Sun Candlelight

"Cough, cough... cough." Hina had barely taken a sip of juice when she saw the scene before her and choked into a coughing fit.

Smoker froze. What Devil Fruit had this cat eaten that it could defy the laws of physics?

For those with extensive combat experience, even if their minds did not have time to think, their bodies would instinctively change moves and fight.

By the time Smoker came back to his senses, his Jitte had already smashed into Tom's head.

Smack~

Tom was struck flat against the ground, turning into a cat pancake less than 1 cm thick.

Smoker's expression changed. It was over. He had beaten the cat to death.

"It's fine. Just watch." Lin Qi calmly walked over to Smoker's side.

The "cat pancake" on the ground suddenly began to squirm. After a few wriggles, it turned back into Tom Cat.

Smoker's eyes widened, and the cigar in his mouth dropped to the ground with a smack.

This was fucking ridiculous!

"How was that, Tom? There's always someone better out there. Do you still dare act so cocky?" Lin Qi rubbed Tom's head.

Tom looked aggrieved. He ran off to pick up the broken sword, and with a flash of white light, a perfectly intact sword appeared in his hand.

Smoker: "..."

This cat was cursed.

Leaving Tom to play with Smoker, Lin Qi returned to his room alone.

It was time to claim the reward for storming Mary Geoise that day.

Completing all five stages of the mission had been hellishly difficult. If Kizaru had not gone easy on him, Lin Qi even doubted he would have returned alive.

With such a high difficulty level, the reward was bound to be extremely enticing.

The system's rewards had never disappointed him.

"System, claim today's reward."

Congratulations, Host, for completing the five-stage (final) mission. Distributing reward...

Zoan · Mythical Zoan · Sun Candlelight.

A strangely shaped Devil Fruit appeared in Lin Qi's hand.

The reason it looked strange was because this fruit actually came with special effects?!

Its surface was covered in frost, lightning crawled around it, and most outrageously, a ring of flaming halo surrounded its outermost layer!

"A Mythical Zoan, said to be even rarer than a Logia." Lin Qi stared at the Devil Fruit in his hand in utter shock.

This reward was far better than he had imagined.

Only a handful of Mythical Zoans had appeared in this world so far.

Kaido's Azure Dragon Fruit, Orochi's Yamata no Orochi Fruit, Sengoku's Great Buddha Fruit, Yamato's Okuchi no Makami Fruit, Marco's Phoenix Fruit, and so on.

Looking across the past few centuries of history, only eleven Mythical Zoans had ever appeared.

Every one of them was extraordinarily powerful, rarer than Logias, and possessed world-destroying strength.

"What exactly is Sun Candlelight? Why have I never heard of it?"

As Lin Qi wondered, a flood of information about Sun Candlelight poured into his mind.

As the name implied, Mythical Zoans were creatures that did not exist in reality and existed only in legends.

Sun Candlelight was a divine beast said to have been formed from the essence of the sun, transformed from the universe's supreme Yang energy and Pangu's eye.

He was the ruler of the sun. Because of his exceedingly noble status, the other divine beasts respectfully called him the "Holy God."

Furthermore, because this fruit had been influenced by his younger sister, Lunar Yin, it was in the Four Symbols transformation stage. In addition to the lightning and flame attributes representing supreme Yang, it had also gained the attribute of ice.

As for this Four Symbols transformation, Sun Candlelight and his younger sister Lunar Yin were jointly transformed into the Four Symbols of the world: Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise.

So theoretically speaking, Sun Candlelight was the father of Kaido's Azure Dragon Fruit.

After digesting the information in his mind, only two words remained in Lin Qi's heart: Fucking awesome!

A real man swallowed a Devil Fruit whole in one bite. Lin Qi hesitated no longer and swallowed the entire Devil Fruit in one mouthful.

Boom!

The instant he swallowed the Devil Fruit, Lin Qi felt a stream of heat surge through his limbs and bones.

His height began to increase at a visible rate.

Breaking past two meters was only the beginning.

Two-point-one meters... two-point-four... two-point-seven... three meters!

Before he knew it, Lin Qi had reached a height of three meters, yet he was still growing with wild momentum.

Finally... five meters!

Standing inside the room, he had become a small giant, nearly hitting the ceiling.

Feeling the terrifying power surging through his body, Lin Qi felt capable of anything.

With his fruit powers, even an admiral might not be impossible to fight!

He had only eaten the Devil Fruit five minutes ago, yet it was already pushing him toward Whitebeard and Kaido's level.

Before long, he might get to experience what it felt like to swing a bottle of liquor at one of the Four Emperors.

"Hiss, why did I get so tall?"

When he opened his eyes, Lin Qi's head throbbed. Being this tall was hardly convenient in everyday life.

Before he could find a solution, his expression suddenly changed. He hurried toward the open space outside.

It seemed like some power inside his body was about to burst out.

The moment he reached the deck, Lin Qi could no longer contain the power within him.

"Awooo~!"

Lin Qi vanished. In his place stood an enormous monster thirty meters tall, with a lion's head, deer antlers, tiger eyes, Dragon Scales, and a Dragon Tail. It looked seventy percent similar to the Kirin of legend.

The greatest difference between this monster and a Kirin was the roughly thirty-five-meter-wide hollow black-and-red halo behind it.

A layer of flames burned atop the black halo, which remained floating behind Candlelight at all times.

The instant Lin Qi transformed into his beast form, his enormous body made the warship sink sharply.

Fortunately, he rose into the sky and freely vented the surging power within him.

No, rather than flying, it would be more accurate to say he floated upward, because he had no wings.

"Roar!"

Candlelight roared, spewing several bolts of lightning dozens of meters thick from his mouth into the heavens. The sky, which had been thick with dark clouds just moments ago, was instantly blasted clear for thousands of miles.

Golden lightning leaped continuously through the air, like electric snakes dancing wildly.

With a swipe of Lin Qi's foreclaw, the sea surface within a radius of ten kilometers was frozen solid, locking every ship in place and leaving them unable to move.

"Oh my god, what kind of monster is that?!"

The soldiers aboard the warship trembled in fear at the sight.

"The... the sky has been shattered!"

"Help! The ship is frozen!"

Countless Marines stared at the chain of changes in horror, unable to summon even the slightest thought of resistance.

That feeling... was like mortals facing a god.

Smoker and Hina stared solemnly at the monster in the sky, their nerves stretched taut.

Why had such a terrifying monster appeared here?

They could only hope its target was not them. Otherwise...

Just then, someone nearby timidly spoke up.

"Um, I think I saw Captain Lin Qi turn into that monster on the deck just now."

"Who said that? Who?!" Smoker looked around for the person who had spoken.

"Me..." Yosef stepped forward timidly. Even though he knew the one in the sky was Boss Lin Qi, he was still scared out of his wits.