The Bay Vanished in an Instant, Terrifying Everyone into Collapse

The night winds on Mount Colubo were fierce.

Inside the renovated redwood house of the Dadan Family, only the scratch of writing and heavy breathing remained.

The three brats were sprawled over a wide, long wooden table.

Three kerosene lamps burned on the table.

The air was thick with the pungent smell of liniment.

Luffy bit the end of his pencil, his brows furrowed tightly enough to crush a sea fly.

A few crooked, sprawling characters crawled across the white paper before him.

"Big brother, I'm sorry. I was wrong. I shouldn't have..."

That was as far as he got.

Luffy's eyelids began to droop.

His head bobbed little by little.

With a thud.

His face slammed directly into the paper, and snores immediately filled the room.

A glistening snot bubble even emerged from his nostril.

Bang!

A bandaged fist slammed heavily onto Luffy's head.

The snot bubble burst.

Luffy clutched his head and cried out miserably.

"That hurts! Ace, why did you hit me?!"

Ace, with two blackened panda eyes, glared at him through gritted teeth.

"You idiot, if you dare fall asleep, all three of us will be thrown into the sea to feed the fish by that freak tomorrow morning!"

Luffy rubbed his head miserably.

"But I really don't know how to write, and I'm so hungry. My stomach keeps growling."

"You have to write even if you're hungry!"

Ace irritably raked a hand through his hair.

The paper in front of him was covered in circles of all sizes and a chaotic mess of lines.

Ten thousand words.

For a wild child who often misspelled even his own name, it was more painful than death.

Sabo sat at the very end.

Of the three, he had made the fastest progress.

After all, before escaping High Town, he had received a proper noble education.

But even he had a splitting headache now.

"...I have deeply realized the disparity in our strength, like the difference between a firefly and the bright moon. In future training, I will certainly work twice as hard and never disappoint..."

Sabo muttered as he frantically counted words in his head.

This was not even five hundred words yet.

How was he supposed to make up the remaining nine thousand five hundred?

Should he describe today's beating in detail?

No, that would make him look too stupid.

Dadan approached quietly with a huge tray.

On it were three large cups of warm water and several pieces of dry bread.

This female mountain bandit leader, with a bounty of 7.8 million Beli, now looked like a beleaguered little wife.

She set the cups down in front of the three brats.

Seeing their bruised and battered state, Dadan's eye twitched.

She truly did feel sorry for them.

They were children she had raised for several years, after all.

But she absolutely did not dare plead for mercy.

Dadan looked up at the ceiling.

Above it sat the true living king of hell.

On the roof.

Kahn sat cross-legged on the tiles.

The night wind made his loose black shirt flap violently.

There was no sun.

But the moonlight was bright tonight.

Moonlight was, by nature, reflected sunlight as well.

Though its energy conversion rate was pitifully low, not even one ten-thousandth of the noon sun.

For Kahn's Kryptonian body, which had developed to an absurd degree, that faint energy was just enough for some soothing therapy before sleep.

Super-Hearing spread out from him in every direction like an invisible spiderweb.

Luffy's rumbling stomach inside the house.

The crack of Ace biting through the end of his pencil.

The soft scratch of Sabo's pen against paper.

And Dadan's slightly quickened heartbeat from nervousness.

Everything was under his control.

A faint curve formed at the corner of Kahn's lips.

That kid Ace was definitely not thinking about how to pad out his word count now.

Indeed.

Inside the room, Ace stared at the blank paper before him, but his gaze had long drifted away.

The scene from daytime replayed in his mind over and over.

"Iron Wall" Garino, with a bounty of 155 million Beli.

That fist covered in black material.

Armament Haki.

Was this the true power of the New World?

The brute strength he had once been so proud of was as fragile as tofu before that black armor.

Ace clenched his fists.

His nails dug deeply into his flesh.

If he could master that kind of power too.

If he could wrap Haki around his body too.

Would he then be qualified to stand before his big brother and throw a punch with dignity?

"Not completely stupid."

Kahn withdrew his attention from the room.

The foundations of these three brats had been polished almost enough.

After today's brutal beating, their mindsets would undergo a qualitative transformation.

Next came the real hell.

Kahn closed his eyes.

He expanded the range of his hearing even further.

Past the dense forests of Mount Colubo.

Past Gray Terminal, where wisps of smoke still rose.

He locked directly onto the Goa Kingdom's most central district.

High Town.

It was the nobles' nest of comfort.

It was also the most hypocritical and rotten place in all of East Blue.

At that moment, a luxurious manor in the center of High Town was brightly lit.

Several of the Goa Kingdom's rulers had gathered around a long conference table.

The atmosphere was so oppressive that it was hard to breathe.

"Can someone tell me what exactly happened?!"

Seated at the head of the table was the Goa Kingdom's finance minister, Outlook III.

He was also Sabo's biological father.

His well-maintained face was filled with terror and rage.

"Where is that idiot Bluejam? We gave him ten million Beli, and he promised to clear out Gray Terminal today!"

Another baron with a huge belly slammed his hand against the table.

"The Celestial Dragons' inspection ship will arrive in half a month! If that garbage and those lowlifes are still there to offend their eyes by then, the entire Goa Kingdom will be buried with them!"

"We can't contact him."

The captain of the kingdom guard wiped cold sweat from his forehead.

"The men we sent to meet them at the bay have returned. They said..."

The captain swallowed, his voice trembling.

"They said Bluejam's pirate ship is gone."

"What do you mean, gone? Did he sail away?"

Outlook III roared.

"N-No, he didn't run."

The guard captain's face was deathly pale.

"That bay... evaporated."

The meeting room fell deathly silent.

"Have you lost your mind?"

The fat baron stared wide-eyed.

"What do you mean, evaporated?"

"It means exactly what it says."

The guard captain's legs trembled.

"The water level across the entire bay dropped by more than ten meters."

"The surrounding reefs all turned glass-like."

"Bluejam's ship... didn't leave behind even a single plank."

"It was as if... it had been struck by a sun falling from the sky."

The nobles looked at one another.

Each of them could see the fear in the others' eyes.

A sun falling from the sky?

Under normal circumstances, such an absurd report would have gotten this captain dragged out and beheaded.

But now, no one could laugh.

Because a terrifying legend had circulated throughout East Blue in recent years.

That mysterious organization that ruled the entire East Blue Underworld and monopolized arms and intelligence.

That colossal force even the Marine branches did not dare provoke lightly.

Eclipse.

"Could Eclipse have done this?"

Outlook III slumped into his velvet chair.

"When did we ever offend them?"

"I heard Eclipse's boss operates under the codename 'Sun.'"

The fat baron wiped away sweat.

"We're finished. If they really have their eyes on the Goa Kingdom, even ten heads wouldn't be enough to save us."

"Seal off the news immediately!"

Outlook III gritted his teeth.

"Send more men to Gray Terminal! No matter what methods you use, even if you have to fill the place with lives, start that fire before the Celestial Dragons arrive!"

"We absolutely cannot let the Celestial Dragons see the stain on this country!"