Crossing Space with His Bare Body! Awakening Heat Vision, Garp: You Call This Eight Years Old?

Five years passed in the blink of an eye.

The wind on Mount Colubo was as wild as ever.

The curls on Dadan's head seemed to have grown even sparser.

A great many things had happened over those five years.

Luffy, who used to have snot hanging from his nose all day, was already five years old and spent every day running after Kahn and Ace.

Of course, the most important development was that Gray Terminal had gained a gap-toothed boy in a top hat.

Sabo, the son of a Goa Kingdom noble.

Sabo's current bounty was zero, but in the future, he would become the Revolutionary Army's Chief of Staff.

How did Ace meet Sabo?

The two had fought over territory in Gray Terminal.

Neither was willing to submit to the other.

In the end, they got together and started saving money to buy a pirate ship.

Deep within Mount Colubo that day.

A Sea King the size of a small mountain was thrown onto the ground.

It was Kahn's breakfast for the day.

Eight-year-old Kahn had already shot up to 1.8 meters tall.

His muscular lines were as perfect as marble, and his entire body radiated a savage sense of power.

The Dadan Family no longer dared to control him at all.

Garp had not returned often over the past five years, but every time he did, Kahn beat him until he questioned his life.

That was right, Kahn had suppressed Garp.

Although Garp had not used his full strength, he could not break through Kahn's defenses without using Advanced Armament Haki.

Kahn was now as hard as a true piece of Seastone.

In the sky.

Ace and Sabo were sparring.

They were not using ordinary fists and kicks, but Shave and Geppo from the Navy Six Powers.

Yes, under five years of hellish torment, Kahn had forced both Ace and Sabo beyond their limits.

They stepped on the air and traded blows in midair.

Their fists collided with dull thuds.

Ace could already coat both fists in Armament Haki.

Sabo's water pipe was also wrapped in black Haki.

These two eight-year-old brats were already no weaker than the petty officers at Marine Headquarters.

If Garp saw this, he would probably laugh so hard he could not even swallow his rice crackers.

They were exactly the Marine recruits he had dreamed of.

But Kahn had no interest in their rookie brawl.

He swallowed the last bite of meat.

Then he raised his head and glanced at the sky.

The Sun was especially dazzling today.

It was time to go up and recharge.

Kahn's feet left the ground.

There was no leverage and no sound.

His entire body became a golden streak of light and shot straight into the heavens.

He was so fast that the sound barrier exploded into a ring of white air in midair.

Ace stopped moving and looked up at the afterimage.

"That monster went up again."

Sabo wiped the sweat from his forehead.

"I always feel like one day, he'll punch a hole through the sky."

Both of them had deep helplessness in their eyes.

Five years ago, they had still dreamed of catching up to Kahn.

Now, they only hoped they could survive taking one punch from him.

They simply were not creatures from the same dimension.

Fifty thousand meters above the ground.

One hundred thousand meters above the ground.

Kahn passed through the clouds and through the atmosphere.

The surrounding temperature dropped to absolute zero.

There was no oxygen.

Only endless darkness and stars scattered throughout it.

But he was no longer as miserable as he had been five years ago.

His Bio-Force Field had now become incredibly powerful.

Not only could it block cosmic radiation, it could also allow him to survive in a vacuum for long periods.

As long as there was sunlight, he did not need to breathe.

Light energy was the source powering all his bodily functions.

Kahn hovered in space.

The Sun before him was incomparably massive, releasing the energy of nuclear fusion without restraint.

He spread his arms and greedily absorbed that violent light and heat.

His cells cheered.

His genes reorganized.

That sense of evolution from the inside out was intoxicating.

He could feel a terrifying energy gathering in his eyes.

It was the result of solar energy being compressed to the extreme.

Kahn stared at a massive meteorite floating in the distance.

At a thought.

Two crimson beams burst from his pupils.

Heat Vision.

In other words, laser eyes.

The beams silently sliced through the vacuum.

They cut through the meteorite, which was over a hundred meters in diameter, as easily as tofu.

The cut was smooth as a mirror, while the edges still glimmered with dark-red magma.

This was one of the abilities that came with the Superman Template.

Not only was it incredibly powerful, but he could also control its output completely.

Even Armament Haki would melt before such extreme heat.

Besides Heat Vision, he had another new toy.

Kahn took a deep breath of the sparse particles in space.

His lungs compressed at tremendous speed.

Then he exhaled violently.

A blast of white frost surged forth.

Ice Breath.

The already frigid temperature around him plunged even lower.

The meteorite that Heat Vision had just cut apart formed a thick layer of frost across its surface.

