One Piece: The Undying Me Maxes Out Conqueror's Haki First

Someone sighed.

They felt sorry for the boy, too.

Stationed on the Sabaody Archipelago, they had seen this happen far too often.

Some offenders were dealt with by the Celestial Dragons' guards. Others were handed over to the Marines.

It left many Marines seething. They had enlisted to uphold justice, full of passion, only to become the Celestial Dragons' lackeys.

"Let's make it quick. He's lucky, in a way. If he'd fallen into their hands, who knows what they'd put him through!"

A Marine raised his rifle and sighed.

Then he fired without hesitation.

Smoke curled from the barrel. The gunshot faded, leaving the scene silent.

The Marines surrounding Xia Le stared, their pupils contracting and their mouths falling open. Disbelief and shock spread across their faces once more.

"What the hell is going on with this kid?"

"And he's not even a Devil Fruit User!"

Xia Le remained unharmed and silent. Everyone was stunned beyond words.

Major Kalens had not expected this. Neither could the others make sense of it.

"If we can't kill him, we're the ones in trouble!"

One Marine's voice trembled.

They had been Marines for years and fought plenty of pirates, but they had never seen anything so strange. An ordinary-looking boy who could not be killed.

Xia Le pressed his lips together. The number on his panel had risen again. It now read 34.

That meant he had died thirty-four times.

"Bring out the cannon."

The captain took a deep breath and shouted the order.

Panic flickered in his eyes. The unkillable boy and the pressure from the Celestial Dragons filled him with a fear he could not explain.

At first, he had thought the boy possessed some strange ability. Now that they knew it had nothing to do with a Devil Fruit, that eerie fear was growing fast.

Meanwhile, inside the base office.

Kalens steadied himself, then gently pushed the door open.

His nerves tightened when he saw the square-faced man with close-cropped black hair sitting in the main chair.

"Vice Admiral Garp, what brings you here?"

The burly man before him, whose muscles seemed ready to burst through his clothes, was Garp—the Hero Vice Admiral whose fame had reached its height among the Marines.

"You've sunk lower than I thought, Kalens!"

"You've become a servant to those Celestial Dragon scum."

Garp looked up at him, his voice booming.

The Hero of the Navy showed none of the frailty of his later years. His cropped hair was jet-black, and he radiated strength, authority, and iron resolve.

Iron Fist Garp referred to more than his fists. It described how he had acted in his younger days.

Kalens flinched. "I don't have a choice, Vice Admiral Garp. Stationed somewhere like the Sabaody Archipelago, there are things I simply can't do anything about."

"Why don't you have me transferred? I could even follow you and hunt pirates."

Garp laughed. "Wouldn't that be nice? Appointments and transfers are Fleet Admiral Kong's business."

"Besides, with that personality of yours, you're not fit to follow me."

Kalens looked even more helpless, a faint sadness on his face.

He knew Garp had once taught him and that they shared the bond of teacher and student. But the vice admiral had always despised how he flattered nobles and bowed before them.

"Sorry. I said something hurtful again without meaning to."

"I was passing by, so I thought I'd stop in."

Garp waved a hand, sounding not the least bit sorry.

"I'll see to your ship's supplies."

Kalens spoke cautiously.

"That's what I hate most about you! You're a Marine, but you're always bowing and scraping. Have some backbone!"

Garp seemed to grow angrier as he spoke. He snatched an ornate ornament from the desk and hurled it.

Kalens ducked. The ornament flew past his ear and struck the floor behind him with a bang, making him shrink back.

"Don't tell anyone you were my student again!"

Kalens sighed inwardly, his bitterness deepening. Word of what he had done on the Sabaody Archipelago had probably reached Garp.

For a moment, he had no idea what to say. Fortunately, Garp's anger soon passed, and the two began to chat.

About half an hour later, hurried footsteps sounded outside the office.

Garp looked up. Kalens reacted as well.

"Major Kalens, we have a problem!"

The knock and the anxious shout came almost together.

"That kid really can't be killed!"

Kalens's expression changed. Across from him, curiosity appeared on Vice Admiral Garp's face.

