Serious Punch

In his mind, the phantom of Saitama's bald head suddenly transformed into a golden radiance shining like the blazing sun, dazzling beyond compare.

It was the golden light representing S-rank, only it was a little too eye-catching!

With a flash, the golden light drilled directly into Kael's body.

At that moment, even the system seemed astonished by Kael's absurd luck...

A standard information prompt had actually come with three exclamation marks!

Before his brain could even react to obtaining a new skill, Kael immediately shifted his consciousness to the captain interface to inspect its description.

[Skill: Finisher—Serious Punch]

[Rank: S]

[Description: Break through the limits of life and, with a mortal body, stand shoulder to shoulder with gods! Select one or more targets within your line of sight and unleash a punch powerful enough to reduce them to ashes and erase them from this world. After use, the skill enters cooldown. The cooldown time depends on the captain's own strength and the power of the skill's release.]

"Finisher! It wasn't just a literal name!?"

"As expected of you, Saitama, the bald caped hero!"

After reading the description of his new skill, Kael's shoulders began to tremble uncontrollably.

He was excited, but also afraid!

He had never expected...

Such a terrifying skill to exist within the system!

And he had actually drawn it!

Just from the skill's description...

This completely defied all convention. It was a power that existed only as a concept, a power truly belonging to a god!!!

With this skill, even though Kael currently could not defeat a pirate with a 30 million Beli bounty, he now had the confidence to stand against a Four Emperors pirate crew!

Calling it merely a means to fight a Four Emperors crew was far too narrow-minded!

Kael could now challenge the heavens, the earth, and empty air. Even destroying the planet beneath his feet would take no more than a single thought.

The price, however, was...

He and everyone else would be finished together.

"Whew~"

"No, no. Calm down. Don't get too full of myself..."

Kael hurriedly took several deep breaths, settling the agitation in his heart slightly.

Once his rationality returned, he focused on the new skill again and began to think quickly.

"There's no point thinking that far ahead."

"Right now, the most important thing is to figure out how this skill works."

A skill capable of instantly killing anything truly counted as an unbeatable trump card.

But Kael was not playing just one hand.

He needed to find a way to carry this invincible trump card from one hand to another...

So that he could use it in every hand he played.

"According to the description, there will be a cooldown after every use."

"Although it's an S-rank skill, with an effect this terrifying, its cooldown probably won't be short."

"With my current strength, after destroying a Four Emperors pirate crew, I might not be able to use it a second time for the rest of my life."

After thinking it over, Kael decided he needed to test this new skill first.

He mainly wanted to see how the cooldown mechanism was set up so he could get a rough idea.

With his mind made up, Kael, as willful as ever, walked straight out of the captain's cabin.

He looked around and soon spotted a moderately sized rocky islet in the waters beside the ship.

It was about the same size as the rocky islet Usopp had bombarded when he fought Joseph and Johnny.

Since this was still near Ville Town's island, rocky islets like this were fairly common.

"Hmm... the distance and size are just right for a test."

After observing it for a moment, Kael immediately called out to Tiga, who was controlling the wind speed from the lookout platform.

"Hey, Tiga~!"

"Stop here for a moment. I want to test a new move."

"Okay~ Captain!"

From the lookout platform, Little Tiga answered in a drawn-out voice.

At once, a blast of opposing airflow blew toward the sails, giving the ship acceleration in the opposite direction.

Within seconds, the ship came to a stop.

"What a convenient ability!"

Seeing this, Kael once again praised his own flash of inspiration in having Tiga eat the Storm-Storm Fruit.

Once the ship stopped rocking, he leaped up and landed steadily on the railing.

His dark eyes suddenly narrowed as he stared at the distant rocky islet, radiating a deep and imposing presence.

"Finisher—"

Kael murmured as he clenched one hand into a fist!

In an instant, an extraordinary aura surged from his body.

Vast and mysterious.

He could feel an inexplicable force stirring within his body, continuously gathering toward his fist.

When that power had accumulated to a certain point, Kael seemed to sense it. His gaze sharpened, and he threw his punch!

"Serious Punch!!!"

BOOM!!!

A terrifying shockwave storm burst forth, sweeping across the sea and blasting a straight path through the calm waters.

Then it surged toward the distant rocky islet!

BANG!!!

Almost instantly, a deafening sound of cracking erupted!

The rocky islet, several meters tall, shattered in an instant beneath Kael's fist pressure.

Even the broken pieces of rock gradually disintegrated beneath the fierce force of the punch.

By the time the fist wind finally dispersed a moment later, the rocky islet had vanished completely from the sea.

"Awesome~!"

Seeing that he could finally unleash a decent attack, Kael immediately burst into laughter.

He then opened the captain's status interface.

Sure enough, he found that his [Finisher—Serious Punch] skill had turned a dim gray and entered an unusable state.

Kael tapped it with his consciousness.

A small information window immediately appeared in his field of vision:

[Cooldown: 170 hours.]

The time in the window began counting down the next second.

"170 hours... so about a seven-day cooldown?"

Kael calculated quickly in his mind.

"That attack just now was probably about as powerful as the slash Hawkeye used to cut through a Krieg Pirates warship."

"And Hawkeye is the world's greatest swordsman, with strength close to that of the Four Emperors."

"Even one of his casual attacks should be comparable to the standard moves of some Seven Warlords."

Kael quickly came to a conclusion.

"Just seven days of waiting lets me unleash a serious attack at the level of a Seven Warlord?"

"As expected of an S-rank skill~!"

He could not help but sigh in admiration.

Although, across the world of pirates, there were quite a few people who could rival the Seven Warlords...

Considering that Kael's current strength did not even make him fodder in the eyes of a Seven Warlord, this effect was already incredibly powerful!

The concept was like Gin of the Krieg Pirates suddenly appearing at the Paramount War, then casually throwing a kick that swept aside countless elite Marines!

Why did that suddenly sound like it wasn't all that outrageous...

Kael froze, then realized that he might have picked the wrong person for the comparison.

But...

Forget it. It didn't matter!

After he developed for a while longer and raised his strength, the cooldown of this skill would definitely be greatly reduced.

By then, he would not even need his overall strength to reach the level of a Seven Warlord to unleash combat power at that level!

Perhaps even...

Far beyond the Seven Warlords!

"OK! Test complete!"

Satisfied, Kael chatted with Little Tiga for a few moments with a smile, then had him continue steering the Tiga toward their next destination.

He, meanwhile, returned to the captain's cabin.

Kael had not forgotten.

He still had a budget of 10 million Beli left to spend!

Opening the gacha interface and following the plan he had made earlier—two normal pulls and one premium pull...

Kael directly tapped the single-pull option on the premium gacha machine.

In an instant...

The last 10 million Beli he had for gacha pulls vanished.

But the next second, a prompt window that left Kael stunned appeared in his mind.

[Congratulations! You have obtained a C-rank item: Character Card—Yakumo Omori!]