The Qualities of a King

Relying on his tough physique, Dawn withstood the explosion. He wrapped himself in dark energy and swallowed the flying debris to prevent further injury, but the blast's impact still left his blood churning.

He emerged from the smoke and dust, looking somewhat disheveled but otherwise unharmed.

However, the moment he steadied himself and looked up, he saw a scene that filled him with utter horror and made his eyes nearly split open.

Boom raised his right hand, and an invisible ripple suddenly spread out from him. The air around Robin—above, below, left, right, within several meters of her—began to twist violently like the surface of water disturbed by a thrown stone, radiating a dark red glow like a red-hot branding iron.

The glowing air turned into extremely unstable bombs, forming an airtight, deadly encirclement that trapped Robin firmly at its center.

At such close range, those flickering red air bombs were practically pressed against her skin. Even if she used Geppo or Soru, the slightest movement would make her body touch those unstable explosives prematurely.

Robin was instantly driven into a desperate situation. Sweat slid down from her temple, yet her deep blue eyes remained astonishingly calm.

She looked at Dawn, who was staring at her, her eyes filled with profound reluctance that could not be dispelled, along with a trace of resolve.

She opened her mouth without making a sound, but Dawn clearly "read" her lips.

They said, "Goodbye."

Boom's wild, triumphant laughter rang out, filled with the cruelty of certain victory:

"Hahaha! For justice, please die! Explode!"

"Robin!!!"

Dawn's mind went blank in that instant! Watching Robin about to be blown to pieces before his very eyes, heart-rending terror and fury erupted violently.

The power that had long been deeply rooted in his blood and soul was completely awakened by those extreme emotions.

An unimaginably terrifying invisible will swept forth from Dawn like a tangible tsunami shockwave.

In an instant, the sky seemed to darken as the pressure of a king, enough to make the souls of all things tremble, descended upon the world.

Conqueror's Haki! Awakened beneath an extreme emotional shock!

Boom, who bore the brunt of it, still had his smug laugh frozen on his face when it felt as though an invisible, massive hammer had smashed viciously into his head.

A buzzing instantly filled his ears. His vision went dark, and his consciousness plunged into complete disorientation and chaos. His formerly sharp yet cloudy eyes rolled white, and his body began swaying violently out of control, nearly sending him face-first into the ground.

Without time to fully feel the newly awakened power within him, Dawn's formerly aqua-blue pupils were now thoroughly stained red with lingering fear and overwhelming killing intent.

He locked onto Boom, who had lost the ability to resist for that brief instant, and thrust out his right hand, his five fingers curling into a claw aimed at him.

"[Black Hole]!"

A terrifying suction force erupted instantly. Still reeling from the impact of Conqueror's Haki, his mind confused and body rigid, Boom had no strength to resist the powerful pull. Like a kite with its string cut, he was yanked toward Dawn in an instant.

Dawn's right hand precisely clamped around Boom's throat, lifting him off the ground as easily as one might lift a chick.

The Devil Fruit power within Boom was instantly stripped away, turning him back into an ordinary old man.

The air explosives surrounding Robin immediately lost their supporting power. Their light rapidly dimmed, the twisted air returned to normal, and the deadly danger vanished at once.

Robin felt the tension around her loosen as the suffocating pressure disappeared. She staggered a step and nearly collapsed, but Stella, who had barely struggled back up and returned to human form, caught her in time.

"Cough... cough, cough..."

With his throat gripped, Boom's face quickly turned from red to purple. He struggled uselessly, trying to pry apart Dawn's iron-clad fingers with both hands while his feet kicked weakly in the air.

Dawn stared at the old face in his hand, twisted by suffocation and terror. His voice was hoarse, each word seeming to be squeezed from the deepest hell and steeped in endless killing intent:

"You almost... got me. I never expected you to have mastered Devil Fruit awakening... How underhanded. Still, I should thank you. By using Robin's life, you reminded me... that no matter what enemy I face, I must remain extremely cautious."

The smooth sailing of the past half year had made him subconsciously lower his guard. Rather than conceal himself and infiltrate, he had chosen the most direct method: a frontal assault on an enemy headquarters about which he knew nothing.

That desperate situation just now could have been avoided. He had learned this lesson at the price of nearly losing Robin, and it was engraved deeply into his heart.

His thoughts raced, but the strength in his hand did not lessen in the slightest. Dawn no longer hesitated. He slammed his other empty palm against Boom's chest.

Darkness surged in his palm as a torrent of water, long compressed to its limit within another dimension, was released in an instant and blasted toward Boom's heart from virtually point-blank range.

"[Great Torrent]!"

"Splurt—!"

Boom's chest caved inward as though struck by a high-speed armor-piercing round, then a huge hole exploded open at the corresponding spot on his back.

The compressed seawater erupted the instant it touched his body, spraying from his back along with shredded internal organs and fragments of bone.

Boom's body convulsed violently once, and his struggling stopped instantly. His wide eyes still held incredulous terror and unwillingness, but the breath of life rapidly guttered out like a candle in the wind.

Dawn released his hand, and Boom's corpse dropped limply to the ground like a broken sack. Blood gushed from the hole in his chest, quickly staining the earth beneath him red.

TO BE CONTINUED