Katakuri's Conqueror's Haki Awakens

Cracker's scream tore through the wind above the cliff. His shrill shout stabbed painfully at their eardrums.

Several of his younger sisters collapsed into the rubble. They covered their eyes tightly with both hands, their shoulders trembling like sieves.

Below the cliff.

A massive shadow completely covered Katakuri.

A Super-Giant Sea King more than fifty meters long had burst halfway out of the water. Its head was like a rusted iron tower.

Its gaping maw opened to its limit. Putrid scraps of rotten flesh and pale fish bones hung from its barbed teeth.

A foul gale blasted from the sea monster's stomach, sending Katakuri spinning across the surface.

At the cliff's edge.

Rektol stood with his feet apart, the soles of his boots firmly nailed to an outcropping of black rock. His arms were folded across his chest.

The sea wind blew his short pink hair straight back. He stared expressionlessly below, without even a twitch in the muscles of his chin.

He made no move to jump into the water and rescue anyone.

He was like an emotionless stone statue.

Katakuri looked up.

Seawater poured backward through his nostrils, choking him until his lungs burned like they were on fire. He instinctively coughed twice and spat out several mouthfuls of bloody saliva.

All ten of his fingers floated limply on the surface. Broken bones had pierced his skin, and the seawater had soaked the exposed flesh until it turned ghastly white.

He no longer had the strength to swim. Both legs sank like they had been filled with lead.

The giant beast's lower jaw slammed toward the surface.

With a biting force of dozens of tons, it would need only half a second to chew this young child into a pulp of flesh and bone.

The surface caved violently inward. Huge waves churned.

The pressure of death clogged Katakuri's throat like a block of lead.

Time seemed to slow.

The splashing droplets hung suspended in midair. Even the dark red flesh deep in the Sea King's throat—and the veins pulsing across it—were clearly visible.

Katakuri shattered one of his molars between his teeth. The enamel cracked, filling his mouth with the metallic taste of blood.

Was he really going to die here?

Would a stinking beast treat him as a snack to pick its teeth with?

A voice suddenly crashed into his mind.

A few days earlier, that not-so-tall figure had stood in front of him and kicked apart the priceless Mochi-Mochi Fruit.

"You are going to become the emperor who transforms into a dragon."

From atop the cliff, Rektol's cold voice once again pierced the rumbling waves and struck his eardrums with perfect accuracy.

"If you're going to become one, then don't fall here!"

Katakuri's eyes flew wide open.

The heart in his chest, which was on the verge of stopping, felt as if an invisible hand had given it a vicious squeeze.

A violent current of air shot straight from the crown of his head into the sky.

"Boom!"

A dark-red aura exploded outward from Katakuri.

This was no ordinary shock wave. It was pure mental pressure, the disposition of a king found in one person among a million.

Conqueror's Haki.

Dark-red lightning raced wildly across the black sea. The electric arcs struck the surface, crackling sharply.

The air instantly became as sticky as glue. The sea wind stopped.

The Super-Giant Sea King at the forefront suddenly stiffened.

Its eyes, each larger than a house, rolled violently. Its yellow pupils were forced upward until the whites filled its entire eye sockets.

The Haki directly shattered the sea monster's central nervous system.

It could not even scream. Its open maw lost control and slammed into the water beside Katakuri with a bang.

The resulting wave hurled Katakuri more than ten meters away.

The sea monster's massive body floated belly-up on the surface like a collapsed mountain of flesh.

The dozens of smaller Sea Kings nearby did not even have time to flee. They all rolled over with their pale bellies exposed and floated together in the bay.

The entire Dead Sea fell deathly silent.

Only the aftershocks of the dark-red Haki continued to tremble through the air.

Atop the cliff.

Cracker stood with his mouth hanging open, having forgotten to take back his scream. His jaw dangled as if dislocated, and saliva dripped from his chin onto the rocks.

Several of his sisters could barely breathe under the lingering pressure of the Conqueror's Haki. Their legs gave way, and they fell to the ground, retching.

