Gin supported Krieg, one leg suspended in midair after he had just stepped forward, unable to bring it down.
It felt like being targeted by an apex predator, his genetic instincts screaming, "Don't move."
"Damn it... damn it!"
Krieg was, after all, an admiral who had commanded a fleet of five thousand men. At that moment, his will to survive overcame his fear.
He shoved Gin away and pulled a Poison Gas Bomb launcher from his shattered armor, his face contorted.
"He's just one man! Men! He's a Marine! Falling into Marine hands means certain death!"
Krieg's voice was hoarse and frantic, spittle flying everywhere. "Charge! Kill him! We can only survive if we kill him! Whoever kills him gets to be vice admiral!"
Desperate thugs were the easiest to incite.
The fear in the eyes of the pirates, who had been frozen in place, gradually gave way to the ferocity of cornered beasts.
"Kill him!"
"We're dead either way! Fight!"
Hundreds of vicious pirates raised their blades, guns, and cannons, letting out earthshaking roars as they surged toward Lin Xuan beneath the mast like a murky tide.
Gunfire and cannon fire mingled with deafening battle cries, instantly throwing the scene into chaos.
Standing atop the mast, Lin Xuan looked down at those contorted faces.
The weak always swung their blades out of fear and roared out of despair.
"Too noisy."
Lin Xuan sighed softly and rubbed between his brows in annoyance.
Cutting down this many small fry one by one would not only waste time but also dirty his clothes and spoil his mood for eating at the restaurant.
Since that old bastard Garp had taught him, he might as well put a few basic skills to use.
Lin Xuan slowly opened his perpetually half-lidded eyes.
For an instant, those black pupils seemed to turn into two black holes that devoured light.
An invisible aura abruptly spread outward in a sphere centered on him, its force even more overbearing than spiritual pressure.
It was the King's Disposition that stood above tens of thousands.
It was a power that only those with absolute will could wield.
Conqueror's Haki.
Humm-!
A low vibration seemed to pass through the air, audible only to the soul.
There was no explosion, no flash of fire. Even the wind fell still.
The vicious expression on the face of the pirate at the front, who held a cutlass, froze instantly. His eyes rolled back, and as though his backbone had been pulled out, he toppled forward stiffly without so much as a grunt.
It was like knocking over the first domino.
Thud, thud, thud...
The once-deafening battle cries were cut off as though an enormous invisible hand had viciously strangled them.
The hundreds of pirates who had been so ferocious just moments earlier now fell in swathes like harvested wheat.
Their weapons struck the deck with sharp clatters.
From bow to stern, from deck to lookout platform.
In the mere blink of an eye.
Apart from Lin Xuan atop the mast, not a single living creature remained standing on the entire ship.
Even the seagulls that had been circling overhead flapped their wings and plunged into the sea like kites with severed strings.
Krieg still held his Poison Gas Bomb launcher raised, but his consciousness had already sunk into darkness. His massive body crashed down like a heap of scrap metal, landing on Gin, who had likewise rolled his eyes back and passed out.
The world was quiet.
Standing high above, Lin Xuan gave a bored yawn. Releasing Conqueror's Haki at this level did not even count as a warm-up for him.
He turned his head, his gaze crossing several hundred meters of sea to the Baratie's distant terrace.
The air over there seemed to have grown somewhat stagnant because of the commotion here.
Dead silence spread to the seafaring restaurant Baratie's terrace.
The sea breeze swept past, lifting a few paper napkins into awkward spirals in the air.
The formerly noisy diners and the Combat Cooks holding their knives and forks all stood frozen in comical poses.
The oversized ladle in Paddy's hand fell onto his instep with a clang, but he did not even flinch. He simply gaped at the distant warship wreck filled with unconscious people and the back of the Marine lightly leaping down from its mast toward them.
Those were hundreds of people.
Not hundreds of ants.
Had they really fallen in perfect unison without shedding even a single drop of blood?
Lin Xuan landed on both feet, his military boots making dull tapping sounds against the Baratie's well-maintained teak deck.
The sound was quiet, yet it seemed to fall in time with everyone's heartbeat, making quite a few people instinctively retreat half a step.
"What... what was that?"
Ace scratched the back of his head, his little freckles bunching together in confusion.
He looked at the Krieg Pirates lying all over the distant deck, then back at Lin Xuan, his expression somewhat blank. "Big brother, what kind of sorcery was that? Sleeping gas? Or some invisible poison-gas Devil Fruit power?"
As a rookie who had only recently set sail, Ace's understanding ultimately remained at the level of "physical destruction," even though he possessed a Logia Devil Fruit.
Faced with this unreasonable mental assault, his capacity for comprehension had clearly overloaded.
"Stop making wild guesses." Lin Xuan casually flicked nonexistent dust off his collar, his tone lazy. "I just put them to sleep for a while so they wouldn't disturb my meal."
"This was no simple matter of 'sleeping.'"
An aged yet resonant voice cut in.
Supported by his famous wooden prosthetic leg, Zeff walked out from behind the crowd, step by step.
His two signature golden braided mustaches trembled slightly. His weathered old eyes were filled with gravity and a trace of barely perceptible nostalgia.
"This is Haki." Zeff's gaze hooked onto Lin Xuan, as though trying to discern something extraordinary about this sixteen-year-old boy. "And it's the 'King's Disposition' that only one person in several million possesses-Conqueror's Haki."
"Haki?" Ace paused. The term was still somewhat unfamiliar to him.
"Armament Haki takes the form of armor and sharp blades, while Observation Haki perceives the sounds and signs of all things. As for Conqueror's Haki..." Zeff drew a deep breath and lowered his voice. "It's pure domination through force of spirit. Without lifting a finger, you can intimidate or even knock out opponents through will alone. Kid, using a power like that somewhere like the East Blue is practically firing a cannon at a mosquito."
