"He disappeared?"
The instant Yas abruptly vanished from the Leviathan's bow, not only Bloodjaw Carlos opposite him, but also Brannew and the others on the Leviathan's bridge froze.
Where had he gone?
How could a full-grown man simply disappear?
"Shave?"
The high-speed movement technique from the Six Powers flashed instinctively through Brannew's mind.
But a moment later, he immediately rejected the idea.
Impossible.
Even a top CP0 agent who had perfected Shave could never move so silently and without a trace aboard warships charging toward each other at such speed.
This was no longer a matter of speed.
Was this a spatial leap?
In the brief tenth of a second that everyone stood stunned by this supernatural sight-
Boom!
A terrifying crash loud enough to tear everyone's eardrums erupted between the two ships.
The Leviathan's ferocious beast-shaped prow finally slammed into the Razor's sturdy hull in the most savage, brutal way possible.
The terrifying impact violently shook both steel behemoths, each weighing tens of thousands of tons.
Before the Leviathan, the Navy's greatest masterpiece, the Razor's seemingly sturdy hull was like paper. An enormous hole was punched through it in an instant.
Countless pirates were thrown off their feet by the violent impact, screaming as they fell into the bone-chilling sea, only to be instantly swallowed by the enormous surges between the ships.
But Carlos could no longer spare them any attention.
His pupils abruptly shrank to pinpoints in utter terror.
He stared fixedly straight ahead. His face, usually filled with brutality and vicious grins, now held nothing but boundless, ghost-stricken horror.
Because the young Marine who should have been on the other ship's bow was now standing quietly before him.
Standing in the middle of the Razor's deck.
Less than ten meters away.
How had he gotten here?
No one had seen.
To everyone's senses, he was like a ghost, a phantom appearing out of thin air, descending soundlessly onto this bloody deck of theirs.
"A devil."
The pirate closest to Yas looked at the white-clad figure who had suddenly appeared beside him and scrambled backward in terror. His weapon fell to the deck with a clatter.
His words became the spark that ignited panic across the deck.
"He's here! When did he get here?"
"A monster! A monster's come aboard!"
The deck, roaring with noise and murderous intent only moments before, fell deathly silent within a single second. Then even greater chaos and panic erupted.
As the pirates looked at that figure, like a demon god descended upon the world, the bloodlust and greed in their hearts were instantly replaced by boundless uncertainty and fear.
What they faced was not human at all.
It was a teleporting devil wearing a Justice Coat.
"All of you, stand your ground!"
Carlos finally recovered from his utter shock. Looking at his terrified subordinates, their formation in complete disarray, he let out a frenzied, bestial roar.
"What are you afraid of? He's just one man! There are over a thousand of us! Chop him into mincemeat!"
Carlos's enormous metal jaw opened and closed in fury, giving off a grating screech.
"Whoever cuts off his head gets ten million Beli! And I'll make him captain of the third division!"
A rich reward always brought forth brave men.
Greed for money and status finally overcame fear once again.
Besides, their opponent really was alone.
"Kill him!"
"For ten million Beli!"
"Let's take him down!"
Driven into a corner, the pirates' eyes turned bloodshot again. Howling like beasts and brandishing swords and axes, they surged fearlessly from every direction like a black tide toward the proud, solitary white figure in the middle of the deck.
Hundreds of weapons gleaming coldly cut off every avenue of escape from every angle.
This encirclement was meant to guarantee a kill.
In Carlos's eyes, even a Marine Admiral caught in such a hopeless situation could never emerge unscathed.
Yet faced with the enemies surging toward him like a tide, Yas's mask remained utterly expressionless.
He did not even raise his eyelids.
He simply stood there quietly, as though watching a swarm of moths fly into a flame.
In the second before the first blade struck him, he finally moved.
He did not dodge.
Nor did he use any moves.
He merely raised his right hand slowly and extended a single finger.
His index finger.
Then he gently thrust it toward the vicious-faced pirate charging at the very front.
"Take my One-Finger Nukite."
Thud.
The pirate, over two meters tall and built like a bear, still wore the excitement of a man about to cut someone down.
