Chapter Seventy-Nine: The One-Tailed Shukaku [First Update]

Nicole Robin had already taken King Cobra far away from the battlefield. Otherwise, the moment he was engulfed by Crocodile’s power, he would have been instantly dehydrated into a desiccated corpse and then turned to sand.

From the situation at hand, there was no doubt that Crocodile’s Sand-Sand Fruit had already awakened, and his strength was terrifyingly immense.

To the north of the prosperous capital, an area spanning five kilometers had already been reduced to scorched wasteland. Shu Mingyuan stood at the very heart of the sandy desolation, the corners of his mouth always curved in a trace of mockery. By all reason, he should already have been turned to sand along with the buildings around him.

...

“Once again asking the host: are you certain you wish to spend one hundred fifty thousand Justice Points to exchange for the Tailed Beast, Shukaku?”

“Exchange.”

“Congratulations, Host. You have successfully spent one hundred fifty thousand Justice Points to exchange for Shukaku. From the moment you summon it, Shukaku will give birth to its own will. As its sole master, you may become the One-Tail’s jinchuriki anytime and anywhere, henceforth able to use all the abilities of a jinchuriki, with no negative side effects whatsoever.”

At this final prompt, the smile on Shu Mingyuan’s face deepened. Although the one-time cost of one hundred fifty thousand Justice Points pained him greatly, if he truly could use all the abilities of the One-Tail’s jinchuriki, then he had made a monstrous profit. Setting aside Shukaku’s vast and nearly inexhaustible chakra, just Gaara’s sand control alone was worth the price.

Shukaku was a creature created by the Sage of Six Paths through Yin-Yang Release after separating the Ten-Tails’ chakra, possessing boundless chakra and power. The Ten-Tails’ original form, meanwhile, was the God Tree, the source of all chakra.

If the Sand-Sand Fruit were the progenitor of sand in the world of pirates, then Shukaku was the ultimate embodiment of the sand path in the world of ninja.

When the two collided, it was hard to say which would prove stronger.

Since that was the case, he could only give it a try.

“Crocodile, you claim to be a god in the desert? Perfect... because in the desert... I am a god too.”

A confident smile spread across Shu Mingyuan’s face. He looked at Crocodile, bit through his thumb, then brought his fingers together and slapped his palm onto the sand.

“Summoning Technique: Shukaku!”

Black, intricate markings spread across the sand, and with a deafening roar of a beast, a creature so enormous it defied description appeared upon the desert.

Its body was as large as a mountain, with four limbs and a tail. Its features were fierce and grotesque, and black markings covered its skin, its overall color blending with the sand beneath it.

“What kind of monster is that... some beast king of the land?”

Crocodile’s face turned livid as he stared at the beast that had appeared out of nowhere. He could even feel a distinct sense of oppression from it. Then, looking at the boy and recalling the strange technique he had just used, he cried out in shock.

“You brat, this was your doing?”

Shu Mingyuan yawned, not even bothering to lift his eyelids. Only his voice drifted out indifferently.

“It’s called Shukaku. Oh, right, I forgot to tell you—it’s also the god of the desert.”

Shu Mingyuan climbed onto Shukaku’s broad shoulder and sat down. In some obscure way, he could feel that Shukaku was not some thoughtless puppet, but rather had given birth to its own will the instant it was summoned. Though that will was still young, at least it could grow. And what pleased him even more was that Shukaku’s will did not resist his own.

In other words, if he wanted to become a jinchuriki, it would be a matter of moments.

Though Shukaku’s will was still immature, its power and battle instincts remained intact.

Crocodile gazed darkly at the monster and snorted at Shu Mingyuan’s words. Besides him, the Sand-Sand Fruit user, no one else could freely control all sand. It certainly could not be the monster before his eyes.

In this world, it was impossible for two Devil Fruits with the same power to exist at the same time; countless examples over the ages had already proven this. Only after the previous user died would such a Devil Fruit appear once more somewhere else in the world.

Then, to his shock, something happened. He could no longer manipulate even a single grain of sand on Shukaku’s side. One must know that this entire desert had been created by his ability moments ago, and now part of his power was failing?

That was absolutely impossible!

But the facts lay before him, and he had no choice but to accept them. The sand on Shukaku’s side possessed an extremely high degree of vitality, which meant that the moment this monster appeared, it had immediately split the desert in two with Crocodile, claiming half of it completely for itself!

“Old Nine, beat him up for me. Don’t show any mercy—just smash him hard, beat him to death!”

In his heart, the Nine-Tails was the boss, so naturally, Shukaku was Old Nine.

Shukaku let out a cry, and the sand around it rose like a monstrous wave, surging hundreds of meters into the air before slamming down viciously toward Crocodile below. The momentum was comparable to a tsunami. And this was sand—heavier in mass than seawater. Once struck by that weight of sand, there would be no living person left.

“Brat, you want to use sand against me? Are you sure you’ve got the right target? Let me show you what the power of a god really is.”

Laughing wildly, Crocodile met the oncoming sand wave. He was the sand man who had eaten the Logia Sand-Sand Fruit; any part of his body could be transformed into elemental sand and wind, and in a sense, he himself was sand. So one might ask: how could sand be used to attack something that was also sand?

Thus, in his intoxicated confidence, the hundred-zhang-high sand wave crashed down from the sky. But the instant it touched the wave, his expression changed.

The sand he could not control seemed to have a strange energy coating its surface. This energy was similar to Haki, yet not the same. Still, its effect was identical: wherever it struck, he could no longer elementally transform!

“What kind of joke is this!”

Yet he no longer had any time to react. Under the relentless crushing of wave after wave of sand, Crocodile’s body was repeatedly subjected to pressure from all directions within the flowing sand. This was the first time since eating the Sand-Sand Fruit that he had been attacked by the very same substance.

Compared with the injuries his body was suffering, it was his mind and his understanding of reality that were being utterly destroyed today.

The man who had always called himself the god of the desert had finally encountered a being with the same power as him. For a man as arrogant as he, the impact was especially severe.

Crocodile’s body was pressed two hundred meters beneath the desert. It was much like being two thousand meters underwater, where immense pressure came from every direction and could easily grind a human body to pieces.

After the sand wave passed, the desert surface lay smooth and level, as though swept by a tsunami. There was not a single undulating dune, nor any living thing left in sight. Including Crocodile, everything had been buried completely beneath the desert.

P.S. My wife wants to break up with me, and I refuse to allow it. My condition still isn’t good today. Thanks to the readers who have shown concern. This chapter was written at 2 a.m. last night.

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