"You know nothing about strength."
When Yas's voice, calm as still water, rang out in the dim cabin,
the scrawny boy with the Chain-Chain Fruit felt an unprecedented sense of absurdity well up inside him.
What nonsense was this Marine spouting?
I'm a Devil Fruit User! One of the chosen! A powerhouse who can easily twist even steel to pieces!
And you're just an ordinary human who doesn't even look as sturdy as me!
What gives you the right to say I...
In the next instant, the boy's thoughts were utterly cut off by a terrifying hurricane powerful enough to tear his soul apart.
He saw it.
He saw the Marine casually throw a punch straight ahead.
No flashy moves.
No terrifying aura.
Not even the slightest fluctuation of energy.
Just a simple straight punch.
Yet the instant that punch-which looked feeble and utterly harmless to him-was thrown, something inconceivable happened.
An indescribable force compressed the air before the fist into a visible, constantly warping transparent barrier!
Then, at a terrifying speed beyond sound, beyond even light, that barrier slammed into his "inescapable net" woven from dozens of metal chains!
Riiip-!
At that moment, time seemed to slow infinitely.
In the boy's bloodshot, disbelieving eyes,
the tough chains created by his Devil Fruit power, strong enough to strangle through a warship's mast, became like fragile glass striking a locomotive at full speed the instant they touched that transparent barrier.
There was no fierce collision as he had imagined.
No contest between metal and strength.
Only an overwhelming, utterly one-sided... pulverization!
Crack! Crack, crack, crack-!
A dense series of teeth-grating cracks filled the cabin.
Starting at the point of contact, the gleaming metal chains snapped and disintegrated inch by inch, turning into metal fragments that flew everywhere!
This wave of destruction swept forward unstoppably, utterly defying reason as it raced back along the chains toward their source-the boy's arms!
"No... that's impossible!"
The boy shrieked, his voice warped with horror.
He could feel a terrifying force so pure that it made his very soul tremble, viciously ravaging his body through the link between him and his Devil Fruit power!
He wanted to retract his power, to sever the connection.
But it was already too late!
That force moved far faster than he could react!
"Aaaaaargh-!"
A scream so piercing it barely sounded human erupted from the boy's mouth.
Like pottery smashed by immense force, his arms shattered inch by inch from his fingertips, bone, flesh, and sinew turning into a blurred cloud of blood in an instant!
But it wasn't over yet!
After pulverizing the chains and his arms, the overwhelming pressure of that terrifying punch lost none of its momentum as it slammed into the Seastone cage behind him!
BOOOOM-!!!
An earth-shaking crash finally erupted!
Made from a special material and sturdy enough to imprison most Devil Fruit Users, the cage was blasted open like paper by the wind of that punch, leaving a huge, human-shaped hole!
The violent blast swept deeper into the cabin, carrying fragments of metal and stone, flinging aside and tearing apart every cage in its path!
That single punch punched a horrifying hole more than ten meters across straight through the bottom of the Razor!
Bone-chilling seawater poured madly inside under immense pressure, like a beast that had found an outlet!
"The ship... the ship's sinking!"
"Run!"
The captives who had only just been freed from their cages had no time to offer thanks before this sudden apocalyptic scene frightened them out of their wits, sending them scrambling and crawling toward the deck.
Meanwhile, Brannew, who had just rushed into the cabin, ran straight into that devastating shock wave.
"Oh no!"
Brannew's expression changed drastically. Without hesitation, he pushed his recently awakened Armament Haki to its limit and crossed his arms in front of him.
Bam!
With a dull thud, Brannew felt as though a charging prehistoric beast had slammed into him.
An irresistible force surged through his arms, sending him flying backward like a kite with its string cut. He crashed hard into the wall behind him with a pained grunt.
"Cough... cough, cough..."
Brannew coughed up several mouthfuls of blood. His internal organs felt as though they had all shifted out of place, and his arms were so numb and aching that he could barely feel them.
Horrified, he raised his head and looked into the smoke-filled depths of the cabin.
What did he see?
He saw Captain Yas, who should have been trapped by the chains, still standing quietly in place, slowly drawing back his fist.
Not a speck of dust had touched him.
In the dim cabin, his white Justice Coat seemed to radiate a holy glow.
At his feet, the boy with the Chain-Chain Fruit had been reduced to a mangled heap, both arms severed at the shoulders and his chest deeply caved in. He clearly wasn't going to survive.
Brannew's mind went blank again.
One punch...
Just one punch!
A punch that hadn't even used Haki!
And it had broken through a Devil Fruit User's trap, through a Seastone cage, and through the bottom of the entire ship?!
This... this fucking...
