Chapter 164: Mysterious Masked Man

Dashing toward the man, who was flying in the air while wearing a large tiki mask, I dodged his cannon fire from the weird-looking gun on his shoulder that reminded me of an RPG and spun in the air, swiping my legs as I fired a rankyaku at him which sliced right through the small cannons and continued toward him, but, he was quite agile, I had to give them that, and he managed to dodge out of the way at the last second.

Chasing after him, I launched a few more rankyaku's at him, forcing him to move a predetermined path until I arrived, standing right before him; he tried to back away, but I punched my fist through his stupid tiki mask and grabbed his head. Staring right into his hatred and anger-filled eyes, I titled my head in slight confusion, as I had no idea why he would look at me with such hatred, though the anger was understandable.

'Eh, don't really care.' Mused Diddy as he shook his head and squeezed the man's head, though before he could inflict any harm, he shot his gun point-blank range at Diddy, engulfing the two of them in a fiery explosion.

"Haa, t-that's what you get, o-outsider." Said the man with heavy breaths and various injuries as he escaped the cloud of smoke while floating in the air, smirking at his victory.

"Heh, don't tell me, that's all you've got? Well, I suppose the first line of defense is always the weakest." Remarked Diddy with a smirk as he waved his hand, blowing the smoke while eyeing the man, who was sporting an ugly expression, seemingly taking no damage whatsoever.

Glancing at the man, I smirked before kicking the air and lunging toward him; he once again fired at me while trying to fly through the air with his skate-looking shoes, but not only was he slow compared to me, I evaded every shot, once I neared him, I punched him in the face, and while he went to block it, he was too weak compared me, yet, for to my complete surprise, he managed to block my punch.

"What the?" Muttered Diddy in confusion as he furrowed his brows and looked at the man's hand, which was holding a weird shell with numerous tiny holes.

"Heh, is that all you've got, outsider?" Asked the man with a smirk as he moved his hand out of the way and swung his weapon at Diddy, who caught it with his hand, piercing the sides of it with his sharp nails.

Holding the man's weapon with my left hand, I reeled my other arm back and punched him once more, this time even stronger than before, yet, just as I was about to hit him, he moved his hand, which was holding that weird looking shell, in front of his face and when I hit the shell, I should've broke it, or at the very least, my hand should be in pain, but no, there was absolutely nothing.

'It's almost like the shell absorbed my punch, like a sponge. Hmm, if that's the case, does it have a limit?' Pondered Diddy thoughtfully as he inspected the reddish shell with his vertical slit eyes, only to punch it again.

While I believed it had to have some sort of limit to how much it could absorb, my assumption so far was proving wrong; no matter how much I punched the shell, it stayed the same: no shaking, no signs of cracking, no noise, nothing, and it was honestly starting to annoy me as I was learning nothing from this, I was just punching while gaining no insights.

"Tch, this is boring." Muttered Diddy with a slight frown as he yanked the weapon out of the man's hands before crushing it and tossing it into the distance, though just as he was about to attack, the man suddenly pointed the shell at him.

"D-Don't move, outsider; this thing right here is called an Impact dial; it can absorb any blunt attacks and store it for later to be used in an attack; the only problem is, all the stored energy will be released in one blast You've just punched this impact dial numerous times with enough strength to kill me, do you think you could survive receiving your own attack combined into one?" Remarked the man, sweat dripping down the side of his face as he grinned while provokingly glaring at Diddy, who furrowed his brows and eyed the dial.

"If that's the case, why are you giving me a warning and not outright attacking me?" Asked Diddy with a curious smirk as he stepped forward, forcing the man to take a step back while nervously gulping.

"Heh, not talking, are we? Tell me, why didn't you already use the impact dial? I wasn't really concerned with that dial, so while I doubt it would work, you might've been able to pull off a sneak attack, but instead, you gave me such valuable information. Why is that?" Questioned Diddy with a feral grin as he stepped forward once more, causing the man to back away yet again while his hands trembled and his lips dried up.

Staring at each other, I took one more step, causing the man to suddenly grit his teeth before yelling loudly as he pressed a button on the back of the dial.

"FOR SHANDIA!" Yelled the man as he tensed his body, preparing for the intense recoil that was to come while suddenly an explosion of air emerged from the impact dial merely a foot away from Diddy.

Despite my instincts warning me of danger, I didn't bother moving and grinned as I took the brunt of my own attacks, curious to see how powerful it would genuinely be, though I had greatly underestimated the combined might of all of my punches. When I felt the powerful force hit me, for a few brief moments, I blacked out, and when I came too, I was already falling through the air while my face was littered with pain, and I could only see out of one eye right now.

My jaw was broken, I felt several missing teeth within my mouth, my nose was broken, a bump had grown so much, I was blind out of my left eye, oh and I'm pretty confident my skull is cracked in multiple different spots; I was beaten pretty badly, but, overall, I could still fight, and most importantly, my opponent was in a much worse state than I, he looked about ready to collapse at a seconds notice.

'I see; the impact dial has recoil. That does make a lot of sense; no wonder he was so hesitant to use it; he didn't know whether he'd survive. However, the recoil doesn't seem too bad since if he was hit with my blast like I was, I'm willing to bet he'd explode into several different chunks.' Thought Diddy lightly as he continued to fall through the sky while eyeing the man.

Right when I was about to sink into the sea of clouds, I hit my tail against the air before doing a backflip and landing on the bow of my ship, which had finally caught up.

"Heh, I quite like this look, Diddy; you should wear it more often. I'll even be nice enough to do it to you." Said Freyja with a smirk of amusement as she looked at Diddy, who growled from his throat while turning and glancing at her in annoyance.

Grabbing my jaw, I snapped it into place, something I've done on numerous occasions, so I was decently proficient in it.

"Go ahead, you're welcome to try; I'm just curious: will you live to tell the tale, or will you wind up as a floating corpse in the sea of clouds?" Asked Diddy with a smirk as he bared his fangs, or I should say fang, as one of them was missing, a sight that caused Freyja to chuckle while his expression constantly twitched.

Growling in annoyance, I looked away and pointed my finger at the escaping man before firing a shigan at him; it didn't take long for it to reach him, followed by a small, bloody hole appearing in the back of his head as he fell out of the sky and into the sea of clouds.

'Hmm, I should recover his impact dial; that thing was interesting.' Mused Diddy as he looked at the area where the man's corpse floated, only for his ear to twitch at the sound of wings flapping.

Snapping my head to the right, I saw what looked like a pink pegasus, though riding the pegasus was a knight wielding a lance, which was rather fitting, except that the man looked rather old.

"Where is Wyper?" Asked the Knight loudly as he looked at the two ships, though all he got were blank looks from all of them.

"Who the fuck is Wyper? Sounds like a man's name, Freyja probably already sucked him dry then." Remarked Diddy with a raised eyebrow as he looked at Freyja, who scoffed at his words and folded her arms.

"Wyper; he's a brown-skinned Shandia, wears a tiki mas, carries a Burn Bazooka, has tribal tattoos; ringing any bells?" Stated the Knight as he glanced at Diddy, only to snap his fingers and point at the sea of clouds.

"Oh, he's over there, floating in the clouds; that group of there killed him; they're a crazy bunch; I wouldn't recommend interacting with them." Said Diddy with a nod as he gestured to the Strawhats while not even trying to be quiet, causing them to look at him angrily.