That Man

Just as the lingering echo of Vice Admiral Momonga's pained cry had yet to fade, the scene before him flickered violently, like a damaged film reel!

The sensation of being bound to the cross remained, but the excruciating pain in his shoulder blades had vanished as if it had never existed.

Only the mental terror still lingered clearly in his mind.

"What's going on?!" Vice Admiral Momonga had just formed this thought—

the next moment, two, three...

a full five figures of Uchiha Itachi appeared around him, encircling him completely.

Each held a blade wreathed in black flames, their gazes equally cold.

"For the next seventy-two hours,"

all of Itachi's phantoms spoke at once, their voices layering into a chilling echo.

"I will keep stabbing you with this knife. Without pause."

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Five blades from different angles pierced Vice Admiral Momonga's body simultaneously!

Chest, abdomen, limbs...

They avoided all vital points, yet maximized the agony to its utmost.

"Aaaaah—!!!"

An even more harrowing scream tore from his throat.

This time, the pain was compounded, erupting from multiple points at once, nearly driving Vice Admiral Momonga into unconsciousness.

But the Tsukuyomi space would not allow him to escape.

The scene flickered again, reset.

The pain vanished, but the mental trauma and fear accumulated.

Then came a new round of even denser, crueler stabbings.

Ten blades...

Twenty blades...

Time stretched infinitely here.

Each second felt as long as a century.

Vice Admiral Momonga's screams gradually faded from high-pitched to hoarse, eventually devolving into unconscious moans and twitching.

His once-proud willpower was ground down and shattered piece by piece under this endless, cyclical mental torture.

His gaze shifted from initial fury, to agonized struggle, and finally to utter numbness and emptiness.

Like a broken doll.

He lost all sense of time, feeling as though he had endured millennia of torment in this hell.

All of Vice Admiral Momonga's former pride crumbled, utterly powerless before the absolute Tsukuyomi space.

Yet in the real world, this agonizing ordeal had passed in but an instant.

From the perspective of every Marine soldier on the deck—

their powerful Vice Admiral Momonga was fighting an unknown enemy, then both abruptly froze in place, unmoving.

Before anyone could believe their eyes, the mighty Vice Admiral Momonga's body gave a violent shudder, and his gaze completely lost focus.

His face twisted into an expression of extreme pain and terror, as if enduring unimaginable torment.

The saber in his hand clattered to the deck with a "clang," and his entire body, as if his soul had been drained, fell stiffly backward!

"Vice Admiral!!"

The Marine soldiers rushed around him in panic.

Uchiha Itachi stood quietly not far away, his crimson Mangekyo slowly ceasing its rotation, his gaze still calm.

He glanced at the unconscious Vice Admiral Momonga and the chaos-stricken Marines.

He spoke again, his voice clear in every Marine's ears:

"Take your people and leave. Ten kilometers. That is your final warning."

With that, without waiting for a reply, Itachi's form dissolved into a flock of crows, scattering in all directions and vanishing from sight.

Seeing this unknown powerhouse who had defeated Vice Admiral Momonga depart, many Marines had yet to breathe a secret sigh of relief—

when suddenly, a new anomaly erupted!

At first, there was the sea.

The calm blue surface ahead of the warship began to churn violently without any warning.

It wasn't the crashing waves of a storm, but a turbulence rising from below.

Like the stirring of an imminent volcano beneath the water.

Then, before the stunned eyes of everyone.

The seawater bulged upward like boiling liquid, forming two colossal mounds of water so vast they nearly filled the entire visible expanse of the sea.

The warship, dwarfed by this display of nature's might, pitched and rolled violently like a child's toy, sending many soldiers stumbling and falling to the deck.

"Sea, Sea Kings?! How could Sea Kings suddenly appear? They shouldn't be able to sense the warship?!"

The lookout's voice cracked, laced with disbelief and terror.

Then, under countless horrified gazes, the two water mounds exploded open!

Indeed, two massive Sea Kings emerged, slightly different in form but equally ferocious and terrifying.

One bore a single spiral horn on its head, its elongated neck covered in bony spikes.

The other had a thick, turtle-like shell and a serpentine head.

On the deck, there was dead silence.

The Marine soldiers forgot to move, forgot to breathe, even momentarily forgot their unconscious Vice Admiral, staring blankly up at these two monstrous beasts.

Fear gripped their throats, cold sweat soaking through their uniforms.

"D-damn it, Vice Admiral Momonga is still unconscious! We're finished!"

A soldier said in despair.

The only one on the warship capable of dealing with Sea Kings was Vice Admiral Momonga.

Even with Rear Admiral Yuma still aboard, they were no match at all!

The two beasts lowered their heads slightly, their enormous eyes large enough to encompass the entire deck of the warship.

Then they opened their mouths wide and roared at the ant-like humans below.

A thick, briny stench immediately filled the air, making many Marines want to vomit.

"E-eyes...!"

An officer holding a telescope screamed, the device clattering to the deck.

Actually, there was no need for a telescope.

When the two Sea Kings glared over, everyone could clearly see their massive eyes.

Crimson irises, and within that blood-red hue, slowly rotating, arranged in a strange pattern—three tomoe!

These bizarre eyes were so familiar!

"Impossible... this is impossible!"

Another colonel who had once faced Uchiha Itachi turned deathly pale, stumbling backward until his back slammed hard against the railing, yet he felt nothing.

His pupils contracted violently as he stared at the huge Three Tomoe pattern.

His mind uncontrollably recalled the same rotating tomoe in the crimson eyes of that mysterious black-haired man from earlier!

Exactly the same!

Except for the difference in size.

The color, the shape, that bone-chilling coldness piercing straight to the soul—it was all identical!

"Those are that man's eyes! How did that man's eyes end up on the Sea Kings?!"

A soldier babbled in a breakdown, his logic shattered, but his words voiced the storm raging in everyone's hearts.

Yet, in the midst of their despair.

The two Sea Kings did not attack them. They simply blocked the sea route leading to Kuja Island.

Staring with those eerie tomoe eyes, fixedly watching them.

Neither attacking nor retreating.

Slowly, the sharper minds guessed the meaning.

"That man controlled the Sea Kings?! With his eyes?!"

The Rear Admiral's throat was dry, his voice hoarse and trembling.

"He's warning us not to go any further!"