"My turn."
The instant Yas's calm yet endlessly terrifying words fell, his figure vanished from Dr. Indigo's pupils, which had suddenly contracted in utter terror!
It wasn't high-speed movement!
It wasn't Shave from the Six Powers!
It was a purer, even more unreasonable kind of disappearance into thin air!
As though he had never existed in that spot!
"What?!"
Alarm bells blared in Dr. Indigo's mind. His battle-hardened Observation Haki spread frantically, trying to catch Yas's trail.
Yet all his Observation Haki sensed was a chaotic, violent aura of black lightning. He couldn't pinpoint any specific location at all!
"Where is he?!"
Dr. Indigo was terrified beyond measure. He spun around frantically like a headless chicken, trying to find that ghostlike enemy.
Just then, an icy voice sounded softly beside his ear, like a breath from the deepest pits of hell.
"Too slow."
"!"
Dr. Indigo felt a chill shoot straight up his spine to the crown of his head. Without thinking, he tried to throw himself in the direction opposite the voice!
But an iron fist clad in black Raijin Armor was faster than his reactions, faster than his nerves, faster than his thoughts!
Thud!
A dull impact rang out.
That fist didn't strike a vital spot. Instead, it pressed into the center of his back with neither a light nor a heavy blow.
Dr. Indigo felt an overwhelming force surge into him. It pierced his Armament Haki, pierced his muscles and bones, and slammed viciously into his internal organs!
"Bleuugh!"
A mouthful of blood mixed with fragments of internal organs burst from his mouth. As though struck by a speeding train, his entire body flew forward against his will!
Yet before his body could fly three meters away.
"I told you. Too slow."
That devilish voice actually appeared directly in front of him again!
As though teleporting, Yas silently appeared in the path of his hurtling body.
Dr. Indigo's face, twisted with terror, grew steadily larger in Yas's emotionless, ice-blue eyes.
Yas slowly raised his right hand and extended one finger.
A finger covered in menacing Black Lightning armor.
Then, under Dr. Indigo's utterly despairing gaze, he lightly flicked his forehead.
Thonk!
The sound wasn't loud, yet it seemed to toll the funeral bell of hell!
Dr. Indigo felt as though his head had been smashed by a ten-thousand-ton hammer. His entire mind went blank in an instant, buzzing loudly!
His body traced a strange arc through the air. Like a torn sack, he flew back in the opposite direction again and crashed heavily onto the deck of his Swan Flagship, smashing a huge, human-shaped depression into the hard deck!
"Ugh, cough, cough."
Indigo struggled to climb out of the depression. His forehead had swollen high, and blood ran down his cheeks, mingling with his ridiculous geisha makeup and leaving him looking utterly wretched.
He coughed violently. Every breath made his lungs hurt as though knives were slicing through them.
But he could no longer spare any attention for that.
He raised his head in horror and stared fixedly at that still-spotless white figure on the distant bow of the Leviathan, his eyes filled with a fear more intense than death itself.
Teleportation!
This monster could actually teleport!
The speed he took such pride in was like a baby's crawl before him!
His swordsmanship, powerful enough to cleave mountains, couldn't break through his defenses!
His battle-hardened Observation Haki couldn't catch his trail!
How was he supposed to fight this?
This wasn't a battle at all!
It was a one-sided, foregone exercise in toying with and slaughtering him!
"What kind of speed was that?"
The bridge of the Leviathan had likewise fallen into dead silence.
Bullet, Brannew, and every crew member stared blankly at Yas on the screen as he toyed with his enemy like a phantom, feeling as though their breathing was about to stop.
"Lightning Body Flicker."
The gaunt man whose life Yas had spared, the wielder of the Silent-Silent Fruit's power, knelt on the floor, trembling all over as he murmured as though in a dream.
His fruit ability allowed him to achieve perfect stealth. But before the terrifying speed Yas had just displayed, which disregarded space and distance, his ability was nothing short of an enormous joke!
"A monster... no, he's a demon god. We're following a true demon god."
At that moment, the very last trace of reverence and fear everyone held toward Yas completely transformed into pure, bone-deep, fanatical faith!
"Can you still stand?"
Yas's indifferent voice once again crossed hundreds of meters and reached Dr. Indigo's ears clearly.
"It seems your body is a little tougher than I imagined."
Yas's figure flickered again. This time, he appeared directly on the bow of the Swan Flagship, facing Dr. Indigo from a distance.
He walked step by step toward the enemy who had already completely lost his will to fight.
His footsteps were light, but each one seemed to land on Indigo's heart, multiplying his fear.
"Stay back!"
Dr. Indigo backed away in terror until his back pressed against the cold door to the captain's quarters, leaving him nowhere else to retreat.
"What the hell do you want?!" he roared, putting on a fierce front despite his fear. "I'm Lord Shiki the Golden Lion's chief officer! If you kill me, Lord Shiki will never let you get away with it!"
He tried to use the Golden Lion's name to frighten off the invincible demon god before him.
Yet Yas merely curled his lip in disdain.
"The Golden Lion?"
As though he had heard something interesting, the corner of his mouth curved into an icy smile.
"Perfect. I'm very interested in him, too."
"Once I've dealt with you, he'll be next."
Yas's voice was calm, yet it conveyed an absolute dominance that treated legends as nothing!
"You lunatic!"
Indigo was utterly stunned by Yas's outrageously arrogant words.
Challenge the Golden Lion?
How could there be such an ignorant, reckless lunatic in this world?!
Watching Yas close in step by step, Dr. Indigo knew he had no way out.
His opponent wouldn't accept his pleas for mercy.
Running would only humiliate him.
Since he would die either way...
"Aaaaaaah!"
Driven into a corner, Dr. Indigo's eyes suddenly blazed with the frenzied ferocity of a trapped beast!
He stopped trying to attack Yas. Instead, he abruptly turned and smashed open the door to the captain's quarters behind him with a punch, snatching out a heavily protected briefcase that gleamed with a metallic luster!
"You forced me to do this!"
Dr. Indigo let out a crazed roar. He flung open the briefcase and took out a row of more than a dozen enormous syringes filled with an eerie green liquid!
"Since you want to die, I'll drag you, this ship of yours, and everyone in these waters down to hell with me!"
He looked at the syringes in his hands, a smile more savage and crazed than a devil's spreading across his face.
"Behold, brat!"
"The ultimate power I created with my own hands, one that even Lord Shiki praised, powerful enough to change the world's ecology!"
"Witness the true terror of IQ!"
Before you continue