Standing beside Ronan, Katakuri towered like a demon god as he silently watched Hawkins grovel before them, having utterly lost even the courage to resist.
For a moment, a complicated mix of emotions surged through the sharp eyes concealed beneath his thick scarf.
As the former Highest Combat Power of the Big Mom Pirates, the crew of one of the Four Emperors, if he had once seen a Supernova pirate kneeling and begging for mercy with such spinelessness...
Katakuri would never have hidden his contempt. He might even have crushed such a coward to death himself.
But now...
As Katakuri watched Hawkins's trembling back, the disdain and contempt that should have risen in his heart had miraculously vanished without a trace.
In their place came profound empathy, along with a piercing understanding of the laws of this cruel world.
Humiliation? Cowardice? No...
Katakuri sighed silently to himself.
Having also witnessed Ronan's unfathomable power and ultimately chosen to submit to the Straw Hat Pirates, he understood better than anyone the hopeless terror Hawkins faced at that moment.
Before that godlike, utterly overwhelming presence, pride, dignity, and a pirate's backbone were nothing but self-deluding jokes.
The fact that Hawkins could cast aside every burden in that instant and kneel without hesitation to save his life was, instead, a clearheaded kind of survival wisdom.
Katakuri slowly raised his head and gazed up at the polluted, dark-purple sky before his eyes returned to the back of the man ahead, as unfathomable as a deep pool and immovable as a mountain.
So this is the truth of the New World...
Katakuri closed his eyes and reached his final conclusion:
There is no absolute justice, nor any hollow dignity.
This is a naked world where strength reigns supreme!
*And the man before me stands at the