"Can't be killed? Who can't?"

The door opened. The Marine outside took a deep breath and was about to report when he spotted Garp sitting there at ease. His whole body went rigid.

"V-Vice Admiral Garp!"

Garp waved a hand. "Go on."

"From the moment we arrested the kid until now, he hasn't said a word."

"But we made inquiries through other channels and found out who he is."

"His name is Xia Le. He was a servant of the Bokan Family on the Sabaody Archipelago. Ten days ago, he suddenly snapped, killed the entire family, and escaped."

The Marine kept his head down, too nervous to look Garp in the eye.

"Today, he offended the Celestial Dragons, and we arrested him."

"We tried shooting him, shelling him, burning him, hanging him, and drowning him in seawater."

The Marine took a deep breath. His voice began to shake.

"None of it killed him!"

Kalens froze.

Garp grew more curious. "A Devil Fruit User?"

The Marine answered at once.

"No. He was wearing Seastone Shackles throughout every execution!"

Garp looked taken aback.

Kalens's face darkened further. If he could not deal with the boy, the Celestial Dragons would deal with him. And Vice Admiral Garp was here to witness it.

He was in serious trouble.

Conqueror's Haki

Garp strode ahead, with Kalens hurrying behind him.

The major stationed on the Sabaody Archipelago was deeply uneasy.

After hearing what had happened to Xia Le, Vice Admiral Garp had not exploded on the spot. He had wiped the smile from his face and told Kalens to lead the way.

Enslaved and tormented by nobles, the boy had killed them in anger and fled. That kind of spirit seemed exactly to Garp's liking—and the opposite of Kalens's own.

Come to think of it, the Marines serving under Vice Admiral Garp were much the same: reckless and afraid of nothing.

Their casualty rate was rather high, though. They fought vicious pirates day after day.

Just as the two approached the training ground, they stopped. Kalens raised his head, horror spreading visibly across his face.

Hum!

An overwhelming, oppressive presence surged from ahead. Even the air seemed to warp.

"Conqueror's Haki?"

Kalens spoke in shock.

He stared ahead, unable to believe that presence was coming from the black-haired boy.

On the training ground, Xia Le jerked his head out of an iron basin filled with seawater.

Gunshots, strangulation, hanging, beheading, burning, cannon fire, poison—every method that could easily kill anyone had been used on him.

Death after death had sent the points on his system panel soaring to sixty.

That meant he had died sixty times in the short time since he had arrived in this world.

Those relentless deaths drove the anger inside him to erupt into the world in another form.

Why?

Why did I have to suffer such injustice? Why did I face death the moment I arrived in this world?

Why couldn't they kill me after so many deaths?

Why did I have to feel this pain?

Xia Le had gone mad.

Nothing could keep him dead, but each time he died, he felt the pain and suffocation with terrible clarity.

He truly had died that many times. He had simply come back to life again and again.

That was why he seemed impossible to kill.

All his pain, resentment, rage, and madness gathered in that instant and burst forth. Something deep within his body and mind seemed to break open, sending a torrent surging out.

Hum!

The air trembled and warped. A terrifying presence rolled outward, striking first at the Marines who had been racking their brains for ways to kill him.

Thud!

Four men's eyes rolled back. Their weapons slipped from their hands, and they collapsed unconscious.

The presence swept farther at astonishing speed. Living creatures all around fell unconscious, while even the plants and flowers bent low.

When that outburst ended, Xia Le lifted his head. His whole body was trembling.

A line appeared on the panel before his eyes.

Conqueror's Haki Lv. 0+

Xia Le quickly calmed himself and realized what had happened.

His fury and madness had awakened Conqueror's Haki without his intending it. His gaze also caught the sixty points on the panel.

At that moment, a deep, angry voice rang out.

"Kalens, you were going to execute a boy this remarkable?"

"You're the one who deserves to die!"

Xia Le looked up and saw two figures approaching.

The man in front was tall, square-faced, and close-cropped, with an air of ferocious strength. As he walked, he kept pounding the head of Kalens behind him with his fist.

Kalens clutched his head and cried out in pain before collapsing with a thud.