Hearing these words, Crocodile's lips curled slightly, showing off a knowing smile.
He slowly flexed his newly formed Dragon claws.
The heavy joints let out faint, cracking sounds as he casually showed off his terrifying power to the crowd.
The dangerous smirk on his lips and the wild confidence in his eyes said more than words ever could.
"Now..." Crocodile's stare swept over the six people standing in front of him.
He looked at them like lambs waiting for the slaughter.
He asked lazily, "Do you want a group fight, or a one-on-one?"
Ulti's naturally explosive temper was instantly lit.
She stomped her foot furiously and roared, "Nonsense! Of course it's a gro—"
Before she could finish, Crocodile raised a single hand to cut her off.
"Listen to the rules first."
Crocodile held out his terrifying Dragon claws, raising his fingers one by one with a mocking look.
"If it's a group fight, it will be me fighting all six of you at once."
Then he slowly flipped his palm over, his eyes giving off absolute confidence. "If it's a one-on-one, it will be me alone challenging your entire group."
The entire battlefield instantly dropped into a creepy silence, as if an invisible hand had hit the pause button.
The Tobi Roppo—usually terrifying, arrogant monsters—stood completely frozen in place, looking like they had been turned to stone by a magic spell.
Page One tilted his head, his eyebrows tied in a tight knot and his eyes wide open.
He muttered without realizing it, "Is this guy... reciting a tongue twister? That whole string of words is so confusing, I cannot make heads or tails of it."
Sasaki scratched his ear, a look of total confusion and disbelief on his face as he mumbled to himself.
"Wait, did I hear that right? Is there any actual difference between those two options? It feels like listening to gibberish—I cannot make any sense of it."
Black Maria's sickly sweet smile completely froze on her face. It looked like she had just been hit by a freezing gust of wind, instantly losing all her usual charm.
Her smoking pipe nearly slipped from her grip, her long fingers shaking slightly as her voice cracked.
"Crocodile... are you joking? Making a joke like that at a time like this—do you really think this is funny?"
"Heh..." Crocodile suddenly let out a cold laugh.
His body shook violently, and in a flash, he transformed into a massive Sand Dragon, shooting straight up into the sky.
In mid-air, his true form fully unrolled, revealing a sight that was both beautiful and completely terrifying.
His upper body was that of a Dragon covered in thick, sandy scales.
Each scale shined with a cold glare under the sunlight, looking as sharp as blades and giving off a highly dangerous energy.
His lower body, however, was a swirling tornado of quicksand!
The quicksand seemed completely alive, spinning wildly into a massive, terrifying whirlpool that threatened to swallow everything around it.
"Who said I was joking with you?!"
A deafening Dragon's roar shattered the silence, shaking the very sky.
Driven by this massive power, the swirling sands instantly shifted into countless razor-sharp sand blades, shooting toward the Tobi Roppo like a thick storm of arrows.
"Sand Dragon Tornado: Thousand-Blade Storm!" Crocodile's voice echoed through the roaring winds.
Only then did the Tobi Roppo snap back to reality.
Their faces twisted with panic as they hastily threw up their defenses.
Black Maria quickly swung her smoking pipe, shooting out streams of black webbing that formed a thick, sturdy net in front of her, trying to block the deadly sand blades.
Sasaki violently drew the sword at his waist, unleashing a wild series of fierce slashes.
Waves of sword energy crossed in front of him, creating a defensive wall.
Ulti roared furiously, charging headfirst right at the sand blades with her incredibly hard headbutt, trying to shatter the attack through sheer brute force.
However, their rushed defenses proved totally useless against the overwhelming power of Crocodile's strike.
The countless sand blades crashed down like a violent wave, smashing mercilessly into their shields and forcefully blasting them all backward for dozens of meters!
"Understand now?" Crocodile hovered in mid-air, his Dragon tail swaying lazily behind him.
That massive, destructive attack had been nothing more than a warm-up stretch to him.
His eyes held a flash of pure disrespect and total arrogance as he coldly looked down at the Tobi Roppo.
"To me... whether there are five of you or fifty of you, it makes absolutely no difference."
His tone sounded like he was just stating a simple fact, yet it filled the Tobi Roppo with massive embarrassment and boiling rage.
A short distance away, Ron silently watched the completely arrogant Crocodile.
Right now, Crocodile was giving off a terrifying energy, and Ron knew perfectly well that he truly had the power to totally dominate this battlefield.
Crocodile already had the incredibly powerful Sand-Sand Fruit—the power to control sand, acting like a desert grim reaper who could easily bury his enemies alive.
But now, he had also eaten the Fish-Fish Fruit, Mythical Model: Azure Dragon.
Not only that, he had mastered top-tier Armament Haki, an incredible technique that turned his raw power into physical armor, making his attacks even more deadly.
The combination of all these powers had caused his overall strength to explode like a rocket, placing him right at the very top of the world's strongest fighters.
Dealing with the so-called Tobi Roppo was nothing but a minor chore for him.
Before anyone could fully recover, a violent sand tornado suddenly swept across the ground.
The sandstorm roared like an angry beast, ripping through everything in its path and sending rocks flying through thick clouds of dust.
Crocodile spread his arms wide.
His entire body looked like a stream of glowing sand as he charged fiercely toward the Tobi Roppo.
The left half of his body stayed in his Sand Dragon form, with sandy scales throwing off a mesmerizing, mysterious glow under the sunlight.
Each scale seemed packed with endless power, shining with a hard metal finish.
The right half of his body was completely turned to sand.
Countless tiny grains twisted and surged as if they had a life of their own, swirling tightly around Crocodile, just waiting for their master's order to launch a deadly strike.
"Desert: Six Paths Dragon Shadows!"
Crocodile roared, his voice sounding like muffled thunder rolling across the chaotic battlefield.
With his roar, his body suddenly split into six perfectly identical copies.
Each form carried the powers of both the Sand Dragon and the raging sandstorm.