Though he held only a dead branch, the instant he swung it, a visible wave of golden sword pressure surged upward like a solid crescent moon, carrying the momentum to destroy everything.
BOOM-!!!
A deafening explosion thundered through the sky.
The golden sword pressure collided with the black iron ball in midair.
The oversized cannonball, cast from refined steel, actually burst into two halves in midair the instant it touched that brutal force, like tofu sliced by a sharp blade!
Violent shock waves swept outward from the point of impact, whipping the seawater into waves over ten meters high.
The force that should have slammed into Ace was forcibly redirected by the explosion.
The enormous recoil carried a rush of air that slammed hard into the little sailboat's sail.
"Aaaaaaah-!"
Ace's scream was swallowed by the wind and waves.
The single-masted sailboat seemed to have been shoved by the hand of God. Its bow reared high, nearly capsizing it on the spot, but that terrifying thrust also sent it shooting through the offshore blockade like an arrow from a bow, shrinking to a tiny black dot in the blink of an eye.
Smoke billowed, and mist blotted out the sky.
Lin Xuan stood at the end of the pier, still holding the posture of his downward sword stroke.
The dead branch in his hand had already been pulverized in the collision, leaving only a handful of wood dust.
Numbness pulsed through the web of his hand, and a few drops of blood even trickled from his fingertips-the price of forcing a mortal body to bear a monster's strength.
Yet he was smiling.
The feeling of his heart pounding wildly, of every cell screaming for more, was downright addictive.
The sea breeze dispersed the lingering smoke.
At the bow of the gradually approaching Dog-Head Warship, Garp, who had been raging furiously, had stopped roaring at some point.
The old vice admiral still held his throwing pose. In those eyes beneath his unruly white hair, the anger had faded, replaced by a scrutiny so sharp that no one dared meet it.
He watched the boy standing on the shattered pier, empty-handed yet exuding an astonishing presence, as though he had discovered an uncut gem-or rather, a monster still young but already revealing its ferocity.
In that deathly silence, there was only the sound of the warship cutting through the waves, and the weight of some notion silently brewing in the air.
The smell of gunpowder drifting over the sea was somewhat pungent, mingling unpleasantly with the fishy stench of dead fish blasted into the air.
Lin Xuan casually opened his hand, letting the wood dust in his palm scatter on the sea breeze and drift down over the shattered pier.
His palm was a little numb, and the muscles in the web of his hand still twitched faintly beyond his control.
That was still pushing it too far.
Although the Kenpachi Zaraki template had endowed his soul with overwhelming, savage power, this sixteen-year-old body was ultimately only a "vessel."
That last strike had been less a technique than a matter of cramming Spiritual Pressure into that fragile dead branch and forcibly detonating it.
It was like firing a large-caliber shell through a shoddy iron pipe. He was already lucky the barrel had not burst.
On the Grand Line, recoil of that degree would probably have been several times stronger.
A shadow suddenly fell over his head.
The enormous warship did not dock, instead barring the coastal waters with utter dominance, almost blocking off the tiny harbor entirely.
Immediately afterward, a burly figure leaped down from the deck over ten meters above.
That was not the sound of a human landing. It sounded more like a prehistoric tyrannosaur stamping on the fragile earth's crust.
The already precarious pier groaned under the strain, countless cracks spreading outward from the figure.
Lin Xuan felt the planks beneath his feet suddenly sink, seawater spurting through the gaps and soaking his trouser cuffs.
The old man wearing the dog-head hood straightened up.
Facing Monkey D. Garp at close range was far more terrifying than watching him rage aboard his ship from hundreds of meters away.
The old man was not deliberately radiating any killing intent, yet merely by standing there, he seemed to make the surrounding air thick and heavy, pressing against the chest until it felt tight.
This was the Marine hero, a living legend.
"You little brat..."
Garp picked his nose and casually flicked an indescribable lump into the sea. His large, bell-like eyes sized Lin Xuan up, lingering briefly on his palm covered in wood dust.
"Who taught you that move just now?"
An ordinary pirate or thug would probably have dropped to his knees under that stare.
But the blood in Lin Xuan's body flowed faster instead-the irrepressible excitement of encountering a powerful opponent.
"No one." Lin Xuan shook his hand, trying to restore sensation to his numbed nerves as quickly as possible, his tone as casual as though he were discussing the weather. "I picked up a stick by the roadside. Didn't like what I saw, so I slashed it."
"Picked up a stick... and slashed it?"
Garp's brow twitched twice, as though he were judging whether those words were true.
Just then, a gray figure landed soundlessly behind Garp.
It was Garp's adjutant, Bogard.
The taciturn man, who always wore his hat brim low, was now staring intently at the two halves of the iron ball floating on the sea.
The cut surfaces were smooth and even, with an eerie mirrorlike finish from the instantaneous heat of friction.
There was no trace of Haki, nor any fluctuation from a Devil Fruit.
Pure strength, and some kind of... will that made the heart tremble.
Bogard withdrew his gaze, looking past Garp's broad shoulders to Lin Xuan's slightly youthful yet utterly fearless face.
An exceedingly rare flicker passed through his eyes, always hidden beneath the shadow of his hat brim.
He stepped forward and lowered his voice beside Garp's ear.
Though the sea breeze was strong, Lin Xuan's keen hearing still caught a few scattered words.
"...monster... constitution... unpolished..."
Bogard paused, then raised his voice slightly, seemingly intending for Lin Xuan to hear, or perhaps to add emphasis. "Vice Admiral, with a little guidance, this kind of pure destructive power is talent worthy of bearing the word 'justice.' Given time, he may well rival Headquarters'"
Those three monsters.
In other words, the future Three Admirals of the Marines.
Lin Xuan raised an eyebrow.
