Bring the Ship Closer

"Did you see it with your own eyes?"

"Yes."

Smoker fell silent. What exactly had happened to Lin Qi for him to undergo such a drastic transformation?

Even he had been frightened by that terrifying pressure.

"Lin Qi?" Hina gazed worriedly at the terrifying creature in the distance.

Lin Qi noticed the frozen warship beneath his feet and shattered the ice completely with a single rain of flames.

Meanwhile, fifty miles away from Lin Qi, the Red-Haired Pirates—

Shanks stared solemnly into the distance. His Observation Haki told him that something terrifying lay ahead.

Red-Haired was only twenty-four years old at the time, six years older than Lin Qi. Though he had yet to become one of the Four Emperors, he had already made a name for himself in the New World.

"Yo~ Captain, what are you doing? Come have a feast."

Lucky Roo rarely saw Red-Haired with such a grave expression, so he approached with a chicken leg in hand.

"Pass the word. Change course. Whatever's ahead isn't something to provoke."

"Understood." Lucky Roo turned serious and went back to notify the helmsman. He had always trusted the captain's orders without question.

Before long, Yasopp and Lime Jones came over. There were not many people aboard Red-Haired's ship, but every one of them was an elite.

"Yo, boss, I'm here."

As a Sniper, Yasopp possessed a unique kind of Observation Haki. He could focus his Observation Haki on a specific point.

This meant that while the area he could observe was far less comprehensive than usual, covering only a small range, it could reach much farther.

Put simply, it stretched the usual three-hundred-sixty-degree, blind-spot-free circular range of Observation Haki into a line.

Following the direction Red-Haired pointed out, Yasopp instinctively raised his sniper rifle and activated his Observation Haki.

"Holy shit, that Kirin has a Halo behind it!"

The next moment, Yasopp cried out as though he had seen something unbelievable.

"Hey, hey, hey, Yasopp, did drinking scramble your brains? How could something as legendary as a Kirin actually exist?" Lime Jones mocked.

"I believe Yasopp. If it's a Kirin, then it isn't so strange."

Red-Haired gave them a meaningful reminder. "Have you forgotten that there's an Azure Dragon in the New World?"

"You mean someone ate a Zoan, Mythical Zoan—Deer-Deer Fruit, Kirin Form?" Lime Jones asked in shock.

"That's exactly what I mean." Red-Haired lowered his head, seemingly lost in thought.

"This is serious. One Dragon in the New World was troublesome enough, and now another Kirin has appeared..." Lime Jones was deeply troubled.

Yasopp lowered his rifle. "Boss, your instincts were right. You didn't see how terrifying that Kirin was."

Recalling what he had just seen, Yasopp broke out in a cold sweat.

"I have a feeling that it won't be long before legends of that Kirin spread across the seas." Shanks smiled. "But for now, it isn't time for us to meet him."

After venting recklessly for a while, Lin Qi felt that the pent-up power in his body had finally vanished. He returned to human form and landed on the deck.

Only then did the Marines finally breathe a sigh of relief.

"Lin Qi, what was that just now?" Smoker asked.

"Hold on. Let me try the final Human-Beast Form first."

With a thought, Lin Qi's height surged once more to seven meters. His hands and certain important areas were covered in Dragon Scales, while two winding Dragon Horns emerged from his forehead.

Sharp barbs protruded from his joints and other areas, making him look imposing and extraordinary.

Only one thing remained unchanged: no matter which form he took, the Black-Red Halo behind him never disappeared.

After testing it for a while, he returned to human form and looked down at the two little figures before him.

"I was in the kitchen when I saw an apple that looked like a Devil Fruit. After I ate it, this happened."

Smoker wore an expression that clearly said he did not believe a word of it. Lin Qi laughed and patted him on the shoulder. "That's what happened. If anyone asks you later, just tell them that."

The pat made Smoker grimace. That strength nearly patted him apart.

"Sorry, sorry. I still can't control my strength precisely."

"Lin Qi, can you change back?"

Seeing that even standing on tiptoe only brought her up to Lin Qi's hip, Hina pouted so hard she could have hung a soy sauce bottle from her lips.

The thought that she might not be able to kiss Lin Qi whenever she wanted made Hina very sad.

Five meters was just too tall.

"I should be able to change back, right?" Lin Qi said uncertainly. "I can feel that this fruit has many hidden abilities. Give me some time to get familiar with them."

About half an hour later, Lin Qi's height began shrinking from five meters, returning to his previous height of 1.99 meters.

Sun Candlelight possessed the power of supreme Yang. After studying it for a while, Lin Qi temporarily discovered two uses for this Yang Power.

First, its recovery ability was astonishingly fast. If he cut his arm with a knife, the wound would already have healed before he could even lower the blade.

Smoker could only call such powerful recovery freakish.

The second ability was that he could control his height in his normal form, up to three times larger or smaller.

He could shrink to one-third his size or grow to three times his size.

His normal height was now five meters, meaning he could freely change his height anywhere between 1.6 meters and fifteen meters.

Fifteen meters... taller than Kaido.

"That's great, you changed back!" Hina excitedly threw herself at him.

"Good girl."

Over the next few days, Lin Qi remained aboard the ship studying Sun Candlelight's abilities.

It would take a full half month to travel from Marine Headquarters to the East Blue, and that was through the World Government's official route.

If they crossed Reverse Mountain like Pirates did, even if the ship survived, it would probably take another three to five days.

It was said that there was also a whale blocking the way beneath Reverse Mountain.

Nearly half the rookie Pirates who entered the New World from the Four Seas died at those two obstacles.

"Captain, this is bad! We've encountered severe weather ahead. There are even waterspouts forming. Requesting permission to detour!"

The ship's navigator hurried over.

The weather on the Grand Line could change at any moment. One second the skies would be clear for miles, and the next, you would be in the heart of a torrential downpour. And you could never imagine what kind of bizarre weather might appear.

Instead of rain, the skies might send down bucket-thick lightning bolts, mountain-sized falling rocks, or barriers formed by hundreds of waterspouts...

It could be said that the weather on the Grand Line was more complicated than a woman's thoughts.

Without an experienced navigator, surviving at sea would be nothing short of a miracle.

"Let me see how serious it is."

Lin Qi set down the barbell stacked with ten layers of weights and took the telescope from the navigator.

Ten miles ahead, he could see torrential rain pouring down, fist-sized hailstones crashing continuously, and dozens of waterspouts carrying massive amounts of seawater straight into the sky.

"How long will the detour take?"

"An estimated three extra days of sailing!"

Lin Qi handed the telescope back to the navigator and said calmly, "Ignore it. Bring the ship closer."