Chapter 1316 - 27: Siege

Chapter 1316: Chapter 27: Siege

Crushed stone fell as Su Xiao walked out from the hole blasted in the giant rock, his mouth full of the taste of rust—that was the taste of blood.

Su Xiao wasn’t sure whether Blue Steel Shadow could hurt Katakuri, but judging from their earlier clashes, Katakuri had been unconsciously avoiding Dragon Slash the whole time, even twisting his mochi legs into a U-shape just to evade the blade.

Katakuri could foresee the future, and what exactly he had foreseen, Su Xiao had no way of knowing for now.

Of course, Katakuri dodging Dragon Slash like that could also be a trap he set up; if Blue Steel Shadow turned out to be ineffective against Katakuri, Su Xiao would very likely be heavily injured by him, and if he slipped even a little, he might lose his life on the spot.

Fighting Katakuri always carried the risk of being killed by him at any moment; this guy’s overall strength was too high, with practically no obvious weaknesses.

Roars came from nearby—that was Doflamingo engaging Katakuri. Doflamingo had been searching for Cracker inside the mochi, intending to take Cracker out and eliminate future trouble.

The heavily injured Cracker counted as one of Katakuri’s weaknesses; all three people on the field were aware of this. Katakuri looked fierce, but in reality he was shackled by Cracker’s gravely wounded state.

Su Xiao and Doflamingo had both noticed this, so neither of them would choose to clash head‑on with Katakuri. Instead, they would prioritize killing Cracker first. As for whether that was despicable, no one cared, Katakuri included.

There are no rules or bottom line in battle; things like groin kicks or eye‑jabs are very practical moves, let alone prioritizing enemy wounded.

Su Xiao glanced at Dragon Slash in his hand. After hesitating for a moment, he put Dragon Slash away, then took out a metal rod about 1.2 meters long from his storage space.

The metal rod was pitch‑black from end to end and weighed dozens of kilograms. It wasn’t pure metal; there was some kind of rare ores mixed into it.

This ore was called seastone. For the Navy, seastone wasn’t that scarce a resource, but for Pirates it was extremely precious, priced far above Gold and gemstone.

This metal rod forged with mixed seastone wasn’t a piece of equipment, or rather, it hadn’t been notarized by Reincarnation Paradise.

Earlier, when Su Xiao helped the World Government manufacture alchemy bombs, there had been a large stockpile of seastone in that research institute. Originally, it was meant to be used to make the Pacifists’ weapons, but seastone was too hard, making it impossible to mass‑produce weapons with it.

Su Xiao had of course taken the opportunity to get some seastone. The project leader, Dr. Vegapunk, had just turned a blind eye. In terms of personal relations, Su Xiao’s friendship with Dr. Vegapunk clearly ran deeper than with the World Government. At that time, both Su Xiao and Dr. Vegapunk were in a semi‑house‑arrest situation.

This seastone metal rod was forged by Dr. Vegapunk for Su Xiao. This thing counted as high‑tech in Pirate World. It couldn’t extend or eject; its only function was hardness—hard to the point that even Dr. Vegapunk couldn’t further modify it.

Because of that, it could only be considered a semi‑finished product. When Su Xiao left Pirate World last time, he had a chance to get it notarized, but the notarization fee was too high, and the thing didn’t have wide applicability.

Items that aren’t notarized won’t be destroyed by Reincarnation Paradise; they’re stored instead. When Su Xiao returned to Pirate World, he could retrieve items he had deposited in this world.

Overall, this metal rod belonged to the category of Special Items that could only be used in Pirate World. Su Xiao had full ownership of it, he just couldn’t take it out of Pirate World.

The seastone metal rod was about the same length as Dragon Slash. Su Xiao planned to use it as a Long Knife. As for why he didn’t ask Dr. Vegapunk to forge a seastone Long Knife—that was basically impossible.

Back then, Kizaru had an eye on the two of them. Forging a metal rod could be explained as self‑defense; forging a blade would be a different matter entirely. The World Government knew Su Xiao excelled at using a Long Knife, so Kizaru would definitely stop that. A metal rod with relatively mild Damage was already the limit of Kizaru’s tolerance.

Su Xiao lightly swung the seastone metal rod in his hand. With this in play, even if Blue Steel Shadow Energy turned out to be ineffective on Katakuri, Su Xiao wouldn’t be easily injured or even killed on the spot by him. This thing hadn’t been made specifically to counter Katakuri—Su Xiao had prepared it to guard against Natural Devil Fruit Ability Users in Pirate World, and it just happened to come in handy today.

Most Natural Type Devil fruits could achieve Elementalization. Some Paramecia Type and Zoan could even pseudo‑elementalize. To defeat this kind of enemy, you needed to have some special methods.

In the understanding of some Pirates, Armament Haki, Sea Water, and seastone could all restrain Devil Fruit Ability Users. In reality, that concept was wrong.

The main role of Armament Haki was to catch the real body of a Devil Fruit User and land hits on it. In other words, with Armament Haki, you had a chance to injure or even kill an Elementalization Devil Fruit User.

Sea Water, on the other hand, could sap a Devil Fruit User of all Strength and prevent them from actively using their Devil Fruit Abilities, but those Abilities still existed.

As for seastone, it was different from the first two. It was the nemesis of Devil Fruit Users, the greatest nemesis, with no equal.

Once a Devil Fruit User came into contact with seastone, they would rapidly lose Strength, their Devil Fruit Abilities would be temporarily Sealing, and an Elementalization body would revert to flesh and blood.

Blue Steel Shadow Energy surged along the metal rod. Su Xiao wiped the Blood from the corner of his mouth and charged straight at Katakuri.

Seeing this, Doflamingo, who was fighting Katakuri, frowned deeply. According to his plan, one of the two of them had to go assassinate Cracker to draw Katakuri’s attention.

Su Xiao giving up on killing Cracker? Not really. Bubu Wang and A Mu had already arrived; the two of them were lurking nearby, waiting for a chance.

Su Xiao charged straight toward Katakuri. That punch he’d taken earlier had nearly shattered his left lung; even now, breathing still hurt faintly.

"Spider Web Line."

Doflamingo stretched both hands forward, White threads weaving into a web that blocked his front. Katakuri slammed a punch onto the Spider Web Line.

With a deafening boom, Doflamingo’s feet sank into the mochi ground. He had previously turned the soil underfoot into threads, but by now, all the threads he had Assimilation had been wrapped up inside the mochi.

Doflamingo couldn’t fight using the threads generated by his fruit Awakening anymore, but the threads he had already formed were interfering with the mochi Katakuri had Assimilation. Large patches of threads and mochi were mixed together; Katakuri couldn’t control that mochi, and of course Doflamingo couldn’t control those threads either.

Just as Katakuri’s punch landed on the Spider Web Line, Su Xiao arrived.

Su Xiao rushed behind Katakuri, the metal rod in his hand howling as it tore through the air, smashing toward the back of Katakuri’s head.

A red gleam flashed in Katakuri’s eyes, and he immediately ducked forward to dodge.

With a whoosh, the metal rod narrowly scraped over the top of Katakuri’s head. In fact, this strike was never going to land in the first place.

Doflamingo would obviously not miss this kind of opening. He kicked straight toward Katakuri’s abdomen.

With a bang, Katakuri was kicked back a few steps. The metal rod Su Xiao swung down again hit empty air. Very clearly, Katakuri would rather take a hit imbued with Armament Haki than risk touching seastone.