The surrounding cooks and diners were lost, but they found it impressive all the same.
Although they did not understand what Conqueror's Haki was, the description "one person in several million" was enough to make them recognize the worth of the young Marine before them.
It was an overwhelming strike from a higher level of existence.
"Tch, you know quite a bit, old man." Lin Xuan curled his lip noncommittally without denying it.
He had no intention of hiding it. In this world where strength reigned supreme, a suitable display of muscle could spare him most trouble, such as certain blind pests trying to interrupt his meal.
He turned to Ace and found not fear in the boy's eyes, but a burning light of excitement.
"Want to learn?" Lin Xuan glanced at him.
"Yes!" Ace answered without hesitation.
"You're not ready yet." Lin Xuan poured cold water on him without mercy. He reached out and lightly tapped Ace's forehead, his tone growing unusually serious. "A Logia Devil Fruit does let you run rampant in the East Blue and makes you feel invincible. But remember, Ace: on this sea, the people who rely too heavily on their Devil Fruit powers die the fastest."
"Haki is the power that stands above everything else."
Lin Xuan's words were calm, yet they struck Ace's eardrums like a heavy hammer.
This was not merely based on foreknowledge of the plot, but also guidance from an "older brother."
If he did not shed the carelessness born of his ability to turn into an element, this boy would suffer a major setback in the New World sooner or later.
The fervor in Ace's eyes cooled a little, replaced by a thoughtful look.
He might have been reckless, but he was not stupid. The dominance Lin Xuan had just displayed had indeed shown him the gap between himself and the truly strongest fighters.
Grrrumble-
A thunderous stomach growl sounded at an inopportune moment once again, utterly ruining the atmosphere.
This time, it was a duet from Lin Xuan and Ace.
Their air of mastery crumbled instantly.
Lin Xuan rubbed his empty belly. The hunger caused by releasing energy at high intensity felt as though it could burn straight through his stomach.
"Um..." Looking somewhat embarrassed, Ace felt around the pocket of his shorts, which had been burned down to half their length during the battle. His fingers poked through a hole. "Big brother, did you bring any Beli? I think my wallet... well, fell into the sea."
Lin Xuan froze.
He instinctively reached for the inner pocket of his Marine coat.
Empty.
Great. I left in such a hurry that I left my wallet on the ship.
The two powerful men who had just awed everyone around them, one possessing Conqueror's Haki and the other a Logia power, now fell silent together before the simple truth that "food costs money."
Was this what they meant by "even a hero can be stumped by a single penny"?
"Hahahaha!" Seeing the identical embarrassed expressions on their faces, Zeff suddenly burst into laughter, the earlier solemn atmosphere vanishing entirely. "All right! Today's meal is on me!"
"Boss?!" Paddy exclaimed. "These two look like they could eat the storeroom bare!"
"Shut up, Paddy." Zeff glared at him, then turned toward the blond young man with curled eyebrows who had been leaning against the kitchen doorframe smoking all this time. "Sanji! Still have the strength to cook? Don't embarrass the Baratie. Show us what you can really do and fill these two starving gluttons up!"
"Tch, lousy old man."
Sanji blew out a smoke ring, a flicker of excitement flashing through his visible eye.
For a cook, nothing fired up the fighting spirit more than encountering diners who truly appreciated food and were ravenously hungry.
"If we're entertaining guests, I guess it can't be helped. Hey, what do you want to eat? Just name it. If it swims in the sea, I can cook it."
"Meat! I want meat on the bone!" Ace raised both hands and cheered, completely abandoning the bearing of a great pirate.
"Same for me. Just make sure there's plenty to fill me up." Lin Xuan shrugged, the joy of eating and drinking for free instantly lifting his mood.
Main text
Chapter 48: Garp's Letter of Recommendation Throws Marine Headquarters into an Uproar!
Watching them start discussing the menu already, Nami could not help rolling her eyes from her hiding place in the corner, her Clima-Tact clenched tightly in her hand.
"These guys... are their nerves made of steel?" Nami muttered, the impact of what had just happened still reverberating in her mind. "That Marine, too. He's so terrifying, so how can he act like nothing happened a moment later?"
"That's the composure of the strong, Cat Burglar."
At some point, Carina had sidled up beside Nami, a calculating gleam in her alluring, foxlike eyes.
Watching Lin Xuan chat and laugh with Zeff, she curled her lips into a meaningful smile. "Following someone like him is the best way to survive on this sea. What do you say, Nami? He's a powerful backer. Stick close to him, and we could do whatever we wanted in the East Blue."
"Who wants to cling to some powerful backer?!" Though Nami remained defiant, much of the fear in her gaze as she looked at Lin Xuan's back had indeed faded, replaced by a trace of complicated curiosity.
Just then, a sudden shout exploded through the restaurant's dining hall like a thunderclap from a clear sky.
"I've decided! I'm taking that ship!"
The voice came from neither Lin Xuan nor Ace.
Everyone looked toward the voice and saw a surviving pirate wrapped in bandages who had climbed out of the sea at some point. He was pointing toward Krieg's distant flagship, which was battered but still enormous, his eyes flashing with greed and madness.
Krieg's downfall had allowed certain ambitious men to see an opportunity to take his place.
Yet Lin Xuan did not even turn his head.
He merely picked up a glass of ice water from the table and swirled it gently.
An interruption this minor did not require him to act at all.
He had already heard the soft scrape of leather shoes against the floor and sensed the anger building within that blond, curly-browed cook. It was a knight's anger.
Before that oblivious pirate could take a second step, a black whirlwind had already swept out of the kitchen doorway.
Before you continue