With her other hand, she caught the tip of the heart and slowly drew it back like a bow, stretching it into a crescent-shaped arc brimming with power.
"Pistol Kiss!"
She released her fingers, and the fully drawn heart-shaped bowstring snapped back, transforming into countless pink heart arrows that rained down like a torrential storm, filling the sky as they shot toward Blamenco below.
Blamenco had nowhere to dodge.
The densely packed heart arrows pierced his body.
His shoulders, arms, chest, abdomen, thighs-every part they struck instantly turned to grayish-white stone.
His movements froze in an instant. Half his body had been completely petrified, leaving him unable to move.
At that very moment, Hancock plummeted like a meteor. With the added acceleration of her fall, her long leg delivered a devastating kick that struck Blamenco squarely in the head.
Crack!
With a crisp shattering sound, Blamenco's head broke apart like a clay pot struck by a sledgehammer.
Traces of defiance and disbelief still lingered in his wide eyes, but his head had already shattered into several pieces that scattered across the ground.
The headless corpse did not shed a single drop of blood, its blood vessels sealed by the petrified portions. It merely swayed stiffly before crashing to the ground.
Standing nearby, Saint Dio watched the entire clean, decisive battle and gave a slight nod.
It seemed that month of hellish training had not gone to waste. Combined with the Love-Love Fruit's petrification ability, Hancock's strength had made a qualitative leap.
She could now dispatch pirates of this caliber effortlessly in an instant.
"Not bad."
Saint Dio nodded slightly, giving Hancock's performance a brief but affirmative appraisal.
Meanwhile, the remaining pirates could barely put up any meaningful resistance.
Before Sandersonia and Marigold, they were nothing but lambs awaiting slaughter, picked up one after another and casually tossed into the sea in bursts of white spray.
Only a few crew members responsible for steering and navigation remained. They sat collapsed on the deck, their faces deathly pale and their legs shaking so violently they could not even stand.
Saint Dio ignored those small fry and walked over to Blamenco's headless corpse.
He crouched and reached out, holding his palm above the corpse with his fingers slightly spread.
A yellowish-brown orb of light slowly floated out of the corpse and hovered above Saint Dio's palm.
The orb emitted a soft glow, pulsing gently as though alive.
Saint Dio closed his fingers, and the orb settled into his hand. Its glow gradually faded, dissolving into specks of light that vanished into the air.
In its place was an ordinary-looking fruit.
It was shaped like a pear, its skin covered in strange spiral patterns.
The corners of Saint Dio's mouth curved slightly. He had it-the Pocket-Pocket Fruit.
Unhurriedly, he took an antique-style silver ring from his pocket and held the Pocket-Pocket Fruit above it.
The instant the fruit touched the ring, it dissolved into countless tiny points of light that flowed into the ring like water.
The points of light swirled across the ring's surface for a moment, then slowly settled, finally merging into it completely.
The ring's appearance barely changed, save for a strange, barely visible pattern on the inner side of its face.
With that, the ring now possessed the Pocket-Pocket Fruit's ability.
Anyone wearing it could freely use all the Pocket-Pocket Fruit's functions.
It was essentially a portable extradimensional warehouse. Objects of any size could be stuffed inside and retrieved whenever needed-convenient in the extreme.
Chapter 49: A Fruit Suited to Mumei, Setting Off for Fish-Man Island
Saint Dio toyed with the silver ring briefly, then flicked his fingers. The ring traced a silver arc through the air, flying straight toward Mumei.
"Catch."
Mumei instinctively caught it, opened her palm, and examined the antique-style ring curiously before looking up at Saint Dio with questioning eyes.
"This ring is yours now," Saint Dio said casually, folding his arms. "You can use it to store things. Give it a try."
Mumei blinked and carefully slipped the ring onto her middle finger. It fit perfectly, as though it had been made especially for her.
She turned the ring curiously, then followed Saint Dio's instructions and approached the pile of weapon crates stacked higher than she was. Picking up one crate, she tried stuffing it into her pocket.
Under normal circumstances, such a large crate could never fit into such a small pocket.
But the instant the crate touched the edge of her pocket, an invisible suction seemed to pull it inside.
