Great Torrent

"What's going on? The way this tiny creature is looking at us... No, that's not right."

The Frog Sea King sensed the way Dawn was looking at them as if they were food and spoke to its companion in its unique language.

Sea Kings were creatures with high intelligence and language abilities, but ordinary humans, even Fish-Men and Merfolk, could neither hear nor understand their language.

"It feels... like the look we usually have when we hunt. He actually sees us as food? How arrogant!"

The Parrot Sea King replied. The two higher beings, whose intelligence was no less than that of humans, fell into a brief discussion because of Dawn's abnormal reaction.

Dawn wiped the corner of his mouth, a hunter's excitement appearing on his face. He stretched his powerful limbs, his joints crackling sharply. He walked to the bow and leaped lightly onto the bow gun platform, already covered in spiderweb-like cracks from being used as a "launch pad" so many times.

He crouched, and the muscles in his calves instantly tightened and bulged like steel cables, stretching his loose pant legs until they seemed ready to burst. Then he pushed off with all his strength!

Boom!!!

His figure became an arrow loosed from its bow, shooting through the air at a speed the naked eye could barely track. Beneath him, the sea surface was even briefly forced apart to either side by his extreme velocity.

The battered gun platform beneath his feet finally reached its limit and shattered into countless chunks of metal. The entire steamship jolted from the tremendous recoil, its stern suddenly rising while the bow dipped at once, icy seawater nearly flooding the deck.

"Dawn! You destructive maniac! Again?! How many times have I told you?! What are we supposed to do if the ship sinks?!"

Inside the cabin, Stella, who had only just calmed down, was startled once more. She transformed back into the Nine-Tailed White Fox and rushed out. Seeing Dawn flying through the air at high speed straight toward the Sea Kings, along with the wreckage at the bow, she stomped her feet furiously and protested loudly.

Although this had happened many times during the voyage, she had already eaten a Devil Fruit and instinctively feared seawater. Besides, getting her beautiful fur soaked felt awful.

It made her, who was used to taking beast form, feel terrible.

But her protest was destined to be drowned out by the sea wind and the thunderous battle that followed.

Naturally, Dawn, flying at extreme speed, could not hear the complaints behind him. His eyes held only the two enormous moving ingredients.

He targeted the closer Frog Sea King. His fist, as large as a casserole pot and carrying the force of his entire charge, slammed down on the creature's massive head like a meteor!

Bang!!!

A visible white ring of air burst from the point of impact, sweeping up the surrounding seawater and creating a brief vacuum.

The Frog Sea King's enormous body was blasted backward by the incomparable force. Like a flung whip, it carved a deep trench across the sea surface and let out a pained cry.

Seeing its companion heavily injured in an instant, the Parrot Sea King was shocked and enraged. Instinctively, it used its strongest weapon—its enormous, hardened beak—to peck at Dawn, who had begun falling under gravity, like lightning!

Dawn remained calm in the face of danger. With a thought, darkness surged around him and instantly absorbed the gravitational pull dragging him downward, causing him to hang in the air for an eerie instant.

That instant was enough for him to shift sideways lightly, narrowly avoiding the deadly peck that could have pierced a warship. The beak missed, striking only the sea and sending a column of water soaring skyward.

Dawn skillfully controlled his posture in midair, as though invisible footholds lay beneath his feet. After several precise aerial shifts, he instantly arrived beside the Parrot Sea King's thick neck.

"Hah!"

He exhaled with a shout and threw another heavy punch!

This time, without the enormous momentum from his previous high-speed charge, the Parrot Sea King merely had its head knocked aside. Its enormous body swayed once, but it did not suffer any substantial injury. Instead, its ferocity was further provoked.

"Croak—!!!"

In the distance, the recovered Frog Sea King let out an ear-splitting roar, the immense soundwaves making even the sea surface tremble.

It opened its huge mouth, and rings of tangible circular sonic waves abruptly formed, forcing aside the waves along their path and hurtling at astonishing speed toward Dawn and the Parrot Sea King beside him without distinction. Clearly, that punch had driven it completely mad, to the point that it no longer cared about its companion.