He saw nothing, only felt a cool touch on his forehead, as though a mosquito had bitten him.
Then an irresistible, destructive force detonated inside his brain.
His body went limp. Before he could even scream, he fell straight backward.
There was only an inconspicuous, pinpoint-sized scorch mark on his forehead.
This was merely the beginning.
Bzzt! Bzzt! Bzzt!
A streak of blue lightning began flashing and leaping wildly across the chaotic deck, following a completely irregular path beyond the limits of human vision.
Every flash marked the end of a life.
"One-Finger Nukite."
Thud!
A pirate attacking from behind had his heart pierced by Yas's finger as Yas turned like a phantom.
"One-Finger Nukite."
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Three pirates charged in a small battle formation. A simple sweep of Yas's knife-hand cut across all three throats at once. Three heads flew into the air, disbelief still lingering on their faces.
It was a slaughter.
A slaughter without suspense or beauty, yet efficient to a horrifying degree.
Yas used no complicated moves at all. He simply brought the extreme speed and strength granted by Lightning Release Chakra Mode, along with the extreme penetrating power of One-Finger Nukite, to their fullest extent.
He was like a reaper leaping through lightning. Wherever he passed, he left only corpses with scorched marks between their brows.
In less than a minute.
The once-crowded, noisy deck had grown empty.
Apart from the howling sea wind and the cries of astonishment coming from the distant Leviathan, only two people remained standing aboard the entire Razor.
Yas.
And Bloodjaw Carlos, standing at the captain's cabin door, utterly dumbstruck.
Yas slowly withdrew his finger.
Not a single trace of blood stained him.
His white Justice Coat remained spotless, looking so dazzling and so sacred beneath the blood-red setting sun.
He walked toward Carlos, step by step.
His footsteps were light. Yet each step seemed to land upon Carlos's heart, already filled with terror.
"Y-you stay away!"
Carlos's voice trembled. He backed away step by step until his back pressed against the cold door of the captain's cabin, leaving him nowhere else to retreat.
"What the hell are you?"
He looked at his subordinates lying dead or wounded across the deck. He looked at the devil strolling leisurely toward him. All his cruelty, all his savagery, all his ambition were crushed to pieces in that moment.
All that remained was endless fear that seeped into his very bones.
Yet just as Yas prepared to end this tedious farce with a single finger-
A ferocious gleam suddenly flared in the cornered Carlos's eyes, like a trapped beast making its final struggle.
"Aaaaaah! I'll take you down!"
Carlos let out a bestial roar. His steel-like muscles bulged, and veins writhed beneath his skin like earthworms.
He suddenly raised the enormous spiked club that had accompanied him for half his life and smashed countless skulls. Pouring every last ounce of his strength into it, he brought it crashing down at Yas's head.
Whoosh!
The enormous spiked club tore through the air with a piercing whistle.
This strike was the dying struggle of a notorious pirate with a ninety-eight-million bounty, staking everything he had.
He believed that even steel plates, even a Navy warship, could be smashed in two by this blow.
Yet faced with this crushing blow powerful enough to shatter stone, Yas did not even dodge.
He could not even be bothered to strengthen the Raijin Armor around him.
He simply raised his head slowly. Watching the spike-covered club grow larger in his pupils, he uttered a few words in utter boredom.
"Too loud."
The next instant.
In Carlos's bloodshot eyes, distorted by extreme terror and madness-
Yas neither reached out to catch it nor thrust out a finger.
He simply stood there quietly, allowing that world-shattering blow to crash down hard toward the crown of his head.
What was he trying to do?
Was he going to take it head-on with his skull?
The instant that thought flashed through Carlos's mind, an unprecedented, terrifying aura that made his very soul tremble suddenly erupted from Yas's body.
It was not blue lightning.
It was a pure, profound, absolute blackness that seemed capable of devouring everything in the world.
"Are you done talking?"
Yas's icy voice exploded in Carlos's ears like a death sentence pronounced by the reaper from the deepest depths of hell.
Then violent, destructive black lightning erupted skyward from his body like an exploding volcano.
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