8
He thought of that black hole rumored to devour everything. Perhaps it could strip away and replace... but the price might well be life itself.
That path had long since been proven a dead end.
The door slid open to either side without a sound.
An enormous purple figure filled the entrance, his exaggerated makeup gleaming eerily beneath the cold lights.
"Hee-haw-worried about your body's strength, Rossi?"
The newcomer twisted his waist into a dancer's pose, but had no intention of beating around the bush.
"The answer is simple: eat."
The man raised his eyebrows.
He knew of the secret method circulating on that island that used food to strengthen the body, but ordinary nourishment had long since become meaningless for a body that had already reached a certain limit.
"Of course, I don't mean ordinary eating."
The Okama King raised a finger painted with vivid nail polish.
"You're quite familiar with the Navy's top brass, aren't you?"
The other man nodded.
His status as a Shichibukai had taken him into that fortress many times. He had even tasted the Iron Fist.
Those faces-both past and present-were deeply etched in his memory.
"Haven't you noticed? Their endurance is practically inhuman."
The man rubbed his chin.
The Fleet Admiral, the Admirals, the legendary hero... indeed, every one of them was a monster capable of fighting for days on end.
"The Navy has some secret method of tempering the body?"
He reached that conclusion almost immediately.
The Navy's powerhouses remained hale and hearty in their seventies and eighties, while those who wandered the seas began showing their age past sixty. Even "Big Mom," renowned for her extraordinary natural gifts,
could not help breathing heavily after a fierce battle.
During the war at the summit, Sengoku had clearly been five years older