Sakazuki's Actions

At the four o'clock position southeast of Z Island, as the melee between students, between students and pirates, and between pirates grew increasingly fierce, things were hottest of all.

Clumps of lava clung to the bare yellow earth, giving off a strong scent of sulfur and a faint smell of charcoal amid wisps of hot smoke.

The slightly higher slopes and hills nearby were riddled with craters of all sizes burned into them by lava. The place was like a hell of lava and magma.

Clearly, this was the exclusive stage of Sakazuki, the Logia-type Magma-Magma Fruit user. Strangely, however, the lava was not scattered along paths leading toward the center.

After hearing that there were many pirates on the island, Sakazuki had lost much of his interest in his ranking in the melee.

All he wanted now was to find as many pirates as possible. Better yet, they would gather together on their own, so he could wipe them all out in one fell swoop!

"Aaah! My hand, my hand!"

"M-monster!"

"Why is he still alive when I stabbed right through him?"

In one spot, three pirates of different sizes and bizarre appearances, all wearing matching black-and-white prison uniforms, held swords and muskets as they stared in terror at the lava monster they had surrounded.

A "comrade" lay on the ground, his right arm and chest covered in magma. He had bravely been the first to charge forward, plunging his blade into their opponent's back.

And that was how he had ended up. The blade had gone in, but by the time he pulled it out, it had already melted away, and the monster had casually struck him with its palm!

"Trash like you have no right to live in this world."

Expressionless, Sakazuki walked up to the pirate, who was wailing and rolling on the ground, and raised a foot covered in terrifying lava before stamping down hard.

The piercing scream stopped abruptly, and another pool of dark red lava appeared on the ground. So that was where the others had come from.

"What a terrifying power. But judging by how he does things, we'll have to fight for our lives this time!"

The most heavily built of the pirates, a man over two meters tall, stepped forward with a broad blade three fingers wide in his hand. At the same time, his body began to change at a speed visible to the naked eye.

His body swelled rapidly. Not only did his frame grow wider, but he also reached nearly three meters in height. His skin turned grayish white, and an extremely thick, long, sharp black horn grew from his nose.

"A Zoan?" Sakazuki looked at him with disdain.

"That's right! I'm a Rhino Man who ate the Zoan-type Ox-Ox Fruit, Rhino Form!"

The power coursing through his body gave the pirate greater confidence and courage, and he grinned. "Before I was captured, my bounty was thirty-four million Beli!"

"Not interested." Sakazuki stopped looking at him and threw a hard punch at the pirate to his left instead!

His thinking was simple: this Rhino Man did not look like much of a runner, so he would deal with the two little rats first.

If even one got away, it would really sour his mood.

Sakazuki's fist turned into red-hot lava once more, growing as it flew through the air. It swelled larger and larger until it became a gigantic lava fist several heads taller than a man.

If it had merely been big, an agile pirate could have dodged it. But his lava fist erupted forward at an astonishing speed, reaching the pirate's face before he had taken two steps.

The result was no surprise. As the lava fell from the air, another rapidly melting corpse appeared on the ground.

"No! I'm not fighting anymore!"

"I don't want to fight this monster anymore!" The pirate on the right finally broke at the horrifying sight. After firing two shots at Sakazuki, he hurried toward the Rhino Man.

"Lava is really troublesome." The Rhino Man was feeling grim as well. Although his skin was thick and tough, he had no idea how long he could hold out.

Just as the panicked pirate was about to run past him, he grabbed the man by the back of the neck and hurled him toward Sakazuki.

"No!!!" The pirate looked at the Rhino Man with a complex mix of negative emotions, including terror and resentment.

[Boom!]

A searing heat came from behind him, and a lava palm engulfed him completely. He soon followed the previous man to the underworld.

Sakazuki would neither thank nor praise the Rhino Man for what he had done, but he would not refuse a pirate delivered to his door either.

But just as the lava-wrapped corpse was falling toward the ground, a thick, long black rhino horn thrust through it.

The next instant, an extraordinarily large rhinoceros, magma coating its head, smashed through Sakazuki's entire body and came out the other side!

"Hmph, looks like he's dead."

The Rhino Man turned around and gazed cruelly at the lump of lava spread across the ground, still burning and melting the earth beneath it.

The lava stuck to his body made him very uncomfortable, but he could just roll on the ground in a little while.

To ensure his charge had the greatest possible effect, he had deliberately changed from Human-Beast Form into Beast Form.

"So what if he's a lava man? If his body gets smashed to pieces, doesn't he die all the same?"

Well, being from Paradise, he really had never encountered a Logia user. For that matter, even in the New World, Logia users were not something just anyone could encounter.

As the lava on the Rhino Man's body caused him increasing pain and he prepared to roll on the ground like a bull, the yellow earth beneath his belly rapidly heated up and turned red, giving off a scent of sulfur.

"Hm?"

The Rhino Man felt the heat by his feet. He had barely looked down when his eyes narrowed sharply. The next instant, a pillar of lava erupted from below, melting through his belly in the blink of an eye and shooting out of his back into the sky!

"No!!!"

"Pirates like you must be cut down by the roots!"

Sakazuki's upper body emerged from the pillar of lava as he looked down at the dying rhinoceros, dark red magma flowing and dripping from his body.

With the murderous expression on his face, he looked like a devil from hell.

"Die, trash!"

Perhaps that still was not enough to satisfy him, or perhaps he simply wanted to make sure there was no chance of his opponent surviving. His right arm turned into lava again, and a single punch swallowed the Rhino Man's head!

Officers watching the live broadcast in various places witnessed the scene firsthand. Some applauded and voiced their admiration, while others frowned and said nothing.

In the commandant's office at Navarone Fortress, the G-8 Branch, Vice Admiral Cornell and Rear Admiral Dewitt wore solemn expressions.

Since headquarters had stipulated that only senior officers of commodore rank or above could watch, neither Ms. Enid nor little Enel was there.

"That Sakazuki is dangerous!" Rear Admiral Dewitt said.

"Indeed. Both his power and the man himself are far too dangerous." Vice Admiral Cornell began to worry.

"Vidal will have to fight someone like him later."

Meanwhile, after dealing with the Rhino Man, Sakazuki continued roaming around Z Island. There had to be pirates elsewhere!

Find them. Find every last one!

Elsewhere, Vice Admiral Cornell and Dewitt turned their attention to the screen showing Vidal.

In less than half a day, eight men of all sorts of appearances but wearing matching uniforms had already gathered around him.

It was not that he had only encountered these few in all that time. Some pirates had failed to recognize the situation and insisted on courting death. Wouldn't it have been better to stay alive for the time being?

But Vidal had not personally dealt with them on those occasions, instead leaving them to the lackeys who had chosen to compromise and join him.

I should be meeting the other students soon, right? Vidal looked forward to meeting them.

Sigh, I diligently post two chapters every day, sometimes even three, but my bookmarks only increase by a dozen or so each day. It's a headache. Those of you who have read this far, could you tell me if I'm doing something wrong?

The book's current stats show that over seven hundred people have read it, and more than five hundred and eighty have bookmarked it. That bookmark rate isn't low, right? Almost eighty or ninety percent chose to bookmark it. Please give it more recommendations. Maybe more recommendations will bring in more readers.