The highly penetrating sonic attack first passed through the Parrot Sea King's massive body. Its colorful feathers were torn away as if by an invisible force, falling in droves. Even its hard beak cracked from the vibrations, blood seeping out. The sonic waves did not slow as they charged straight at Dawn.

Facing sonic waves capable of shattering steel, Dawn showed no fear. This was far from the first time he had encountered such an attack.

In this world, any giant creature in the ocean whose appearance did not closely resemble that of a land mammal could be classified as a Sea King.

Among Sea Kings resembling amphibians, frog-shaped ones were the most common. Nearly all of them excelled at sonic attacks, and he had seen them many times during the past few months of hunting.

Dawn's left arm instantly transformed into an element, becoming pure darkness. It then stretched rapidly like rubber, actively reaching toward the terrifying sonic rings.

The Yami Yami no Mi's ability to absorb attacks had limitations—it could not directly absorb long-range attacks and required close range.

Therefore, Dawn used the malleability of Logia elementalization to extend his arm and artificially create the "close range" needed for absorption.

(PS: Fun fact: the Yami Yami no Mi was never stated to be unable to elementalize. That was merely a setting made up by fanfiction writers, causing many people to believe it. The original canon for the Yami Yami no Mi only consisted of a few manga panels. It was not that complicated.)

The sonic rings accurately crashed into the palm of Dawn's extended dark arm. A tiny vortex of darkness abruptly appeared in his palm like a bottomless abyss, swallowing and absorbing every bit of sonic energy powerful enough to level cities, without allowing even a trace to escape.

Once the absorption was complete, Dawn immediately canceled his elementalization, restoring his arm to normal. This "contact—absorb—cancel" tactic was a combat habit he had developed to make up for the Yami Yami no Mi's weakness.

He would never give his enemies a chance to press their advantage.

Seeing its attack vanish so strangely, the Frog Sea King's immense intelligence made it feel unprecedented shock and a trace of unease.

At that moment, the Parrot Sea King, which had just recovered from its companion's accidental attack, endured the intense pain and flapped its enormous wings.

Whoosh—!!!

The gale swept up seawater, forming a small tsunami dozens of meters high that crashed down toward Dawn in midair. It knew very well that its opponent was a Devil Fruit user, and the sea was the most effective weapon.

It did not seek revenge on its companion for accidentally injuring it. Intelligent as it was, it knew that with a powerful enemy before them, this was not the time for infighting.

Dawn raised an eyebrow. His right arm transformed into an element and rapidly expanded into a gigantic hand of darkness that blotted out the sky.

"[Kurouzu: Swallowing Waves]!"

The vortex in the dark giant hand's palm spun at high speed, generating terrifying suction. The tsunami crashing down on him was like a river meeting the eye of an abyss, its immense volume of water continuously sucked into the dark Subspace. Not even a drop splashed onto Dawn.

After absorbing the tsunami, Dawn likewise immediately canceled his elementalization. He did not pause. Focusing his mind, he manipulated the laws within the Subspace, madly compressing the massive amount of seawater, then compressing it further, storing destructive potential energy within it.

The instant the compression reached a certain critical point—

"[Great Torrent]!"

Darkness surged out behind Dawn, as though the gate to another world had been thrown open.

Boom!

The seawater compressed to the absolute limit was explosively released, its kinetic energy roaring like a super-heavy cannon firing.

An incomparably concentrated jet of high-pressure water shot out with unstoppable force, striking the chest of the Parrot Sea King just as it was preparing to attack again.

"Splat!"

Like the sharpest spear, the water jet instantly pierced through its thick feathers, flesh, and bones. A massive bloody hole several meters wide appeared in its chest. Blood sprayed across the sky like a waterfall, rapidly dyeing the nearby sea red.

The Parrot Sea King let out a brief, shrill cry. The light in its eyes instantly dimmed, and its enormous body crashed onto the sea with a thunderous impact, raising towering waves. It was dead.

The terrifying aftershock from the exploding water jet spread like a shockwave, directly blowing away the Frog Sea King, which had been swimming over with all its strength to join the attack, sending it tumbling endlessly across the sea surface.

TO BE CONTINUED