A terrifying aura spread across the heavens and earth.
Stray strands of Haki lightning converged wildly, shrouding the sky in a suffocating pressure, as though dark clouds were about to crush the city beneath them.
Standing below, Miss Bakkin felt every hair on her body stand on end. The moment she looked up and met the blood-red qilin gazing down from above, panic finally overwhelmed her.
"Weevil! Run! Hurry!"
"Run?"
Lucas calmly took another sip of his liquor.
"Too late."
"Qilin!"
ROAR!
A thunderous bellow echoed across the sky.
The blood-red qilin moved first.
The countless bolts of lightning amassed overhead crashed downward like a heavenly waterfall.
BOOM!!
Miss Bakkin had only just turned to flee when the world before her was swallowed by blinding lightning.
The resulting explosion unleashed a shockwave like a raging hurricane, sweeping across the ruins for several kilometers.
Having been evacuated several kilometers away in advance, Onigumo and the others finally understood why Smoker and his men had insisted on moving everyone so far from the battlefield.
Faced with this Haki beast descending from the heavens...
It wasn’t simply an attack.
It was a natural disaster.
Watching the overwhelming shockwave surge toward them, Onigumo and the others had no time to evade. They were instantly blown off their feet.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Thunder rolled endlessly.
The dust filling the sky gradually dispersed with the storm.
When Onigumo and the others finally struggled back to their feet amidst the rubble, the sight before them caused their pupils to contract sharply.
The town square, which had served as the battlefield, had been completely erased.
Only scorched earth remained.
At the center of an enormous crater lay a figure, half buried beneath the soil.
His tattered clothes were soaked with blood and covered in dirt, leaving him in an utterly miserable state.
Was this really the same man who had stood so arrogantly just moments ago—the candidate personally selected by the World Government to become one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea?
Had they not witnessed it themselves, none of them would have believed such a monster could be defeated head-on.
"Weevil! My precious son! Are you alright?!"
Miss Bakkin struggled to her feet from ruins over a kilometer away, shouting frantically toward the crater.
"Get up! Don’t forget—you’ll only earn your father’s acknowledgment if you display your greatest strength!"
"M-Mama... don’t worry..."
The charred Weevil slowly crawled out of the crater.
"I... I can still fight! I’ll defeat him and show Father how strong I am!"
The stitches covering his body crackled violently with arcs of electricity.
Lucas raised an eyebrow in surprise.
As expected, Whitebeard’s self-proclaimed son truly was a failed creation of the World Government’s science division.
Most likely an early failure from the SSG’s Seraphim project.
He possessed strength comparable to Whitebeard in his youth, along with terrifying swordsmanship.
If he had truly been Whitebeard’s biological son...
Then Whitebeard probably wouldn’t have needed an entire ship full of adopted sons.
"Weevil! You didn’t disappoint Mama!"
Miss Bakkin’s face lit up with excitement.
"You damned Marine Admiral! I’ve already told you—my precious son has been chosen to become one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea! Attacking a future Warlord is a direct violation of the rules!"
"I’m reporting this to Marine Headquarters and the World Government!"
"And that last attack must’ve been your strongest trump card! Since you’ve already revealed everything you’ve got, Weevil will cut off your arm with his naginata!"
"Okay, Mama!"
Weevil sniffed loudly, paying no attention whatsoever to the injuries covering his body.
However, before he could make a move...
The surrounding air suddenly began to tremble violently.
One after another, brilliantly colored magic circles bloomed beneath Lucas’s feet.
As the overwhelming pressure permeating heaven and earth surged even higher...
Nine gigantic magic circles stacked upon one another like a towering pagoda, piercing straight into the clouds.
In an instant, the entire sky was dyed in dazzling rainbow colors.
The bizarre sight left everyone below involuntarily swallowing.
None of them had expected that after unleashing the Haki Beast: Qilin, Lucas still had so much power left.
Miss Bakkin stared blankly at the rainbow-colored sky.
She had never imagined Lucas still possessed enough strength to unleash another attack.
The previous strike had already severely wounded Weevil.
If he suffered another one of these...
Whether he could even leave alive was another matter entirely.
"A-Admiral Lucas!"
"Weevil is just a child! He’s the World Government’s chosen candidate for the Seven Warlords of the Sea! According to the rules, you can’t attack him!"
Feeling his strength rapidly draining beneath the nine magic circles, Lucas made a quick estimate before speaking calmly.
"I know he’s just a child."
"But from the beginning until now, I haven’t laid a finger on him."
"They can all testify to that."
"Besides..."
"I’m new here."
"So don’t lecture me about your rules."
"I don’t know any of them."
His indifferent words echoed beneath the overwhelming pressure hanging over the battlefield.
Only then did Cavendish, who had been watching from afar after enduring the earlier shockwave, finally understand why Lucas had repeatedly emphasized that he was a newly appointed Admiral.
Newcomers really didn’t play by anyone’s rules.
Looking at the immense magical power gathering in the sky, every last trace of Cavendish’s desire to challenge Lucas disappeared.
"Super-Tier Magic: Fallen Down!"
Lucas casually raised his bottle for another drink.
The magic accumulated in the heavens finally poured downward like a dam bursting.
At that moment, Miss Bakkin finally realized...
Before this newly appointed Marine Admiral...
Whether someone was a child...
Or a future Seven Warlord of the Sea...
It didn’t mean a damn thing.
BOOM!!
A pillar of destructive energy descended from the heavens.
A scorching shockwave engulfed everything within a radius of over a kilometer once again.
Weevil barely managed to raise his naginata before Fallen Down completely swallowed him.
Three days later...
Within the Calm Belt, a gigantic pirate ship sped across the sea, pulled forward by massive Sea Kings.
The enormous mammoth figurehead at its bow was impossible to miss.
Because there was no wind, the pirate flag hung limply from the mast.
As part of the flag shifted into view, the emblem upon it was enough to send chills down anyone’s spine.
If anyone else had happened upon the ship at this moment, they would have been utterly shocked.
After all, on these seas...
Encountering the flag of one of the Four Emperors meant entering forbidden waters.
Especially when it belonged to the notoriously brutal Beasts Pirates.
One careless mistake...
And death would almost certainly be the only outcome.
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