"Make her a mother who loves her children!"

Ronan turned his head, his fathomless gaze meeting Katakuri's horrified eyes:

"If the person standing here today were just an ordinary person with poor aptitude and no potential, then no matter how much life energy I poured into him, that elixir would only heal his injuries and illnesses and restore him to his peak."

"Raising someone's ceiling of strength out of thin air would be impossible."

"Pudding underwent such a complete transformation only because her unique bloodline finally received enough vitality to fuel it, allowing it to ignite fully."

At Ronan's clear explanation, Katakuri's nerves, stretched to their absolute limit, finally relaxed with a buzz.

He let out a long, almost imperceptible breath, only then realizing that cold sweat had soaked his back.

The sea breeze blew across him, bringing a chill.

"So that's how it works..."

Katakuri laughed bitterly to himself.

Of course. If Ronan truly possessed the terrifying ability to mass-produce peerless fighters like products on an assembly line, he would never have needed to waste his breath trying to "recruit" the Big Mom Pirates.

Before such absolute, unreasonable power, they would not even qualify for recruitment.

Still, he watched Pudding slowly open her three eyes a short distance away. Her bearing had changed completely, and even her gaze had grown deep and sharp.

Katakuri knew that whatever restrictions the elixir had, the man before him, and the Straw Hat Pirates' faction he represented, already possessed godlike power capable of rewriting the rules of this Great Sea.

And only by clinging tightly to this massive ship about to set sail could their Charlotte Family hope to find a chance of survival amid the storms of the new era.

The sea breeze still howled along the ravaged coastline, but an unnerving stillness now hung in the air.

The