This cold could even freeze molecular movement.

If he used it at sea, freezing an entire stretch of ocean would be effortless.

Even Aokiji's Ice-Ice Fruit would have to call him ancestor.

Kahn remained in space for a full two hours.

Only when every cell in his body had absorbed its fill of energy did he turn around in satisfaction and look at the blue planet below.

The world of One Piece.

The Grand Line.

The New World.

Those so-called Four Emperors, Admirals, and Shichibukai.

He was now qualified to contend with them.

But he could not rush.

The plot had yet to begin.

There would be no fun in flipping the table too early.

He would wait.

Wait for a stage that would make the entire world tremble.

Kahn flashed and became a meteor falling toward the ground.

Back on Mount Colubo.

Ace and Sabo were sitting on tree stumps, catching their breath.

Luffy ran out from who knew where, holding up a rhinoceros beetle.

"Ace! Sabo! Look what I caught!"

Luffy grinned like an idiot.

Ace punched Luffy on the head.

"You're so damn noisy! Can't you see we're resting?!"

Luffy clutched his head as tears welled in his eyes.

Five-year-old Luffy had not yet eaten the Gum-Gum Fruit.

Red-Haired Shanks had not yet come to Foosha Village.

Everything was still brewing.

Kahn landed silently behind them.

"You two didn't train enough today."

Kahn's voice was calm.

Ace and Sabo sprang straight off the tree stumps in fright.

"Are you kidding me?! We just used Geppo a thousand times!" Ace protested loudly.

Sabo nodded repeatedly as well.

"Kahn, my water pipe is bent already."

Kahn walked over and took Sabo's prized steel water pipe.

He gently pinched it with his fingers.

The pipe forged from refined steel was kneaded into an iron ball like a strand of noodles.

"Is this your limit?"

Kahn tossed the iron ball back to Sabo.

"Starting tomorrow, gravity training will be doubled."

"Anyone who can't do it gets no food."

That was the rule Kahn had set.

The Dadan Family did not dare utter a single word of objection.

Over the past two years, they had nearly eaten all the wild beasts on Mount Colubo to extinction.

Dadan worried so much every day that her hair kept falling out.

If Kahn had not occasionally gone into the sea to catch Sea Kings, the bandit family would have starved to death long ago.

Kahn now held absolute authority in this household.

Dadan came out carrying a pot of stew.

She carefully placed it before Kahn.

"Boss Kahn, the meat stew is ready."

Dadan kept a very low profile now.

Of course. Who would dare provoke this living Buddha?

A few days ago, the Black Bear Pirates from the neighboring mountain had come to seize their territory.

Their captain was a blind, muscular man with a bounty of ten million.

Kahn had merely glared at him.

He had truly only glared once.

A flash of red light passed, and the captain, along with his sword, was cut cleanly in half.

Dadan had wet herself in fright at the time.

Kahn filled a large bowl with meat and began eating by himself.

Luffy moved closer, drool dripping all over the ground.

"Kahn, I want some too."

Kahn picked up a piece of meat and stuffed it into Luffy's mouth.

He did not dislike Luffy.

The kid was a little slow on the uptake, but there was something pure deep down in him.

"Eat more. You'll need to grow up before you can set sail," Kahn said casually.

Ace was displeased.

"Set sail for what?! We need to buy a pirate ship first!"

Sabo chimed in from the side.

"That's right. We've already saved up nearly half of our pirate fund."

Kahn looked up at them.

Those two went to Gray Terminal every day to pick through junk for money.

Sometimes, they even moonlighted as bounty hunters and caught a few low-ranking pirates.

That was also one of the reasons their strength had grown so quickly.

Real combat was always the best teacher.

"Do whatever you want."

"But don't blame me for not warning you."

"This sea is far bigger than you imagine."

Kahn finished his last bite of meat.

He rose to his feet.

Then headed toward his own private resting spot.

It was an exceptionally flat boulder that received sunlight for the longest part of every day.

Ace watched Kahn's back and gritted his teeth.

"One day, I'll defeat him!"

Sabo patted Ace on the shoulder and sighed.

"Brother, some dreams are better left as dreams."

"Didn't you see how he crushed that water pipe into a ball just now?"

Sabo was a smart person.

He knew very well just how vast the gap between himself and Kahn was.

This was not the kind of gap that effort alone could make up for.

It was a crushing difference on the level of life itself.

But he was not discouraged because of it.

On the contrary, it was precisely because Kahn stood before them like an insurmountable mountain.

That Ace and he had an endless supply of motivation.

They did not want to keep being treated like little kids.