You call that an ordinary punch?!
Brannew roared frantically inside.
Looking at Yas's face, still utterly unruffled, he understood the meaning of the word "monster" for the first time.
This man's strength didn't lie in his unfathomable Black Lightning, nor in his Raijin Armor that could incorporate Haki.
It lay in his purest, most fundamental... physical body!
His body itself was the most terrifying, most unreasonable ultimate weapon in the world!
"Move faster."
Yas glanced indifferently at Brannew, who was still questioning everything, a hint of urgency in his voice.
"The ship's about to sink. Take every living captive back to the Leviathan. Leave no one behind."
"Yes, Captain Yas!"
Brannew jolted as though struck by electricity and scrambled to his feet.
Not daring to delay in the slightest, he endured the intense pain inside his body and immediately began organizing the Marine soldiers rushing in to carry out the rescue.
Yas paid no further attention to these minor matters.
With a flash of movement, he reappeared on the severely tilted deck.
The icy seawater had already submerged most of the hull. The Razor, once infamous at the entrance to the New World, would sink completely beneath the sea within minutes.
Just as Yas was about to return to his own ship,
his Mantra·Observation Haki, already covering thousands of meters around him, suddenly detected an extremely cold, powerful presence filled with malice and greed.
That presence was rapidly approaching from the distant stretch of sea shrouded in thick fog.
Beside it was another, entirely different fluctuation of strange energy, like elusive, insubstantial smoke.
"Hm?"
Yas slowly turned and directed his gaze toward that eerie fog.
"Has the big fish hiding in the back finally lost patience and decided to come out?"
The corners of his mouth curved into a cold, expectant smile.
Almost at the very moment his words fell,
Whooo-whooo-!
An ominous blast of a horn, seemingly rising from the depths of hell, pierced the thick fog and carried across the sea.
Then a terrifying, pitch-black vessel, larger than the Razor and Leviathan combined, slowly emerged from the fog like a ghost, its bow shaped like a giant venomous snake flicking its tongue.
From its mast hung a sinister pirate flag bearing an enormous iron whip and crossed bones.
Above that pirate flag flew another, even more terrifying banner-a huge skull, two crossed long blades behind it, and three eyes!
The Rocks Pirates!
This ship was an officer's warship belonging to the core Rocks Pirates!
"Captain Yas! It's... it's 'Iron Whip' Garseron!"
On the Leviathan's bridge, Brannew had only just caught his breath when the sight of the Iron Whip Flag turned his face paler than a corpse.
His voice trembled and warped with extreme fear.
"A bounty of 130 million Beli! Captain of the Rocks Pirates' Eighth Division! A devil infamous throughout the New World for torture and sadistic murder!"
"Why is he here?! The intelligence never said he'd escort the shipment himself!"
Like an invisible hand, fear once again tightened around the throats of everyone aboard the Leviathan.
If Bloodjaw Carlos was a vicious wolf,
then Iron Whip Garselon was a genuine prehistoric tyrannosaur that had crawled out of the mountains of corpses and seas of blood in the deepest reaches of the New World!
He was a terrifying being on an entirely different level!
The enormous ghost ship slowly stopped a hundred meters away, facing the Leviathan across the water.
A tall, thin man in luxurious aristocratic formalwear stood at the bow, toying with a long whip that looked as though it had been cast from black iron, watching them with keen interest.
He looked like an elegant gentleman, but his narrow, viperlike eyes gleamed with chilling cruelty and brutality.
"Oh my, oh my. What a splendid performance I've witnessed."
Garseron lightly tapped the railing with his iron whip, producing a crisp sound.
His gaze passed over the sinking Razor and settled directly on Yas.
"You disposed of my useless subordinate Carlos all by yourself, and destroyed one of my precious 'sacrifices,' too."
He stuck out his tongue and licked his lips, his smile elegant and deadly.
"When did Marine Headquarters produce such an interesting little fellow?"
"As compensation for destroying my toy, would you give me yourself, along with that beautiful ship of yours?"
"Of course, I won't make you give them up for nothing."
Garseron snapped his fingers.
From the shadows behind him, a humanoid figure composed entirely of gray smoke slowly emerged, its face indistinct.
That elusive, insubstantial presence unique to a Logia Devil Fruit User instantly enveloped the entire area.
"This is another of my collectibles, a user of the Logia Smoke-Smoke Fruit."
Garseron pointed his whip at the smoke man, then at Yas, speaking as though bestowing a reward.
"Now, you have two choices."
"One, kneel and become my new slave."
"Two, be torn to pieces by him, then sink into this icy sea."
"Which will you choose, my adorable little Marine?"
Before you continue