Boom!
High above.
A streak of lightning pierced straight through the clouds, moving so fast that the merchant ships along its path could not make out what it was.
A sailor had only just noticed a flash overhead.
"Thunder?"
The man beside him looked up.
"There's no—"
Before he could finish, the lightning was already dozens of nautical miles away.
Rock pushed his speed to the limit, but when Thunder finally plunged into the white smoke that still hung over Lulusia...
Crackle.
The lightning stopped. Rock stood suspended in midair.
All that remained where the city had stood was a vast crater, smoke still rising from its depths.
The island's center had split open, and seawater was pouring through several enormous fissures.
Fires raged in the distant districts. Mountainsides had collapsed, and the harbor lay in ruins after the tsunami.
"Help!"
"There's someone over here!"
"Don't fall asleep!"
"Wake up!"
Cries, pleas for help, and the sounds of more houses collapsing rose from every direction. Rock paused for less than a second.
His Observation Haki swept outward, and countless tiny arcs of electricity spread from his body.
Observation Haki searched for the presence of people, while the Rumble-Rumble Fruit reached for something even subtler.
In an instant, Lulusia changed completely within Rock's senses.
There were people beneath the rubble, in the seawater, inside the fissures, and under the collapsed mountainsides...
More and more of them.
Some presences were still clear. Others were so faint that only the slightest trace remained.
But in the crater where the capital had stood, there was nothing. Only a vast, empty blank.
Rock opened his eyes.
Crackle!
The next moment.
Tens of thousands of tiny arcs of lightning lit up across the entire island at once.
Beneath every arc was someone alive.
At the sight,