That assessment was outrageously high. It seemed his last strike had given this expert swordsman quite a shock.
Then again, that was hardly surprising. In a "Weakest Sea" like the East Blue, seeing someone split a warship's main cannon shell with a wooden stick really did upend one's understanding of the world.
Hearing his adjutant's assessment, Garp froze for a moment, then opened his mouth wide and burst into his trademark wild laughter.
"Bwahahaha! Bogard, you really do have a good eye for people!"
Garp suddenly thrust out his fan-sized hand and planted it on Lin Xuan's shoulder.
In that instant, Lin Xuan felt as though he had been caught in a hydraulic clamp.
The old man's strength was absurd. Though he meant no harm, that "friendly" slap nearly knocked half of Lin Xuan's body apart.
"Ow, ow, ow... old man, are you trying to murder me?" Lin Xuan grimaced and tried to break free, only to find that the other man's hand did not budge.
"Since that little bastard Ace got away, I can't go home empty-handed!"
Garp completely ignored Lin Xuan's protests and leaned his face closer, his eyes gleaming as though he had discovered a priceless treasure-or like a wolf eyeing a little rabbit.
"Hey, brat! Whether you become a pirate or a mountain bandit, that brute strength of yours would be going to waste!"
"Since you call me Grandpa (though Lin Xuan had never done so, Garp had clearly decided on this relationship unilaterally), come to Marine Headquarters with me!"
"Huh?" Lin Xuan froze.
This plot was going in the wrong direction.
Hadn't I just let this old man's grandson escape?
Why was he suddenly trying to recruit me?
"What do you mean, 'huh'?! Countless people beg for this chance and never get it!" Garp laughed, brooking no argument as he grabbed Lin Xuan and dragged him toward the warship, treating him entirely like a newly seized trophy. "And don't even think about running. That hit left your hand numb, didn't it? As you are now, you couldn't even break free of one of my fingers!"
The instant Lin Xuan was forcibly dragged around, he noticed from the corner of his eye that Bogard had not followed.
The perpetually silent adjutant still stood at the edge of the broken pier.
At some point, Bogard's hand had settled on the hilt of the sword at his waist.
He was looking neither at Garp nor at Lin Xuan being dragged away, but staring fixedly at the spot where Lin Xuan had just stood-where a shallow yet exceptionally clear fissure extended all the way beneath the sea.
That was not a mark left by something heavy pressing down.
That was a sword mark.
Chapter 7: An invitation: I've got these Marines covered!
The mark embedded deep in the pier's planks resembled a furrow plowed open by a powerful current of air.
Bogard withdrew his gaze and lowered his hat brim. Though the hat's shadow obscured his eyes, it could not conceal his gravity.
He strode to the side of the wildly laughing Garp, speaking very quietly but extremely quickly.
"Vice Admiral, we can't let him continue like this."
Bogard kept the boy nearby, who was staring blankly at his own palm, locked in his peripheral vision. A rare urgency colored his tone. "Using power purely through physical talent and instinct may produce astonishing destructive force, but the risks are too great. It would be one thing if he received proper instruction in Marine swordsmanship, but if he gets a sudden impulse in the next few days and follows that Portgas kid's example, sneaking out to sea to become a pirate..."
At that point, Bogard paused, seemingly envisioning the scene-a monster with Admiral-level destructive potential, bound by no discipline, roaming the seas and cutting people down on a whim.
That would be a disaster enough to give the entire Headquarters staff sleepless nights.
"We must devise a systematic training plan immediately. From standardizing his basic physical training to guiding his Haki and correcting his swordsmanship... Vice Admiral, we discovered this promising recruit. We can't let him go astray."
"Bwahahaha! Go astray? With my fists watching over him, where could he go?"
Garp paid his adjutant's concerns no mind at all. He picked his nose and looked at Lin Xuan with a mischievous grin. "Since that kid got away, we'll tie up this one who fights even better and take him back to Marineford! Tsk, tsk, just imagining that old fool Sengoku's eyes popping out when he sees this brat is enough to make me eat two extra plates of rice crackers tonight!"
The older and younger men made no particular effort to keep their conversation private, and snatches drifted into Lin Xuan's ears on the sea breeze.
Tie me up and take me to Marineford?
The corner of Lin Xuan's mouth twitched. He tried to make a resigned expression, only to find that his facial muscles were a little stiff.
It was not just his face. That seemingly imposing slash had actually drained all the physical energy stored in his body in an instant.
Now that the tide of adrenaline had receded, soreness gnawed at his nerve endings like countless ants.
Even lifting a finger required all his willpower.
Powerful though the Kenpachi Zaraki template was, for his current body, it was like forcibly fitting a family sedan with an F1 engine.
Step on the accelerator, and the speed shot up-but the chassis was also about to fall apart.
He lowered his head to look at the pile of wood dust at his feet, the remains of the wooden sword he had held.
"Though it looked like I cut through steel, it was fundamentally different..."
Lin Xuan knew exactly what lay behind that strike.
In this world's system of swordsmanship, "Cutting steel" meant listening to the breath of all things through the Voice of All Things, an advancement in one's realm.
What he had just done, however, was purely to "shatter" the iron ball with violent Spiritual Pressure.
A true master swordsman's blade would never have shattered like that.
It showed that his control over his strength was still as crude as a primitive man's.
Yet precisely because of that, the hint of gold in Lin Xuan's eyes burned even hotter.
With only 5% of the template unlocked, a basic attack alone could produce this effect. What if I unlocked a hundred percent?
What if I learned Shikai?
Or even... that name?
Merely imagining such a future made his blood boil.
Just as Lin Xuan was immersed in reviewing his power system, a pair of rubber arms suddenly reached over from the side and grabbed his waistband tightly.
"Lin Xuan! Run!"
Before you continue