Everywhere You Look, There Are Openings

The surrounding pirates saw the young man, like a god of slaughter, charge alone into the enemy ranks, and they all recoiled in fear.

Yet the crimson in Rochi's eyes fully blossomed at that moment.

One-Tomoe Sharingan, operating at full power!

"Experience bags, here I come!"

A feverish, almost deranged excitement curled Rochi's lips. Without another word, his figure instantly became a deathly afterimage rushing to reap lives!

Bang!

A sweeping kick like a battle-axe crushed the breastbones of three Soldier Level pirates, sending them flying backward while spraying blood.

Crack!

With a backhanded elbow strike, he directly snapped the cervical spine of a pirate trying to ambush him from behind!

[ Ding! Soldier Level pirate killed. Experience +5! ]

[ Ding! Soldier Level pirate killed. Experience +5! ]

The system notifications constantly flashing through his mind were like the finest stimulants, exciting every nerve in Rochi's body.

Like a tireless meat grinder, he stirred up a bloody storm across the deck!

"Damn Navy brat, don't get cocky here!"

Just as Rochi was getting into the slaughter, a thunderous roar suddenly exploded over the deck!

Boom!

A massive figure, as hulking as a mountain of flesh, descended from the sky and crashed heavily down in front of Rochi.

He was a burly man nearly four meters tall, wielding an enormous spiked club weighing several hundred pounds.

His entire body was clad in hard steel armor. His bloodshot eyes were fixed on Rochi, radiating a suffocating pressure!

"It's Lord Iron Rod Katz!"

"A cadre with a bounty of thirty million Beli! Kill him! Smash that Navy trash into pulp!"

The remaining pirates erupted into fervent cheers.

Katz bared a mouthful of fangs and leered at Rochi.

"A rising Navy star? I heard that lunatic Sakazuki personally brought you here? Today, I'll use your blood to honor my brother!"

Before he finished speaking, Katz's thick arm suddenly swelled, and a pitch-black sheen instantly covered the entire massive spiked club!

"Armament Haki?!"

On the distant warship, Rear Admiral Rex, the vice admiral leading the force, underwent a drastic change in expression. "Damn it! Lieutenant Rochi may be formidable in hand-to-hand combat, but he hasn't awakened Armament Haki yet! Against a New World monster with a bounty over a hundred million, a mere body can't withstand it!"

"Shut up and watch."

Red Dog did not rush to intervene. Instead, he stared coldly at the battlefield. "If he can't even deal with this kind of trash, he doesn't deserve to be my soldier."

At the center of the battlefield.

"Die! Pulverizing Frenzy!!!"

Katz roared wildly as the spiked club wrapped in Armament Haki came crashing down toward Rochi's head like a collapsing black mountain, accompanied by a shrill sonic boom!

The force of that strike was enough to smash a warship cleanly in two!

Dodge? There was nowhere to dodge!

The air pressure had completely sealed off every route of retreat for Rochi!

But at that instant, there was not the slightest trace of panic on Rochi's face.

Within those crimson pupils, black tomoe spun madly to their limit!

Under the Sharingan's extraordinary dynamic vision, Katz's mountain-splitting killing blow slowed down infinitely!

Not only that, as his view sharpened, Rochi clearly saw that although Katz had coated his spiked club with Armament Haki, the sheer force behind the attack left his armpit and the right side of his waist and abdomen exposed for half a second!

"Openings everywhere!"

Rochi's icy voice was like the whisper of a reaper.

Instead of retreating, he advanced, his waist suddenly folding backward into an extreme arc in a bizarre posture that defied human anatomy.

Whoosh—!

The lethal spiked club howled past, nearly grazing Rochi's nose. The terrifying wind pressure even tore open the uniform across his chest!

In the one-tenth of a second after Katz's attack had run its course and his force could not be withdrawn!

Rochi moved!

Basic Hand-to-Hand Combat Mastery unified every ounce of strength in his body in an instant!

He pushed off with his feet, his entire body shooting forward like a cannonball as he charged into the blind spot in the defense of Katz's massive frame!

"That's impossible!"

Katz was horrified. He wanted to pull back his weapon to defend himself, but the massive inertia gave him no chance to react.

"My turn!"

Rochi drew a deep breath. Veins rose across his right fist like raging dragons as he drove the destructive force of his body to the limit he could currently withstand!

Bang—!!!

The small fist carried no flourish at all as it slammed solidly into Katz's unprotected soft spot at his side!

Time seemed to freeze at that moment.

Then—

Crack!

A horrifying sound of splintering bones rang through the sky!

Katz's proud, powerful body collapsed like a fragile sand sculpture beneath Rochi's heavy blow, which had gathered all his explosive strength!

Every rib along Katz's side shattered, and the violent force tore straight through his internal organs!

"Waaah—!"

This Big Mom Pirates cadre with a bounty over a hundred million spat out a mouthful of blood mixed with chunks of organs. His huge body flew dozens of meters through the air as if struck head-on by a truck, smashed through the mast behind him, and fell into a pool of blood. After twitching desperately a few times, he went completely still.

Silence.

Whether pirates or the observing Navy soldiers in the distance, everyone stood frozen as if immobilized, staring blankly at the young man shaking the blood from his fist.

One strike!

No Devil Fruit, no Haki—just pure physical strength and absurd combat instincts, enough to kill a New World pirate with a bounty over a hundred million in a single blow!

[ Ding! Lieutenant Level pirate killed! Experience gained: 100! ]

Hearing the long-awaited high-value experience reward in his mind, Rochi let out a satisfied breath.

"A bunch of trash."

Red Dog exhaled a ring of smoke aboard the warship. Although a cold smile hung on his lips, he could not conceal the extreme appreciation in his eyes.

With their cadre dead, this Big Mom Pirates fleet, which had never been a main force to begin with, completely lost its will to fight.

To Big Mom, one of the Four Emperors reigning over the New World, losses of this level were not even enough to count as a scratch. But these low-ranking pirate grunts no longer had the courage to keep risking their lives.

They immediately turned their ships around and retreated in disarray under the cover of the storm.

"Clean up the battlefield and prepare to return!"

Red Dog glanced at the devastated sea and issued the order coldly.

This encounter ended in a crushing Navy victory, while Rochi's name, as bloodthirsty as an asura, formally entered the sights of the cruel game being played in the New World.

The warship cut through the turbulent waters of the New World.

At the center of the broad deck.

Bang—!

A dull, thunderous impact that made hearts skip a beat.

Rochi's body flew away like a cannonball, plowing a long, deep trench through the hard reinforced deck before barely stopping after slamming into the heavy railing.

"Urgh!"

Rochi turned his head and spat out a mouthful of blood-tinged saliva, feeling as though his breastbone were about to split apart from the pain.

"Too weak!"