rested quietly on the man on the ground.

"To just kill you like this would be letting Charlotte Linlin off too easily."

"As the flawless masterpiece of the Big Mom Pirates, your life is worth quite a lot."

"If I use you as a bargaining chip, I'm sure that old woman would be willing to pay a heavy price."

"After all, I hear that you in Totto Land possess a road poneglyph?"

Accompanied by the intense, tearing pain throughout his body, the dying Katakuri struggled to open his bloodshot eyes.

Tatsuya's cold and ruthless declaration rang clearly in his ears.

For Katakuri, having chosen to step onto this path of blood and slaughter as a pirate, defeat and death were simply his fated destiny.

If he died on the battlefield because he was outmatched, he could accept this end calmly and with equanimity.

But all his life, he had been doing his utmost to protect his younger siblings, maintaining that image of a "flawless" monster.

And now, the man before him was actually attempting to capture him alive, using him as a bargaining chip to threaten the family he cherished most!

This felt like a supreme humiliation; it was a trampling of his soul and his bottom line!

From Katakuri's previously dim eyes, a terrifying rage and murderous intent, like that of a trapped beast, instantly erupted.

"Unforgivable..."

He gritted his teeth tightly, suddenly raised his heavy left hand, and grabbed the thick scarf around his neck that he had used to hide his face for half his life.

With a violent tearing sound, he gave a hard yank, unhesitatingly revealing the terrifying, jagged maw filled with sharp fangs.

"Heh... Hahahaha!"

Katakuri threw his head back and let out a raspy laugh.

"What kind of joke are you making, Crimson Lotus..."

He gasped for air, his gaze locked firmly on Tatsuya above him.

"In a man's life-or-death duel, there is no need for such hypocritical mercy!"

Before the words had even faded, Katakuri made the most resolute choice of his life.

He burned the very last spark of his life and will.

He widened his eyes, and his abdominal muscles erupted with a chilling, final burst of strength.

His battered, towering body miraculously surged forward, like a lone wolf defending its territory, proactively meeting Tatsuya's sharp black blade suspended in the air, launching the final and most uncompromising charge of his life.

Squelch—!

The sound of the sharp blade entering flesh rang out clearly in the ruins.

The sharp Shusui pierced accurately and without resistance through Katakuri's heart, the cold blade protruding directly from his back.

Warm blood, like a gushing spring, poured out along the black grooves of the blade, then dripped one by one onto the charred rubble below, blooming into enchanting flowers of blood.

The agony of having his heart pierced was enough to drive a person mad, but on Katakuri's blood-covered face, there was not a single scream.

He abruptly raised his hands and gripped Tatsuya's arm tightly.

Katakuri's crimson eyes erupted with an unprecedented, bright light.

In that instant, his limit-breaking Observation Haki seemed to truly transcend the dimensions of time, glimpsing some trajectory of fate in the distant future.

"Crimson Lotus! I have seen it!"

"Sooner or later... you will experience the same failure as I have!"

Katakuri's voice was raspy and crazed, carrying the certainty of a dying prophecy.

The corners of his mouth curled into an arc; that terrifying, jagged maw now displayed a tragic dignity.

The man who had defeated him would eventually fall just as he had.

With this final roar, the light in Katakuri's eyes rapidly dimmed, and the flame of his life was extinguished completely.

His hands, which had been gripping Tatsuya's arm, gradually lost their strength, eventually falling limply and landing heavily on the rubble beside him.

This masterpiece of the Big Mom Pirates, who had spent his entire life protecting his family, ended his life in the most heroic manner.

Until the very last moment, this man had not shown a shred of disgrace.

In his own way, he had chosen his own death.

Not living in humiliation, but dying upright and honorably under the blade as a pirate.

Tatsuya stood where he was, letting Katakuri's blood stain his sleeves.

He looked at the lifeless, towering body before him and remained silent for a long time.

A moment later, Tatsuya slowly withdrew Shusui from the other man's chest.

Accompanied by a chilling hum of the blade.

He flipped his wrist, casually flicking the crimson blood off the blade in mid-air, and then, with a clang, sheathed the black blade back into the scabbard at his waist.

Looking at the corpse on the ground that was gradually growing cold, Tatsuya's eyes were as calm as water:

"Failure, huh..."

"I am a pirate. From the moment I stepped onto this ocean, I had to have the resolve that I could die at any moment."

This statement was both a response to Katakuri's choice and the creed he himself lived by.

Life and death, success and failure—they were all an unavoidable part of the pirate's path.

As this earth-shaking battle between gods finally came to an end, the weather over Dressrosa began to undergo a drastic change.

The sky, which had been relatively clear, turned gloomy at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Dark, leaden clouds rolled in from nowhere, completely blocking the warm sunlight and plunging the entire island into gloom and oppression.

"Pitter... patter..."

Before long, scattered raindrops fell from the gloomy clouds.

The raindrops struck the charred, dilapidated ruins, kicking up clouds of dust.

Right in this solemn curtain of rain, a crisp, mechanical prompt sounded deep within Tatsuya's mind for the first time in a long while:

"[Ding! Detected that the host has successfully killed the top officer of the Four Emperors, Big Mom Pirates, and the leader of the sweet commanders, Charlotte Katakuri.]"

"[World line altered; rewards are being calculated...]"

Listening to the system prompt echoing in his mind, and feeling the cold rain that was gradually becoming a downpour.

Tatsuya exhaled a breath of stale air.

He lowered his head, looking at the man enveloped by the rain.

"Charlotte Katakuri."

Tatsuya murmured the name, as if providing a final footnote for an era.

He shook his head, stepped forward, and reached out to grab the collar of Katakuri's heavy remains.

Amidst the raging wind and rain, Tatsuya took a step, leaving a long trail on the muddy ruins.

The gloomy rain blurred his back, leaving only a complaint in the air tinged with a bit of helplessness:

"What a hassle. I'd better find a place to bury him."

The rain drowned out his voice, as well as all the noise and smoke on this battlefield.

Leaving only one pirate to bury another.

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