Crunch, crunch. Lorne chewed up the last piece of senbei, its savory, salty flavor spreading across his tongue.
He casually crumpled the empty wrapper into a ball and flicked it away. The paper wrapper sliced through the air and landed squarely in the distant fire.
Lorne looked down at his right fist. The fine cuts were rapidly closing under the nourishment of Battlefield Valor, and the itching sensation reminded him that his bones had already grown back together.
"Contract, relax, contract, release."
He softly repeated the instructions Garp had left him, his eyes half-closed. The beast ears atop his head twitched gently in the wind, picking up the rhythm of the entire island.
He tried throwing another punch. A muffled boom rang through the air. Though there were no black-and-red arcs of lightning, the force of his punch pulverized a boulder more than ten meters ahead.
"Still not enough. My body's strength hasn't reached its limit yet."
Lorne stood, brushed the dust off his trousers, and looked toward Kuina and the others fighting in the distant forest.
From that moment, the wheels of those two years officially began to turn.
Spring passed and autumn came. The seasons on the Island of Misfortune cycled extraordinarily quickly.
During the first year, Lorne ran furiously along the seabed of the Calm Belt, carrying twenty tons of seastone weights.
The pressure of the deep sea squeezed every inch of his muscles, pushing the oxygen in his lungs to its limit. His golden Grit aura shone like an inextinguishable beacon in the depths.
By the second year, no beast on the entire Island of Misfortune dared approach its center.
Ancient Zoan giant apes dozens of meters tall and earth dragons capable of spewing poisonous mist would lower their heads and whimper in terror at the