Sengoku lost his composure! Potential beyond Rocks?

"Old man. Was that Four-Finger Nukite hard enough?"

Yas's slightly hoarse yet utterly arrogant voice echoed faintly over the ruined plaza, filled with the roar of seawater pouring in.

Had he said those words half an hour earlier, everyone would have dismissed them as a madman's ravings. Now, however, they struck every Marine present in the heart like a sledgehammer.

A hundred meters away, at the edge of the ruins.

Garp slowly lowered the arms he had crossed before his chest. He said nothing, merely lowering his head to stare fixedly at his arms.

Four shallow, scorched-black indentations stood out on the outside of his forearms, which were coated in some of the finest Armament Haki on the seas! Although they had neither broken his skin nor drawn blood, for a top-tier Taijutsu master like Garp, who specialized in honing his body, being marked by a frontal attack while in a defensive stance was itself inconceivable!

"What terrifying penetration." Garp flexed his faintly aching wrists. An unprecedented gravity appeared on his usually carefree face for the first time. "If that hit one of those ability users with frail bodies, it would punch straight through their heart in one blow. This brat is a monster born for slaughter."

Meanwhile, atop the platform.

Crack.

A crisp snap rang out.

Sengoku, known as the "Resourceful General," had unconsciously exerted so much force that he cracked the frames of his treasured Frog Glasses!

Sengoku sprang to his feet. Ordinarily a man who insisted on remaining unruffled even if a mountain collapsed before him, he now had no regard for a general's dignity. Both hands gripped the platform railing, his upper body leaning almost entirely over it. As though witnessing an indescribable miracle, he stared fixedly at the deep, seawater-filled trench cutting across the plaza and the slender youth standing proudly at its edge.

"Zephyr!" Sengoku's voice nearly cracked with extreme shock and excitement. "What forgotten corner did you dig this freak out of?! Did you see what that move really was?!"

Zephyr, who had just blocked the shock waves and leaped back onto the platform in a flash, was still breathing hard. He removed his sunglasses and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. His weathered eyes shone with a fervor more dazzling than the sun.

"No Haki, and none of the assimilation seen during Devil Fruit Awakening." Even Zephyr's voice trembled. "Sengoku, that was a pure destructive technique, compressing some kind of lightning energy into his fingertips at a terrifying density and unleashing it alongside that absurd body of his! The sharpness of that finger... I dare say that even Golden Lion Shiki, who's always shouting about destroying the world over in the New World, couldn't produce slashes with his two famous swords as sharp as this brat's fingers!"

"That's not all." Sengoku drew a deep breath, trying to calm his heart as it thundered like a drum. "Don't forget his age! He's only just joined the recruit camp! If that attack were performed by an adult whose physical development had reached its peak, and coated in Conqueror's Haki!"

Sengoku said no more, but Zephyr already understood the terrifying implications completely.

In this dark era, when the Rocks Pirates loomed over the entire world like storm clouds, the Marines struggled on the front lines. "Whitebeard" Edward Newgate's Tremor-Tremor Fruit, which could trigger earthquakes. Kaido of the "Beasts" and his unkillable monstrous body. And Rocks D. Zebek's unfathomable power of darkness. These monsters sent the casualty figures at Marine Headquarters soaring every day.

The Marines desperately needed fresh blood with overwhelming force, someone who could crush every pirate scheme with the most brutal might!

And now.

With his utterly unrestrained bearing, this youth named Yas had forcibly cleaved open a crack leading to a new era!

"What a thrill! What a damn thrill! Hahahahahaha!"

A burst of thunderous laughter interrupted the discussion on the platform. Down in the plaza, Garp suddenly threw back his head and laughed until tears nearly spilled from his eyes. He strode across the trench and approached Yas, who was panting slightly from exhaustion.

Just as all the recruits thought Garp had lost face and was about to lash out in humiliation and kill him.

Smack!

Garp's broad palm landed heavily on Yas's shoulder, nearly slapping him straight into the ground just as he had caught his breath.

"Brat! That finger of yours really packs a punch! These arms of mine haven't hurt this much in ages!" Garp grinned without restraint. "With that mad-dog fighting style of yours, making you a rule-abiding recruit would be a waste of talent! Why not come aboard my warship? I'll take you to the New World to kill pirates. All you can handle!"

Yas slapped Garp's hand away and snorted. Though his body was exhausted to the extreme, his gaze remained defiant.

"Don't act so friendly. Are we done fighting? I've still got a stronger move I haven't used." Yas spoke coldly. He wasn't boasting. On the system panel, Hell Stab could evolve all the way to "One-Finger Nukite." At present, he still couldn't use the three-finger, two-finger, or even the strongest One-Finger Nukite.

"Fight, my ass!" Garp rolled his eyes. "If I really push you too far and you tear Marineford apart, that old bastard Kongu will dock my entire Senbei allowance for ten years!"

Just then, two almost tangible waves of pressure descended from above.

Sengoku and Zephyr leaped from the platform and landed steadily before Yas.

The thousands of Marine soldiers present instantly fell silent with fear. They all straightened in unison, not daring even to breathe loudly.

Sengoku adjusted his cracked Frog Glasses. His imposing gaze swept over the terrified recruits and veterans around him before finally settling on Yas's defiant face.

As Sengoku looked at Yas, the grand plan in his mind for breaking the deadlock in the Marines' future was finally settled. For a fanatic like Yas, who revered absolute violence, an ordinary Elite Training Camp would not only fail to hone him, but might instead restrain his terrifying wildness! Only by throwing such a monster directly onto the cruelest, bloodiest front lines could they transform him, at the fastest possible speed, into a Marine god of slaughter who could subdue the seas!

Sengoku took a deep breath. His voice, infused with powerful internal energy, rolled into everyone's ears like spring thunder.

"This live-combat assessment ends here!"

"Recruit Yas has demonstrated strength, will, and resolve far beyond the ordinary in this assessment! His assessment rating is S, the highest since the Marines were founded!"

Sengoku paused, a flicker of determination crossing his eyes. He bypassed every formality of Marine promotion.

"By the joint decision of Head Instructor Zephyr, Vice Admiral Garp, and myself, recruit Yas is hereby granted an exceptional promotion!"

Staring into Yas's utterly calm eyes, Sengoku announced, word by word, the decision that instantly sent the entire plaza into an uproar.

"From this moment on, you are no longer a recruit."

"Yas! In my capacity as a Marine Admiral, I hereby grant you, as an exception-!"