Like a magic trick, the crate shrank amid a slight distortion, slipped inside, and disappeared into her pocket. Yet her pocket remained flat, without any sign of bulging.
"Wow!" Mumei's eyes lit up. She hurriedly pulled open her pocket and peered inside.
The pocket's interior seemed to connect to a boundless gray space, with the crate floating quietly within it.
She reached into her pocket and felt around for a while, but what she pulled out was a flintlock pistol-the very one she had picked earlier.
"Amazing!" Mumei could not help cheering. Like a child with a new toy, she immediately stuffed all the remaining weapon crates into her pocket one after another, then took the items out one by one, having the time of her life.
Watching her excitement, Saint Dio nodded slightly.
Giving Mumei this Pocket-Pocket Fruit to use really was the best choice.
Unlike Sandersonia and Marigold, she was not a frontline fighter who charged into battle. Her advantages lay in her nimble footwork and quick reactions.
Combined with the Pocket-Pocket Fruit's storage ability, she could switch weapons and tools at any moment to suit the battle, attacking from all sorts of awkward angles to harass and pin down the enemy.
In a sense, she could be considered another version of Usopp.
That was the role Saint Dio had assigned her.
Only after Mumei finally finished playing and stored all the weapons in her pocket did Saint Dio turn his gaze toward the ashen-faced pirate crew members still slumped on the deck.
He walked up to them and looked down at them, ordering, "Set sail for Fish-Man Island. As long as you obey my orders, I won't kill you."
Hearing this, the pirate crew members scrambled to their feet as though grasping a lifeline and stumbled toward their respective stations.
The sail ropes were hauled up, the helm turned, and the ship slowly began to sink, enclosed in the resin bubble coating applied by the coating craftsmen.
The transparent bubble enclosed the entire ship, keeping the seawater out.
As the hull gradually slipped beneath the surface, sunlight filtered through the water above in shimmering patterns, while colorful schools of fish swam leisurely past the ship.
The outline of the Sabaody Archipelago receded farther and farther from view until it disappeared completely behind that blue curtain.
Mumei ran around the deck curiously, leaning over the railing to watch the fish swimming past one moment, then looking up at the ever more distant surface the next. Unconcealable excitement sparkled in her large eyes.
It was her first time venturing into the underwater world, and everything seemed so new and wonderful.
It was Saint Dio's first time in the deep sea as well, but he was no longer a child, after all, and naturally would not run excitedly all over the ship like Mumei.
He leaned against the cabin doorway with his arms folded, calmly observing their surroundings.
Strangely enough, by all rights, the ship had already descended more than two hundred meters. Sunlight should no longer have been able to reach this depth, and their surroundings should have been pitch-black.
Yet it was not completely dark. A faint glow came from somewhere, barely allowing them to make out their surroundings.
Saint Dio looked toward the source of the light and discovered it was where the Yarukiman Mangrove stood.
The Sabaody Archipelago's foundation was formed by this Yarukiman Mangrove, the largest in the world.
This type of mangrove had a special characteristic: it absorbed sunlight above the sea and transmitted it through its trunk to its roots, releasing it on the seafloor.
This was also what provided light to Fish-Man Island beneath the sea.
The faint glimmers around them were probably light leaking out as the Yarukiman Mangrove transmitted sunlight.
Mumei's curiosity soon shifted to the bubble coating surrounding the ship.
She reached out and poked the transparent membrane. It was soft and springy, like poking a giant soap bubble.
She turned back and asked Saint Dio curiously, "Will this thing pop?"
"No," Saint Dio replied offhandedly. "Even if you fire a gun from inside, the bullet will pass through the bubble coating without popping it."
"What if something attacks it from outside?" Mumei asked again. Just as she finished speaking, something caught her eye, and she suddenly pointed. "What's that?!"
An enormous dark shape slowly emerged from the depths.
It was a deep-sea fish of suffocatingly immense size.
Its head alone was larger than the pirate ship. Dark gray scales covered its body, and its yellow eyes gleamed greedily in the darkness like two lanterns.
It had clearly taken the bubble-coated ship for prey. Opening a huge mouth packed with sharp teeth, it lunged to bite down on the hull.
