Smoker

"Shigure: Thrust!"

Seeing Smoker get knocked back head-on, Tashigi drew her sword and stepped forward, thrusting the famed blade Shigure rapidly at Mark.

Mark neither dodged nor evaded.

"Armament Hardening!"

Just as Shigure was about to pierce Mark's chest, jet-black Armament Haki covered his chest. Shigure's edge collided with the Armament Haki with a sharp clang.

"A thrust... Perfect, I have a thrusting move too."

Mark held the fingers of his right hand together like a blade, black Armament Haki coating his palm.

Smoker's eyelid twitched wildly. The black palm gave him an unprecedented sense of danger, and he immediately shouted at Tashigi:

"Danger, Tashigi! Get out of the way!"

But it was already too late.

Tashigi was too close to Mark.

So close that, with Mark's speed, it took only an instant for his palm to plunge into Tashigi's chest.

"Martial Art: Hand Stab!"

Squelch!

His palm pierced through her chest.

Drip... drip...

Blood slowly trickled from the corner of Tashigi's mouth. Her lips trembled slightly as she watched the blood continue to flow, her gaze gradually losing focus.

Swish!

Mark gently pulled out his hand. Blood dripped down his palm, falling to the ground in an especially vivid red.

Feeling the sticky mess on his hand, Mark frowned. Activating his Devil Fruit ability, he devoured all the blood. After rubbing his hands together, he said something utterly inexplicable:

"Pure and natural. What a shame... it burst!"

Tashigi collapsed to the ground with a thud, gradually losing all signs of life.

Smoker's eyes nearly split apart. White mist billowed from his body as he roared with chilling killing intent:

"You damned trash! Filthy garbage of the sea, die!"

His entire body turned into white mist and swept toward Mark.

At that moment, Smoker's mind was filled with nothing but murderous intent. Tashigi's death had left his thoughts blank, filled only with killing intent.

Watching Smoker launch a desperate attack without any regard for defense, an attack whose momentum actually gave him a hint of danger, Mark's expression turned grave.

Streams of white smoke shrouded the air within dozens of meters, filling the area with mist and limiting visibility.

Mark activated Observation Haki.

Suddenly—

Swish!

A fist wrapped in white mist smashed toward Mark's head. Fortunately, he had activated Observation Haki in advance and used Silent Step to evade it.

Swish, swish, swish!

After Mark dodged, even more white fists followed closely behind.

The fist shadows filling the sky contained no techniques at all, charging straight at Mark.

Even with Silent Step and Observation Haki, Mark was still struck quite a few times by the barrage of fists.

"So this is Smoker's strength? He's strong!"

Mark wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and slowly dispersed the Dark Water in his hand.

Only after Smoker went mad did his strength truly live up to the name of a Logia Devil Fruit.

Both its range and power were formidable.

When Smoker had attacked, Mark's Dark Water had failed. That power only worked on Devil Fruit abilities that had taken physical form.

At that moment, Smoker's body had become white mist spanning dozens of meters around him, with no physical form whatsoever. Naturally, Dark Water had failed.

That was the shameless part of Logia types.

But Mark was still certain of victory.

If that ability could not be used, then he would switch to a more direct method.

"Dark Emperor (Dark Annihilation)!!!"

Buzzz!

Waves of darkness, like ripples on water, spread out from his body and covered the entire area of dozens of meters that had been shrouded in white mist.

Once the darkness covered the ground, rings of ripples gathered from the outside inward, gradually converging in Mark's hand.

After all the darkness had condensed into Mark's hand, a massive black sphere over ten meters in diameter, wreathed in surging dark flames, slowly rotated in his palm.

Like Dark Fist, Dark Emperor imitated Ace's ultimate move, Flame Emperor, but in Mark's hands, it possessed even greater destructive power!

Ace: I'm suing you for plagiarism...

Mark: You won't even set sail for another year. I should be the one suing you for plagiarism...

Ace: Fuck!

The techniques Mark had independently developed so far included Dark Fist (Ace's Fire Fist), Dark Emperor (Ace's Flame Emperor), Attraction Force (Luffy's stretching ability)...

He copied whatever abilities he could from the two brothers without the slightest shame, then used those techniques to beat enemy after enemy into the ground.

That included Smoker, the White Hunter, standing before him.

Once Dark Emperor formed, the nearby Marines immediately retreated, while the surrounding civilians fell silent in terror and fled if they could.

A sphere of dark flames over ten meters in diameter slowly rotated in Mark's hand. Anyone who saw it knew that the power of this attack was not to be underestimated.

The faint burning sensation of the dark flames came from the corrosiveness of the Dark-Dark Fruit. It was not actual burning.

Mark amplified that corrosiveness, turning it into dark flames.

And those dark flames, which possessed both corrosion and devouring properties, inflicted even greater damage.

With a light cough, Smoker was forced out of his fully elemental state and returned to human form. Once he was forced back into human form, the white mist around them gradually dispersed.

Mark looked at Smoker with a slightly pale face, holding Dark Emperor as he slowly walked toward him, the corners of his lips curling upward.

"Smoker, the positions of hunter and prey... have changed. I won't be going to a place like Impel Down..."

"Filthy garbage of the sea!!!" Smoker gasped for breath, his face growing even paler.

The law of conservation of energy absolutely held true.

Smoker's ability to turn himself into white mist spanning dozens of meters was an altered application of elementalization, a power that required him to overdraw his stamina.

Admiral-level powerhouses could use such abilities freely because their Devil Fruit development had awakened and their stamina was immense.

But Smoker was still far from an Admiral. After using that power, his stamina had long since been depleted.

Smoker could barely even move now and could only watch as Mark slowly approached him.

Mark stopped and hurled Dark Emperor toward Smoker.

Dark Emperor swept toward Smoker at tremendous speed.

Rumble!

Dark Emperor exploded upon striking the ground.

The blast engulfed Loguetown's entire plaza and even half of Loguetown. Its power rivaled Ace's Flame Emperor, and countless people in Loguetown were killed or injured in an instant.

Wave after wave of shockwaves surged from the center of the explosion.

"That level of attack... Whew..." Mark let out a deep breath, his face slightly pale as a satisfied smile appeared on it.

That move had consumed half his stamina, but its destructive power was equally astonishing.

Half of Loguetown had been destroyed by that single strike.

"Uh..." Just as he turned to leave, his Observation Haki detected a faint trace of life.

He looked toward the direction indicated by his Observation Haki.

A figure covered in flowing blood appeared before him. The person's Marine uniform had been blasted into tatters, and their body was torn open and mangled by the explosion.

"Smoker... That guy actually didn't die!!!"

Mark found it somewhat unbelievable. There was no questioning Dark Emperor's power; even he would not have been able to survive such an explosion.