Please Indulge Me, Lord Annus!

That night.

Annus washed away his fatigue, wrapped himself in a bath towel, returned to his bedroom, and lit the kerosene lamp.

Come to think of it, when he had first obtained the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, bathing had troubled him for quite a while.

Because he would often involuntarily turn into lightning, warm water could not wash the skin on his body.

It was not until he had fully assimilated the Devil Fruit's power and could freely control his elemental transformation that this problem was resolved.

Annus often wondered whether the other Logia users had faced the same trouble after gaining such power.

Rubbing his hair with a towel, Annus was about to sit down by the bed when he suddenly noticed a human-shaped figure writhing strangely beneath the covers, accompanied by soft, coquettish gasps.

Only then did he notice that the pure floral scent in the room was unusually strong today. Upon closer inspection, he could detect an intoxicating scent beneath the flowers that made his heart race.

"..."

Annus fell silent for a moment.

"Lilith, what are you doing in my room again?"

The figure beneath the covers stopped moving. Lilith's breathtakingly seductive face poked out from under the blanket, her fair shoulders and collarbones clearly visible, with a startlingly deep valley below them.

Further down... was indescribable. It was all hidden beneath the blanket.

"L-Lord Annus, you're back! I'll leave right away!" Lilith raised a hand to cover her mouth. As the blanket slipped down, even more of her pale skin was exposed to the air. "I'm terribly sorry!"

"I only wanted my scent to keep you company on this lonely night!"

Annus sighed, feeling a wave of heat rise within him.

"No need. Stay tonight."

At his words, the flush on Lilith's alluring face deepened, and delight flooded her expression like water.

"Really? What an honor! Please indulge me to your heart's content, Lord Annus!"

The next day.

Annus opened his eyes amid softness.

He pushed Lilith off himself, stretched, got up, and dressed.

There was no need to bathe. Lilith had already cleaned his body thoroughly.

On the bed, Lilith watched Annus leave the room, then buried her face in the soaked blanket, intoxicated by their mingled scent.

"The big baby will be called Odin, and the little baby will be called Haion... No, what if it's a girl?"

"No, no, Lord Annus should be the one to name them!"

Though she had not yet had any children, Lilith had already planned everything in her mind.

Because her body already belonged to the great Lord Annus!

When Annus arrived at the shore, Diumil had already prepared everything.

"Lord Annus, the Angel Legion recruits are all standing by aboard the ship, awaiting your orders at any time."

His gaze leaving the bowed Diumil, Annus looked toward the ship moored at the dock.

In the sixth year since the Rocks Pirates had been established, nearly every officer had built a ship of his own and gathered his own subordinates.

Annus was no exception.

What he truly wanted was a ship like Enel's ark, the Maxim, but he had left Sky Island too early and had not had time to build one. He planned to make it when he returned to Sky Island in the future.

If he could build the ark Maxim, traveling between the Blue Sea and Sky Island would no longer be such a headache.

The ship before him had originally been a Marine warship. After Annus seized it, he had refitted it into his own pirate vessel.

At that moment, the deck was packed with people. Every one of them wore white wing ornaments on their backs and matching white Roman-style attire.

Some of them were Skypieans from different Sky Islands, some were pirates who had pledged themselves to Annus, and some were slaves Annus had taken in.

But now, they shared a single title—the Angel Legion recruits.

As for those wings, they were merely ornaments, a special cultural symbol of the Angel Legion.

One day, I will give every member of the Angel Legion the ability to fly.

The thought crossed Annus's mind. Like gathering Lunarians, it was one of the short-term goals he intended to achieve.

The wings on Skypieans' backs were merely decorations and could not enable flight. Yet due to a custom passed down since ancient times, almost no Skypiean would ever take off their wings, not even while bathing or sleeping.

As for the differences between Skypieans and Blue Sea people... they were likely limited to physical constitution.

Annus only knew fragments of knowledge on that subject.

For example, Skypieans always weighed less than Blue Sea people. The reason was that their bones were less dense, commonly known as "air bones," something Blue Sea people mistook for osteoporosis.

Yet this not only failed to affect Skypieans' daily lives, but also allowed them to thrive at high altitudes where the air was thin.

At the dock, many pirates noticed Annus's arrival and kept their distance.

"The Angel Legion is heading out again. Wonder whether the unlucky ones this time will be Marines or pirates?"

It was a common occurrence for Annus to take time to lead Angel Legion recruits out to sea for live combat drills.

The pirates had long grown used to it.

Though they did not know whom Annus intended to use as a whetstone on this voyage, that did not stop them from predicting the result.

That was a force even Rocks had called "valiant."

"Don't you think the elite of Marine Headquarters would definitely be stronger than the Angel Legion?"

An incongruous voice suddenly rose from the crowd. The pirates' gazes instinctively converged on the speaker. Once they saw that he was merely a green youngster, they exchanged looks before bursting into laughter.

"Kid, why would you think that?"

Quite a few pirates could not understand the youngster's remark.

"Wahahaha! Let me tell you!" A pirate who was close to the youngster and knew the reason laughed loudly.

"Because the pirate crew this kid used to belong to was wiped out by a fleet from Marine Headquarters!"

At those words, the pirates at the dock immediately showed looks of understanding and began laughing.

"So that's what it was! No wonder!"

Seeing this, the youngster flushed red and tried to argue back.

But an elderly pirate nearby cut him off and said, "Listen up, kid!"

"As long as Annus leads them, the Angel Legion cannot lose!"

The youngster retorted, red-faced, "You're that certain? What's your basis?!"

Hearing that, a proud expression appeared on the old pirate's face. "I've never left this island since Rocks took it over! You could say I'm one of the island's old hands!"

"I've had the fortune of witnessing every duel between the officers!"

"Annus is practically one of the youngest among the officers, aside from Kaido... but that does not mean he is weak! From beginning to end, Annus has never once looked the slightest bit troubled in battle!"

"I saw it with my own eyes... Every time Annus led the Angel Legion into battle, they returned safely. There was even one time when the newspapers reported that Annus had defeated a Marine Admiral!"

The World Government would certainly crack down hard on news like that. But there were always reporters unafraid of death, willing to risk their lives to report such things.

Although that issue had swiftly been ordered destroyed by the World Government, the news still spread in the end.

Most pirates on Hachinosu knew about it.

The old pirate's words rang out with absolute conviction, and no one present offered a single rebuttal.

To the youngster, who held the Marines' power in awe, those words were all the more deafening.

"Even someone as strong as a Marine Admiral can be defeated?" the youngster muttered, his worldview collapsing and rebuilding.