The pirates aboard were scared out of their wits and scattered with their hands over their heads.
Saint Dio calmly drew Jörmungandr from his waist, pointed the tip forward, and gave it a gentle push. The silver-white sword twisted and transformed the instant it left his hand, becoming a slender silver snake that nimbly passed through the bubble coating and swam into the seawater without the slightest obstruction.
The silver snake's body lengthened and thickened in the water as it shot toward the enormous deep-sea fish like an arrow loosed from a bow. It skirted the tooth-filled mouth and swam straight to the side of its eye.
The giant fish seemed to sense the danger and tried to close its eyelid, but it was too late.
Jörmungandr suddenly opened its own mouth, likewise filled with sharp teeth, and bit savagely into the enormous eyeball.
Squelch!
The eyeball burst, black blood mixing with clear aqueous fluid to bloom into a murky cloud in the deep sea.
The giant fish's violent struggles and thrashing churned the surrounding seawater into a powerful turbulent current, rocking the pirate ship fiercely from side to side.
The pirates on deck staggered and fell. Some clung desperately to the mast, while others were flung across the deck, rolling back and forth amid a chorus of wails.
After bursting the eyeball, Jörmungandr did not stop. It plunged through the ruptured socket into the giant fish's skull and began thrashing and churning freely inside its head.
Imagine a bug burrowing and gnawing through your brain-that was probably what it felt like.
The giant fish's body suddenly went rigid, then began convulsing and rolling wildly, churning the surrounding seawater as though it were boiling. Finally, its struggles slowly ceased, and its enormous body began sinking into the deeper darkness.
Jörmungandr emerged from the giant fish's corpse and swam a circle through the seawater, shaking off the blood and scraps of flesh. Then it became a streak of silver light, passed through the bubble coating, and flew back into Saint Dio's hand, transforming into a sword again.
Chapter 50: Arrival at Fish-Man Island
Saint Dio put Jörmungandr away, his gaze following the giant fish's corpse as it slowly sank into the dark abyss. A thought suddenly occurred to him.
Could the physique of a deep-sea beast like this be used to make a Devil Fruit?
Make it into a Fish-Fish Fruit. After all, Kaido's Devil Fruit proved that Fish-Fish Fruits did exist. Although his was the Azure Dragon Form, who knew? Saint Dio might be able to make an Anglerfish Form or a Great White Shark Form.
He had never tried it before, but he could look into it if he had the chance in the future.
The ship continued descending through the deep sea.
The darkness around them gradually faded, replaced by an increasingly bright, warm glow.
After the ship passed through the final stretch of dark water, a breathtaking sight appeared before them.
At the bottom of the deep sea, an enormous, brilliantly illuminated island stood quietly.
A gigantic bubble membrane enclosed the entire island like a transparent dome. Inside, lights blazed among rows of buildings and crisscrossing streets. Countless points of light flickered and flowed within, like a dazzling pearl set in the deep sea.
Here, the surroundings were bright as day, almost making one forget they were ten thousand meters beneath the sea.
This was Fish-Man Island.
Saint Dio stood at the bow, studying the bubble-enclosed island while rubbing his chin.
The pirate at the helm cautiously asked, "M-my lord... what should we do next? Should we follow the normal procedure and enter through the entrance?"
"Normal procedure?" Saint Dio replied calmly without looking back. "No need."
He raised his hand and pointed toward Fish-Man Island. "Ram straight into it."
The pirate at the helm froze, thinking he had misheard. "R-ram into it?"
Saint Dio merely gave him an indifferent glance.
There was no unnecessary emotion in that glance, yet it sent a chill down the pirate's spine, as though a venomous snake had fixed its eyes on him.
He hastily shrank back, not daring to ask another question, and steadied the helm, steering straight toward Fish-Man Island's bubble membrane.
Under normal entry procedures, entering Fish-Man Island required passing through an official entrance similar to the one at the Red Line, undergoing an entry inspection, and completing the relevant formalities.
Otherwise, one would be considered an illegal entrant and arrested by the Ryugu Kingdom's Neptune Army.
But who was Saint Dio? He was a Celestial Dragon.
Before you continue