A fierce wind howled past the cliffs of West Village, and Gaban's figure disappeared from the spot.
The ground beneath his feet cracked inch by inch, and he transformed into a blur that was difficult to catch with the naked eye, hurtling toward the Owl Library.
However, although he wanted to get to the library as soon as possible, the sights along the way made him nervous, and he had to stop and take a look.
The once bustling village of giants was now eerily silent.
In front of the enormous blacksmith shop, the furnace fire still roared, but the craftsman who had been wielding the giant hammer lay upright beside the anvil, his massive body crushing half of the wall.
On the streets, children chasing and playing, merchants pushing their goods, patrolling soldiers, and so on—all the giants, without exception, fell to the ground in various postures, all unconscious.
The "red sun" hanging high in the sky still exuded a terrifying and powerful pressure, and its domineering black and red Haki rippled outwards in circles.
Damn it!
Gaban secretly gasped. Even as a top-tier powerhouse who had once roamed the Grand Line, he had never seen anyone use Conqueror's Haki to such a monstrous degree.
Suppressing the shock in his heart, Gaban stopped beside a giant woman who had collapsed, clutching an unconscious infant in her arms. Looking at the mother and child lying unconscious before him, Gaban took a deep breath and then decisively placed his hand on the child.
At this moment, the red sun hanging high above the Yang Realm and the constantly released Conqueror's Haki, even if it was just the aftershock, were enough to crush the souls of ordinary people.
However, when he touched the child's body, his eyes lit up, his tense body suddenly relaxed, and he exhaled a breath of stale air.
Still alive!
She just fainted!
To be precise, he fell asleep!
Having confirmed that the children were not affected by Conqueror's Haki in the slightest, Gaban felt a great weight lifted from his heart. He stopped checking each child individually, because he now understood that the Navy Marshal's goal was not to massacre them.
Rather, it was through this means that he was showing them that no one in Elbaf could stop him.
With that in mind, Gaban didn't delay any longer and sped off. A few minutes later, Gaban arrived at the library gate.
Before he could rush into the library, a tall female figure staggered out from inside—it was Lipri.
Gaban!
"Where are the children?" Gaban went to greet them, a hint of worry in his voice.
"They've all passed out. I checked them over, and they're fine." Lipri's face was pale, clearly due to the aftereffects of the Conqueror's Haki attack.
The last weight on Gaban's heart was finally lifted.
Then, he looked up at the gradually fading red sun in the sky, shook his head and smiled bitterly, " Conqueror's Haki covered the entire territory of Elbaf, yet not a single person was harmed. What an astonishing feat, Navy Marshal."
Just then, Gaban and Lipri caught a glimpse of two figures quietly appearing not far away out of the corner of their eyes.
It was as if they had been standing there all along, only to be discovered at this moment.
A man draped in a cloak, with a full head of silver hair and a long sword at his waist, was none other than the long-lost Pluton, Silvers Rayleigh.
The other was Shakky, the Bargain Bar a cigarette.
"Were we ultimately too late?"
Rayleigh surveyed the giants scattered around him, one hand on the hilt of his sword, and walked slowly towards them. His tone was calm, yet tinged with a heavy weight.
Gaban was stunned when he learned that Rayleigh had actually come to Elbaf.
It wasn't until Rayleigh and Shakky walked right up to him that he snapped out of his daze, looked at the two standing side by side, and grinned, "What brings you here, you old codger?"
Rayleigh didn't answer immediately. His gaze passed over Gaban and landed on the towering Lipri beside him. He said seriously, "This must be your sister-in-law."
He paused slightly, then praised sincerely, "It truly is magnificent!"
Lipri blinked her huge eyes slowly, clearly still reeling from the shock of Rayleigh's sudden appearance.
Before she could speak, Rayleigh suddenly lowered his body, leaned close to Gaban's ear, and said in a voice only the two of them could hear, "I heard your wife gave birth to a giant son? Let me interview you, how did you manage to get your wife to give birth to a giant son? I'm very curious!"
!!!!
Gaban's eyes widened instantly, and he angrily shoved Rayleigh aside, roaring in a low voice, "What sister-in-law! That's your sister-in-law!"
"And another thing! You still haven't answered me, why did you bring your younger siblings here?"
"Heh," Rayleigh chuckled his signature laugh, straightened up, and said calmly, "I foresaw the crisis in Elbaf, so I rushed here immediately to try and stop this catastrophe. But it seems I'm still a step too late. The situation here is far from optimistic!"
Upon hearing that Rayleigh had come to help Elbaf, Gaban's anger subsided considerably. He stopped pursuing Rayleigh's disrespectful behavior and blatant lies, and his expression returned to seriousness.
"There was no war here." Gaban paused, then continued, "I believe you saw it on your way here; all the unconscious giants were stunned by Marshal Akira's Conqueror 'Conqueror's Haki. I checked them, and they're all fine; they'll recover after a good night's sleep."
Rayleigh nodded.
When he and Shakky landed, they were also struck by that Haki. On their way there, he confirmed that the giants were merely unconscious before heading straight to meet Gaban.
"Has Marshal Akira's mastery of Conqueror's Haki reached this level?"
Shakky, who had been silent all along, slowly raised her head and looked at the red sun in the sky that was gradually dimming, leaving only a black and red afterglow. Her tone was filled with disbelief and shock.
"To compress Conqueror's Haki into a red sun—even Rocks back then couldn't have done that!"
She paused slightly, then looked away and asked Gaban, "So what exactly is going on? We haven't detected Marshal Akira's presence along the way. Not only that, but we also couldn't detect the presence of the naval trainees who landed in Elbaf."
Upon hearing this, Gaban shook his head and smiled bitterly again.
"Before Akira unleashed his Conqueror's Haki, he used ' Observation Haki Killer ' to seal off the presence of all the Marines. We could see those trainees with our eyes, but we couldn't detect the existence of any of them through Observation Haki."
"I see." Shakky suddenly realized.
"Hey, sir--"
Luffy's powerful shouts echoed from afar.
Immediately afterwards, Luffy, Usopp, and Chopper rushed out of the forest.
Before the three could get close, the library doors opened again, and Robin, Perona, and their group filed out.
Almost at the same time, a group of figures stumbled out from the dense forest on the other side.
Sanji kicked a small tree in half, almost crushing the cigarette butt in his mouth, his face filled with utter despair. Ace and Sabo followed behind, looking exhausted and with vacant eyes, as if their souls had been ripped out. The other trainees were even more unsteady on their feet, listless and weak, as if they had just finished a fierce battle.
Zoro, walking at the very front, was the only one who looked spirited and radiant.
Upon seeing Luffy, Robin, and the others who had already gathered in front of the library, he immediately raised his head proudly and slung the Wado Ichimonji over his shoulder.
"Look! Look, isn't it over there?"
"I knew the team would fall apart without me!"
"You managed to find your way here without me leading the way? Let's see who dares to call me directionally challenged again!"
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