The Deep-Sea Monster - Kraken

"Teacher Garp..."

Leon, now fitted with the bubble suit, looked at Garp, who was forcing a smile without showing the slightest hint of shame.

Before he could finish speaking, another sudden kick sent him tumbling into the water.

"Start swimming, Leon boy!"

Leon turned back and gave Garp a long, hard look.

You like laughing, huh?

When Kuzan punches you flying one day, if I don't add a kick of my own, it'll be a disgrace to our master-student bond!

A thin layer of coating easily withstood the pressure of ten thousand meters of depth.

If Newton could be reincarnated into the pirate world, his coffin would have to be poured with concrete—otherwise, there's no way the lid would stay on...

After a brief adjustment, Leon displayed astonishing strength and endurance in the water.

Like an untiring giant beast, he dragged Garp's Dog Head Warship straight out of the Marine fleet, racing through the sea at a terrifying speed.

Garp and Kuzan stood side by side at the bow.

"With Leon's abilities, the title of Marine Monster should land on him soon enough."

Kuzan murmured in admiration, while Garp burst into loud laughter.

"This old man's eye never misses!"

"But..." Kuzan's gaze dropped to the pitch-black depths below, "Do I need to step in, Mr. Garp? After all, we're at the bottom of the sea—it's hard for a human body to contend with creatures like that in the water..."

"No rush."

Garp's expression was calm.

"This old man wants to see how far he can go!"

Outside the ship, Leon sensed a dangerous presence. He had just encountered a descending current flowing through the seawater like a waterfall.

The Dog Head Warship, caught in it, plunged downward at breakneck speed without needing his tow.

Though he lacked the Observation Haki that Garp and Kuzan possessed, Leon's inhuman perception allowed him to sense that at the convergence point of the descending current—

An extremely dangerous creature was quietly waiting for its prey to arrive.

At their current depth, sunlight could no longer penetrate the surface.

From the surrounding dark seawater came faint sounds of something massive writhing.

As Godzilla, Leon stood at the pinnacle of all living things, but a trace of ordinary human fear of the unknown deep sea still lingered in his heart.

Deep-sea phobia, that was.

Imagine being alone at the bottom of the ocean, surrounded by chaotic darkness.

By some faint light from an unknown source, you look around.

You're packed in with all kinds of unimaginable deep-sea leviathans, writhing in grotesque forms right beside you...

Damn!

Leon couldn't help but shiver. Faced with unknown danger, most people would choose to flee.

But a few reckless fools like Leon would clench their fists, blood boiling, and charge headlong into the threat. Those people could also be called brave.

Leon accelerated, dragging the warship and its crew straight toward the source of danger.

A massive, dark-yellow tentacle, nearly a thousand meters long, suddenly shot out from the water, aiming directly at the warship behind Leon.

If the ship were destroyed at this depth, only a handful aboard would survive.

Just as the dark-yellow tentacle was about to wrap around the warship, a terrifying aura erupted from the deck.

The tentacle instantly retracted like lightning, vanishing into the water.

Conqueror's Haki?

Leon looked back but couldn't tell who had unleashed it.

The sea beast, startled by the aura, fell silent for a moment but didn't give up. It shifted targets and began attacking Leon outside the coating.

Facing an endless barrage of tentacle strikes, Leon's counterattacks only managed to push them back. Against the beast's colossal size, such blows were nothing more than a tickle.

Hard-pressed to keep up, Leon also had to constantly ensure the tentacles didn't break the bubble around his body.

Seeing that Garp and Kuzan showed no sign of intervening, Leon steeled himself and untied the rope strapped to him.

Twisting to dodge an attack, he accelerated and swam straight toward the beast's main body.

Once the Dog Head Warship left the descending current, it lost Leon's engine and came to a halt.

As Leon's figure vanished into the darkness, Kuzan couldn't help but feel anxious.

"Teacher Garp!"

"It's fine, Kuzan! This old man believes in Leon!"

Garp's voice was firm, but the hands gripping the railing still betrayed the turmoil within him.

"It seems the only option is to freeze the entire sea with my power..."

Kuzan made up his mind. As a Devil Fruit user, it was hard to leverage his strength in this environment.

Freezing all the surrounding seawater would only lead to mutual destruction, but for Leon's safety, he couldn't afford to worry about that anymore.

Leon, having distanced himself from the others, let a faint blue light emanate from his eyes.

Using Godzilla's thermal vision, Leon finally saw the full form of the giant beast lurking beneath the sea.

What appeared before him was none other than an ultra-large Sea King shaped like an octopus, stretching for who knew how many kilometers!