"Too weak. You're not even worth using Three-Finger Nukite on."
Yas's voice was quiet, but it struck Gore the "Butcher" square in the heart like an invisible sledgehammer.
Time seemed to slow infinitely at that moment.
In Gore's bloodshot eyes, twisted with utter terror and madness, that palm covered in a thin layer of blue electrical arcs finally collided with the enormous horse-slaying saber into which he had poured his lifetime's strength, a weapon powerful enough to cleave steel!
The expected sight of a palm split in two, blood and shattered bone flying everywhere, never appeared.
Clang!
An extremely dull, extremely strange sound erupted from the point where blade met palm.
It lacked the clear ring of clashing metal, sounding more like a hammer striking a wad of infinitely resilient cotton. All the force, all the momentum, all the killing intent were utterly swallowed and absorbed by that seemingly unremarkable-sized palm at the instant of contact!
Gore felt a terrifying recoil unlike anything he had ever experienced surge wildly back through the hilt into his arms!
Crack! Crack!
Under that overwhelming, irresistible force, the bones in his arms, thicker than an ordinary person's thighs, groaned under the strain and shattered inch by inch!
"Aaaaaah!"
An agonized scream erupted from Gore's throat. The webs between his thumbs and forefingers burst open instantly around the hilt, blood spraying wildly, and his entire body flew backward with his feet off the ground, as though a battering ram had struck him head-on!
Yet the horse-slaying saber remained suspended in midair.
Yas had caught its blade effortlessly between his five fingers.
"No... impossible..." Gore crashed heavily onto the deck more than ten meters away. Ignoring the excruciating pain in his arms, he stared fixedly at the saber in Yas's hand, his eyes filled with horror and despair worse than death.
That was the Butcher's Fang, which had accompanied him for twenty years, forged by the most renowned craftsman in the West Blue and used to lop off over a hundred heads! It was the foundation of all his martial prowess and fearsome reputation!
How could... how could someone have caught it barehanded?!
Meanwhile, aboard the Vanguard over a hundred meters away, every recruit, including Lieutenant Bullet, who prided himself on having seen it all, had turned to stone.
Their mouths gaped wide enough to fit a Sea King's egg, their eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets.
"What... what did I just see?" Teppei rubbed his eyes, his voice trembling uncontrollably with sheer shock. "The major... he used his hand... to catch that axe?"
"That's not an axe! It's a horse-slaying saber! And... look!" Bullet's voice was equally dry as he raised a trembling finger toward the distance.
On the deck of the Bloody Mary, Yas held the enormous horse-slaying saber between his fingers, as though examining a boring toy.
His icy gaze swept over the so-called "blood-drinking" patterns on the blade, and the disdain and disappointment in his eyes deepened.
"This scrap metal deserves to be called a blade?"
Yas spoke slowly, as though stating the simplest of facts.
The instant his words fell, the five fingers gripping the blade exerted a little pressure.
Bzzzt!
The Lightning Release Chakra coiling around his fingertips suddenly flared!
Crack!
A crisp sound, like a cracker snapping in two, rang out over the deathly silent deck.
Before Gore's instantly frozen, disbelieving gaze, a tiny crack appeared in the horse-slaying saber's incredibly hard blade, which gleamed with cold light.
Then.
Crack! Crack! Crack, crack, crack!
Like a living venomous snake, the crack spread wildly across the entire blade from Yas's fingers!
Within a tenth of a second, web-like fractures covered the entire enormous, two-meter-long blade!
Finally.
Bang!
A dull report!
The murderous weapon that had struck terror into countless merchant ships and Marines, the Butcher's Fang, burst apart in Yas's hand like a shoddy piece of glassware!
It shattered completely into hundreds upon thousands of metal fragments of varying sizes!
Clink, clatter.
Countless fragments gleaming with cold light rained down around Yas's feet, not one managing to cut his spotless "Justice" coat.
A breeze swept past, stirring a few pieces of debris with a hollow sound.
Yas slowly opened his hand, letting the last traces of metal powder drift away on the wind.
He raised his head, his icy gaze settling once more on Gore the "Butcher," who sat utterly stupefied in the distance.
"Now, do you have anything else worth showing me?"
At that moment, Gore's world collapsed completely.
The strength he had taken such pride in was as laughable as an infant's before this man.
The weapon that had made his name was worth less than scrap metal before this man.
All his savagery, all his brutality, all his ambition had been reduced to dust the instant that blade shattered!
All that remained was endless fear that seeped into his very bones!
"You..." Gore's lips trembled. As he watched the figure walking slowly toward him, it overlapped with the despairing eyes of the prey he had tortured to death in his memories.
No, that wasn't right!
This guy was ten thousand times more terrifying than all the prey he had ever seen put together!
He wasn't a Marine at all!
He was a demon in human skin that had crawled out of the deepest depths of hell!
"Don't... don't come any closer!" Using every ounce of strength he had, Gore scrambled backward on his hands and feet, leaving a long smear of blood across the deck.
He wanted to beg for mercy, to kneel and kowtow, to do anything he could to stay alive!
But when he met Yas's utterly calm eyes, which seemed to regard him as an ant, he knew it was all too late.
This man had never intended to let him live!
"Who... who the hell are you?!" Gore let out one last shrill roar of defiance.
His answer came in the form of Yas standing right before him, and a reply as cold as ice.
"Just a Marine passing by."
Yas's voice was soft, as though he were speaking of something utterly insignificant.
"Who happens to hate seeing trash like you still alive on these seas."
Before you continue