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Even those who could not make out the details of the battle sensed a sudden change in a certain presence-the figure who had been suppressed abruptly surged in power again, now standing on equal footing with the burly man opposite him.
Humm-
An indescribable sense of resistance enveloped the ruins.
The white figure gouged a deep furrow through the deserted island's fractured surface. By the time he finally stopped sliding backward, a wound ran diagonally across his torso.
The man glanced down at his fist.
The white glow that had wrapped his knuckles, powerful enough to tear space apart, now flickered erratically like an old lamp with a faulty connection.
Opposite him, however, the blood-soaked figure stood perfectly straight.
His injuries were clearly severe, yet there was a strange ease to his posture, as though he had shed some invisible shackles.
"Some researchers have proposed,"
he began, casually flicking the long blade in his hand. The crimson liquid on its edge flew off in an arc, carving a deep semicircular groove through the rubble. "That Devil Fruits are, in essence, manifestations of human obsession."
He held his blade across his body, his voice exceptionally clear in the deathly silence.
"The one I ate was called the Calm-Calm Fruit.
"By conventional reasoning, its function is to make 'sound' disappear."
At first glance, their surroundings looked ordinary, but a closer look revealed a gray cast over everything.
Apart from the syllables he spoke, there was no other sound on the battlefield-the collapsing rock strata, the swirling currents of air, even the trails of light through the air had all become images in a silent film.
Even intangible, formless light could not escape this lockdown.
Countless slender beams could faintly be seen frozen in crisscrossing patterns overhead, illuminating the dust suspended in