Rektol lowered his folded arms.

He watched the sea and let out a long breath. With his short fingers clasped behind his back, he secretly rubbed a layer of cold sweat off on his trouser leg.

He had gambled and won. If Katakuri had not awakened just now, his Lightning Spear would already have exploded inside the sea monster's brain. But he could not show the slightest sign that he cared.

On the sea.

Katakuri spat out a large mouthful of seawater mixed with scraps of internal organs.

He could no longer use his hands. All ten fingers had swollen like purple carrots.

Using his chin and elbows, he braced himself firmly against the hard scales of the Super-Giant Sea King. Like a dehydrated worm, he climbed upward inch by inch.

The edges of the scales were as sharp as blades. They cut through the last uninjured skin on his chest. Blood ran down his thighs and into the sea, mixing with the Sea King's blood.

He did not care in the slightest.

Using the giant beast's corpse as a foothold, Katakuri finally reached the black reef at the base of the cliff.

He wedged his knee into a crack in the rock. The rough stone scraped through the skin over his kneecap.

He rolled and crawled onto shore.

He lay sprawled across the rough reef, his chest heaving violently as he greedily sucked the salty air into his lungs.

Rektol leaped down along the gentle slope on the side of the cliff.

His military boot stepped onto the blood-soaked reef with a sticky squelch.

He walked over to Katakuri and stopped. His body blocked the sunlight.

Katakuri did not cower as he had before. He turned his head and looked at his elder brother standing before him.

The eyes that had once held timidity and unease had completely changed.

They were violent and cold, carrying the wildness of something that would brook no challenge.

It was the gaze of a ferocious beast that had truly crawled out from a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood. It was also the bearing a future emperor's right hand should possess.

Katakuri bared his sharp fangs in a grin. The movement tugged at the wounds on his cheeks, making him hiss sharply through his teeth.

"Big Brother, I didn't die." His voice was hoarse, as if he had swallowed half a pound of sand.

Rektol looked at him.

There was no praise and no unnecessary chatter.

He merely nodded slightly.

"As long as you can still breathe, that's enough. Go get your bones set."

Rektol turned around, preparing to take his brother, who had completed his transformation, back to camp.

Before they could take a single step.

A sudden series of earth-shaking footsteps came from above the cliff.

"Rumble!"

"Rumble!"

With every step, the loose stones on the ground bounced. Even the reefs at the base of the cliff trembled, shaking the dead fish on the surface of the sea.

A rough, furious female voice pierced the sea wind and crashed straight down over the brothers' heads.

"Rektol! You deranged little bastard!"

Loose stones came pouring down from the top of the cliff, smashing against the reef.

Charlotte Linlin's massive body appeared at the edge of the precipice.

She was not wearing her polka-dot dress today. A loose white nightgown covered her body, ballooning in the sea wind.

The most eye-catching thing was her belly.

It was like a colossal iron pot turned upside down. It bulged high, bursting two of the nightgown's buttons.

Linlin was pregnant again, and she was nearing her due date.

She was drenched in sweat. Her pink hair clung messily to her forehead like a nest of bees that had been poked, with traces of uneaten frosting still stuck to the strands.

Her fat face was filled with fury, and the blood vessels in her eyes were as dense as a web.

She panted heavily. Raising her thick arm, she pointed a carrot-thick finger straight at Rektol below.

Cracker and several of his sisters scrambled aside in terror, afraid their mother would crush them to death with one step.

Linlin lowered her head and looked at Katakuri below, covered in blood with all ten fingers broken.

He was one of the sons she valued most.

She ground her teeth in heartache, the sound of her back teeth grating loudly.

"The perfect masterpiece I gave birth to after all that hardship..."

She slapped apart a huge rock beside her. Stone dust flew everywhere, coating half her face.

"You threw him into a Sea King's nest?"

Linlin stood there with her huge belly thrust forward, spittle flying in all directions.

"You nearly got my precious son killed!"