Holy crap!
It really works!
"Uncle Brogy! Could you tell me how to train it?" Lina asked hurriedly, the fervor in her eyes completely undisguised—and with no need to hide it.
Brogy looked a little troubled. Scratching his head, he said, "We've learned it, but we're not very proficient. If we're going to teach you, our method might be a bit crude."
"Not proficient?" Lina asked, surprised.
Elbaf was a nation of giants renowned throughout the New World. How could Dorry and Brogy, the leaders of the Giant Soldier Pirates, be unskilled when it came to Haki?
Dorry explained, "There are all kinds of strange ability users on the sea. That's why we learned Haki. But in other fights, we rely mainly on our bodies and our skills."
"That's right. We warriors of Elbaf believe in getting up close and personal. Gahahaha!" Brogy agreed.
What a ridiculous thing to say. Since when did knowing Haki stop you from fighting up close and personal?! Lina fumed inwardly.
She looked up at the two burly men again. Fine, this was very giant-like.
"What are you guys talking about?" Luffy asked, frowning and tilting his head.
The others looked just as confused, so Lina briefly explained it to them.
"But what do you mean by a crude method?" Lina turned back to the giants and pressed them for an answer.
Dorry and Brogy exchanged a glance, then threw their heads back and laughed. "Gahahaha! You take a beating!"
"..."
All right, all right. Rayleigh must've been trained by you two, Lina thought, a whole mess of black lines above her head.
"Of course, we don't mean you just stand there and take a beating like an idiot. Haki is..."
Brogy went on to explain it to them. Knowing that Luffy and the others didn't have much of an idea what Haki was, he gave them a more thorough explanation.
"An invisible suit of armor?" Luffy rested a hand on his chin and thought for a moment, then tilted his head. "Emmwww... So Haki's armor that isn't cool at all?"
Wham!
"Idiot! That's obviously not what he meant!"
Nami gave Luffy her usual scolding.
"I think I get the general idea."
Lina nodded and lit a cigarette. But first, there was something else she wanted to try. "Uncle, let's get back to what we were doing before."
"Oh, that thing? Sure." Brogy held out his hand.
Lina began transforming into her Zoan Form. Blue flames gradually seeped out from all over her body, rose to its surface, and spread across her as they danced in the wind.
Two short red horns emerged from her forehead. A blood-red line stretched from the bridge of her nose toward her ears, and a withered, deathly aura radiated from her.
Lina's appearance hadn't changed much, but the dancing blue flames and deathly aura made her seem to carry a heavier air of death.
"Wow! Lina transformed again! So cool!" Luffy was inexplicably fascinated by anything that could transform.
"Hey, Luffy, what's going on with Lina?"
No one present besides Luffy had seen Lina transform before. Nami and the others barely knew anything about the different types of Devil Fruits or their abilities.
"Oh, Lina's power lets her transform. Damn, I want that too!" Luffy said, looking jealous.
Don't worry, you'll get your chance too, Lina thought.
But Dorry and Brogy were even more shocked than the others. They stared at Lina in alarm.
They weren't surprised by her ability. They'd seen all sorts of strange Devil Fruits before. It was the other familiar yet unfamiliar presence they felt coming from her.
"Why do you have..."
"There's nothing strange about it, Dorry."
Brogy cut Dorry off and put a hand on his shoulder, signaling him. "It's not like we've never seen something like this before. Young people have their own paths to follow. We shouldn't interfere too much."
"Ah... You're right. Gahahaha!"
"What was that about?" Lina asked, watching the two of them with a baffled look.
Had her Lich Lord Form's intimidating aura somehow leaked out?
...Whatever.
She covered Brogy with her hand again. This time, there was no resistance, and the process went smoothly. Lina figured the first attempt had failed because of the Haki in Brogy's body.
Even when someone wasn't actively interfering, could Haki still affect her ability a little? Lina wondered.
It took a full twenty minutes before Lina drew back the blue flames. "That sure takes a lot out of me..."
"What's that thing? Your ability?" Dorry asked, looking at the blue flame dancing in Lina's hand.
Lina had no reason to hide it, so she briefly explained that she could create undead. Then she asked them to help her out.
Dorry was an easygoing man. He said it was no big deal, and Lina immediately covered him with blue flames without holding back.
This time, it took a little less time than before. It wasn't because Dorry was weaker than Brogy, but because Lina's Devil Fruit had developed further, increasing the boost it gave her physical abilities.
That brings us to how Lina developed her Devil Fruit.
She didn't know much about Paramecia or Logia, but her method for developing her Zoan Mythical Zoan Fruit was to keep using her abilities and drawing closer to the corresponding form.
There was nothing complicated about developing Lina's Devil Fruit. She just had to keep collecting stronger templates and creating stronger undead.
Simple and straightforward, but effective!
There were plenty of people in the world who'd changed their fate with a single Devil Fruit. One more wouldn't make much difference—especially when some Paramecia abilities were downright bizarre.
Her advantage was that Mythical Zoan Fruits belonged to the Zoan type. The more she developed her fruit, the greater the boost it gave her physical abilities.
Unfortunately, aside from the huge increase she'd gotten right after eating the fruit, the later boosts had been relatively minor. So she'd kept up her habit of training her body.
Only hard work would never let you down—
—Run... Marine Hero Koby!
But that wasn't what she'd wanted to test. Lina had already had an idea about these two blue flames.
She transformed back into her human form, and with a thought, a crack opened in empty space.
Two undead, each about the size of an ordinary person and dressed like Spartan warriors, stepped out. But before they could take more than a couple of steps...
Crack! Crack!
"Guess they still burst from the strain?" Lina rested her chin on her hand, as if she'd expected it.
She'd wanted to shrink the undead to make them more agile.
But with her current strength, she couldn't compress the two giants down to the size of ordinary people. Their monstrous physical abilities had made the undead burst apart.
"Then again, that just goes to show how absurdly powerful their templates are."
Lina didn't mind. She summoned two more undead, and this time their appearance was quite different.
They were nearly five meters tall, with lean builds. Each carried a round shield in one hand and a spear in the other, with a greatsword at their waist. At a glance, they looked just like Spartan warriors.
Except...
"Ah!!!"
A scream came from behind her. Vivi covered her mouth and stared at the two undead in terror, clearly frightened.
She'd only seen Lina's fish-man undead before, and they'd looked fairly friendly.
Even Nami couldn't handle it. She grimaced and scolded Lina irritably. "You idiot! Why do you keep making such creepy things?"
The two Spartan warriors had no skin at all, just two terrifying, grotesque skulls.
"I can't help it," Lina said, shrugging helplessly and exhaling a puff of smoke. "I was trying to get rid of unnecessary flesh and make them more agile."
If she could've compressed them further, she wouldn't have wanted them to end up like this either. She looked at the long strips of cloth tied around the two undead's waists, one red and one green.
"Blue Oni and Red Oni. I'll name them after your nicknames from now on." Lina flicked away her cigarette and stamped it out.
Finally, she could put them to the test. Let's see whether they inherited your Haki...
Before you continue