The four members of God's Knights who rushed toward him all came to a sudden halt when they reached Wood, as if someone had pressed pause.
Wood seemed not to have done anything at all. Yet as he merely passed them by, as though brushing shoulders with them, a cold wind suddenly swept through the area.
"Crack, crack—!"
Only when Wood had calmly walked into the hall did the four members of God's Knights he had passed by suddenly reveal crisscrossing slashes across their bodies.
Their once-upright forms toppled like falling blocks, breaking into evenly sized chunks of flesh.
The blood that sprayed everywhere turned into blossoms of Snow Under Red Plum in the blowing snow.
The scattered pieces of flesh froze into blocks of ice from the surrounding cold before they even hit the ground. When they landed, they shattered into ice shards that littered the floor.
This was Wood's true strength now. When he held nothing back, even members of God's Knights whose power rivaled that of the Shichibukai didn't have a chance to use their Devil Fruit abilities against him.
After entering the hall, Wood walked for quite some time before reaching a chamber. At its center stood a tall throne.
This was where the Five Elders usually came to pay their respects to Imu.
When Wood watched the anime, the only thing shown in close-up was the towering throne in the center.
But now that he was actually here, he saw that there were ten smaller seats on each side of the throne, evidently reserved for people of high status.
There were twenty seats in total, ten on each side—exactly matching the number of kingdoms that had once founded the World Government.
In other words, these seats belonged to the original Celestial Dragons.
The dimly lit