"Hell Stab: Two-Finger Nukite!"
As Yas's voice, like a death sentence from the reaper, rang across the sea shrouded in gray smoke.
Smoker, hidden at the heart of the smoke, felt an unprecedented sense of mortal danger erupt within him, terrifying enough to freeze his very soul!
He did not even have time to react.
Before he saw it.
Within that "hell cage" he took such pride in, capable of blocking all light and perception.
Two points of light lit up.
They were two blue-black points of unfathomable depth, as though all the destruction and finality in the universe had condensed within them.
The instant those lights appeared, the entire world of smoke he had created began to tremble violently and wail, as though it could not bear the existence of that power!
Riiip-!
There was no earth-shattering boom, only a piercing shriek as though space itself had been torn apart.
Those two lights tore through layer upon layer of poisonous smoke at a speed that utterly defied the laws of physics and transcended cause and effect, stabbing with absolute precision toward his physical heart hidden in the deepest reaches of the smoke!
"No-!"
Smoker let out the last, most desperate roar of his life.
His Observation Haki screamed warnings at him!
His instincts as a Logia user were screaming frantically too, telling him to flee!
He wanted to run!
He wanted to turn his body entirely into intangible smoke and dissolve into the world around him!
But he could not!
An invisible, supremely overbearing will pinned his body down and imprisoned his soul like billions of invisible mountains!
Before those two points of destructive light, the elemental transformation he took such pride in was nothing but a joke!
All he could do was watch.
Watch those two fingers pressed together, wrapped in eerie blue-black energy, grow larger and larger in his pupils!
Finally.
Pfft!
An exceedingly faint sound rang out, like fabric tearing.
Yas's right hand, shrouded in the power of Two-Finger Nukite, pierced Smoker's chest without the slightest resistance.
Time seemed to freeze for eternity at that moment.
Smoker lowered his head blankly.
He looked at the hand protruding from his back, still flickering with destructive arcs of electricity, his face filled with confusion and disbelief.
He felt no pain.
Because an even more terrifying force, one destroying everything about him at its very root, had already surged through that hand into every part of his body!
It was a power born purely to "pierce" and "destroy"!
It had not merely destroyed his heart and his body.
It was even... destroying the Devil Fruit within him!
Smoker could clearly "see" the essence of the Devil Fruit deep within his soul, fused with him and embodying the power of smoke, cracking and crumbling inch by inch under the onslaught of that blue-black lightning!
An unprecedented agony, the pain of being forcibly stripped away and erased at the very root of his life, finally washed over him like a tide!
"Ugh... ah... my... power..."
Smoker opened his mouth wide, but could only let out hoarse, unintelligible cries of anguish.
His body, once able to turn freely into smoke, seemed to lose control, flickering wildly and uncontrollably between solid flesh and smoke.
Finally, as the Devil Fruit essence within him shattered completely.
Boom!
The "hell cage" shrouding the entire sea vanished in an instant, like an illusion that had lost its support!
It revealed the utterly horrific sight within.
Yas remained in his piercing stance, his expression cold.
Impaled on his hand, the once-arrogant Logia user Smoker had fallen utterly silent, his eyes wide and his face frozen in extreme pain and terror, while his body visibly dissolved into wisps of the most ordinary smoke, unable to reform, dispersing into the world.
Smoker, wielder of the Logia-type Smoke-Smoke Fruit.
Dead!
"S-Smoker?!"
In the distance, the smile on "Iron Whip" Garseron's face had long since frozen.
He stared fixedly at the horrifying sight revealed by the dissipating smoke, rooted to the spot as though struck by lightning.
What had he just seen?
Smoker... was dead?
That Logia user he had considered almost invincible had just... died?
That young Marine had pierced him with two fingers as easily as popping a balloon?!
No!
Impossible!
Absolutely impossible!
He was a Logia user!
No matter how powerful that boy's Armament Haki was, it could not possibly kill a Logia user outright in one blow!
As long as even a trace of their elemental body remained, Logia users could regenerate endlessly!
Unless... unless...
An utterly absurd thought, one that made even Garseron's own blood run cold, sprang irrepressibly into his mind.
Unless that strike had not merely pierced Smoker's body.
It had also shattered the Devil Fruit essence within him!
"Monster..."
Garseron's lips trembled as he watched that white-clad figure slowly withdraw his hand from the corpse, his expression utterly unruffled. For the first time, fear appeared in Garseron's eyes.
Just where had this brat come from?
Since when had Marine Headquarters produced such an absurd monster?!
Meanwhile, aboard the Leviathan, there was nothing but deathly silence.
Everyone had watched the entire battle through the Surveillance Den Den Mushi.
From Smoker unleashing his "hell cage," to Yas piercing the smoke, to the "myth" of Logia users being shattered in a single blow.
The whole process had taken no more than ten seconds.
Yet those ten seconds had shaken them more than all the previous decades of their lives combined!
