It was a very strange power,
as if it were making him younger.
If he had not used Haki to resist it, it probably could have turned him directly into a seven- or eight-year-old, the age he had been before joining the Roger Pirates,
into a child version of Austin.
But Austin did not like looking up at others, so he used Haki to offset part of that strange power. His body had now returned to around eighteen or nineteen years old,
while his Haki remained at nearly the level it had been when he was forty. Everything else, however, had declined along with his youth.
Of course, if he wanted to return to his original age, all he had to do was use Conqueror's Haki inside his body and give it a shake.
But that would have taken away much of the fun.
As the power took effect, the outsiders watched Austin's formerly mature appearance and bearing slowly change.
Though he still stood over three meters tall, his hair had become somewhat shorter, and his face had grown far younger and more energetic.
He now looked around the same age as King Luffy and Zoro.
Naturally, Austin's Observation Haki allowed him to sense his own changes. That really was what he had looked like at eighteen or nineteen.
"What?!! My power was supposed to turn you into a child..."
Bonney looked bewildered, unable to understand why things had not gone as expected.
But the others had entirely different thoughts.
"That legendary figure has now become his younger self. Isn't this our chance?"
The Mafia boss Bege smiled, convinced that he had found the crucial flaw.
If this had been the terrifying [Black Spear] Austin from before, a man whose mere presence had left them unable to move,
then Bege