Bartholomew Kuma and Kagran

Annus had learned about Bartholomew Kuma and the Sky Lord Nora blocking the Shandia long before Kagran gathered three hundred warriors at the old altar late that night.

Mantra was, in essence, a special sensory field created by layering Observation Haki with the Rumble-Rumble Fruit.

When people thought, the transmission of electrical signals between neurons in their brains produced exceedingly faint bioelectric waves. Those waves decayed rapidly in the air. Ordinary Observation Haki could only catch the strongest traces among them—killing intent, fear, the neural impulse that flashed the instant before an attack.

But Annus's Observation Haki was different.

He himself was lightning. To him, those faint electrical waves traveling through the air were like ripples on water. Even across dozens of miles of cloud sea, even with layer upon layer of island clouds and fog barriers between them, if he wished to listen, there was nothing he could not hear.

"Lord Annus?"

"There's movement on the Shandia side."

Lilith sat up from the bench. Her gauze dress slipped slightly from her shoulder, and she casually pulled it back into place.

"Do we need to send the Heavenly Army?"

Annus shook his head. "No need. Send Kuma. He hasn't led a team alone since becoming an executive officer. This is a good chance to see how much he's improved over the years."

Lilith paused when she heard Kuma's name.

It was not that she doubted Kuma's strength.

The boy had trained under Yale since he was nine. During his years on Sky Island, his daily training regimen had been more than twice that of an ordinary heavenly soldier. The strength of his Armament Haki had long surpassed that of most Angel Legion veterans, let alone the many applications he had developed for the Paw-Paw Fruit.

It was just that Kuma