"O-one blow... he killed a Logia user instantly?"
A young Marine's legs gave out, and he collapsed to the deck, murmuring as though in a dream.
At that moment, Yas had utterly crushed his understanding of the world in the crudest, most direct way possible.
"I... I'm not dreaming, am I?"
"A god... he's a god!"
"We're following a true god!"
After that brief, deathly silence, a thunderous roar erupted across the bridge and throughout the Leviathan, more fervent and devout than ever before!
If Yas annihilating Carlos with black lightning had inspired fear and awe.
Then Yas piercing a Logia user with a finger now inspired pure, bone-deep... faith!
In their eyes, Yas was no longer merely a powerful commanding officer.
He was a god walking among mortals!
The embodiment of Marine justice!
The one true god destined to sweep away this age of evil and usher in a new era!
"Hahaha... hahahahaha!"
Brannew laughed too.
As he laughed, two trails of scalding tears spilled from the corners of his eyes.
He felt ashamed of his earlier ignorance and stupidity.
And he felt supremely honored and fortunate to follow such a god in his lifetime!
"Pass on my orders!"
Brannew wiped away his tears and roared in a hoarse voice filled with pride and fervor.
"All gunports! Aim at the enemy flagship!"
"Once Captain Yas finishes the last enemy, we'll unleash our fiercest bombardment and offer our god... a victory salute!"
"Yes, sir!"
The crew roared in unison, their voices filled with the excitement of being about to witness history.
Meanwhile, out on the sea.
Yas flicked the nonexistent blood from his hand and turned his gaze toward Garseron on the distant ghost ship, whose face had gone deathly pale and whose forehead was beaded with cold sweat.
"Now, you're the only one left."
Yas's voice was quiet, yet it struck Garseron's heart like a massive, invisible hammer.
"You..."
Garseron's body trembled slightly.
Run?
He glanced at Yas's cold eyes, which seemed capable of seeing through everything, and instantly dismissed that foolish thought.
Against a monster who could teleport and kill a Logia user in an instant, running would only bring humiliation.
Fight!
Only a fight to the death could offer a chance of survival!
"Aaaaaaah!"
Driven into a corner, Garseron's eyes suddenly blazed with the savage madness of a trapped beast!
He abandoned his ridiculous pretense of gentlemanly manners, his entire body exuding an almost tangible aura of bloodthirsty brutality!
"Don't get too cocky, brat!"
Garseron roared like a wild beast. "I'm not trash like Smoker, who can only rely on his Devil Fruit power!"
Boom!
Armament Haki far more concentrated and overbearing than Carlos's erupted from his body!
The black iron whip in his hand underwent an eerie transformation as well!
Fine layers of keratin resembling snake scales sprouted across its surface, while its tip became a ferocious snake's head, its forked tongue flicking in and out!
Zoan-type Snake-Snake Fruit, King Cobra Form!
Even his weapon had eaten a Devil Fruit!
This was the technology for "feeding Devil Fruits to objects" developed by the Marine scientist Vegapunk, something only occasionally seen in the New World!
"Take a good look, brat!"
Garseron poured his Armament Haki furiously into the weapon that had become a "snake whip," until his aura seemed to merge with that of his weapon!
"This is the true strength of a Rocks Pirates officer!"
"Secret art: Ten Thousand Snakes Strangulation!"
Garseron snapped his wrist, and the now-living "snake whip" seemed to possess a life of its own, instantly transforming into thousands upon thousands of ferocious venomous snake phantoms that filled the sky and lunged at Yas from every direction!
Every snake phantom carried his Armament Haki, powerful enough to pierce steel plating!
This strike was the signature move that had made his name!
It was what truly allowed him to hold his position as captain of Rocks's Eighth Division!
He believed that even a Marine Headquarters Vice Admiral would have to avoid the brunt of this killing blow!
Yet faced with the sky full of snake phantoms, Yas merely... frowned again.
"Another flashy, hollow move."
His patience was almost exhausted.
"Too noisy."
He did not want to play anymore.
Under Garseron's horrified gaze, Yas used neither Nukite nor any other technique.
He simply raised his right hand slowly, spreading his fingers toward the sky full of snake phantoms and Garseron behind them.
And gently closed his hand.
"Black Lightning: God's Cage."
The next second.
Countless black arcs, finer than strands of hair and almost impossible to see with the naked eye, erupted in every direction with Yas at their center!
They wove together in midair into an immense... black lightning net spanning a thousand-meter radius!
It enveloped the sky full of snake phantoms, Garseron himself, and the enormous ghost ship beneath his feet!
"Wh-what is this?!"
Garseron cried out in disbelief as he stared at the black arcs around him, radiating destruction.
But no one answered him anymore.
Yas abruptly drew his clenched fist inward.
"Be annihilated."
Riiip-!!!
The black lightning net covering that entire stretch of sea contracted violently!
Before you continue