Nailed It!
Center of a deserted island. One shirtless guy, all alone.
Those deep eyes carried natural arrogance. His perfect face was dead serious, black hair messily tied back.
Aus gently set down what used to be a small mountain peak, wiping sweat from his forehead.
To train his strength control, he'd been chucking mountains around lately. The drill was simple: hurl house-sized boulders from one side of the island to the other, warp over to catch them, then throw them back.
Not too close, not too far.
And if his Haki coating slipped even slightly, the whole damn rock would explode into dust. Back to square one.
Aus used this method to master his freakish natural strength and his Conqueror's Haki, which kept evolving as his body grew.
The results spoke for themselves.
He could actually feel his power control getting tighter, more precise.
One more round!
Wiping away sweat, Aus took a deep breath. His entire presence began climbing.
As Conqueror's Haki poured out, Aus coiled his strength and dropped into the charging stance for Fish-Man Karate: Arabesque Tile True Punch—picked up from his old crewmate Sunbell.
His focus sharpened like a blade.
The Conqueror's domain that had been radiating everywhere started pulling inward, condensing.
The insanely concentrated Conqueror's Haki crackled with black-red lightning, then slowly wrapped around his fist.
Finally, it became pure black-red thunder.
Crack crack crack crack...
Only when he couldn't compress it any further did Aus finish charging up.
One punch unleashed!
The island's central peak—the biggest and last mountain standing—crumbled like sand under that terrifying black-red thunder.
One punch down.
Where a massive mountain once stood, only a ten-meter crater remained!
Holy shit, what power!
Aus grinned. The rush made his scalp tingle—even more addictive than massages and pleasure!
Conqueror's Haki coating. After months of brutal training, he'd finally cracked it.
Aus felt incredible. Next training project would be easy: master his Warp-Warp Fruit abilities inside and out.
Training content was straightforward—combine warping with combat experience, try warping other objects, the works.
Only after pushing himself to complete exhaustion would Aus take breaks to fish and read newspapers—hobbies he'd had since he was a kid.
"Come to think of it, the time's gotta be close now."
Captain Roger's execution day.
No way in hell he'd miss that.
After finishing his daily quota, Aus ate even more than usual, riding high on mastering Haki coating.
While shoving food in his mouth, he flipped through recent news, hunting for anything about the Roger Pirates.
Speaking of which, now that the captain had become Pirate King, his bounty should jump up, right?
Buru buru buru...
Aus raised an eyebrow, but the sudden Den Den Mushi cut through his thoughts.
Sami was calling.
Sabaody Archipelago
Lawless Zone—Island 17
Inside a loud, packed tavern, pirates from every corner of the world gathered to bullshit, play cards, and trade intel...
As the gateway to the New World, Sabaody constantly crawled with every type of scum: Paradise rookies dreaming of the New World, human traffickers looking to cash in, bounty hunters chasing paychecks...
And of course, failures who'd gotten their asses kicked in the New World and came back to farm easy targets.
Trebol and his crew—who'd had their spirits crushed in the New World and returned hunting for a king—were perfect examples.
Inside the tavern, in a fancy-ass guest room, a knife-edge standoff was going down.
In the guest area, next to some muscle-bound guy in golden armor, an ugly bastard in sunglasses held a club-shaped staff, casually flinging his massive snot around while laughing like a piece of shit.
"Behehehe... Lady Sami, we've got the people ready, naturally. The ship's just still on its way. You don't mind, do you?"
"What? You took our money and now you're telling us the people aren't here?"
One of Sami's guys found this fucking ridiculous and couldn't help calling it out.
Since everyone in this business was trash, underground human trafficking had one rule: money and goods change hands at the same time.
Trebol's bullshit—take the money now, people show up later—was basically him taking a dump on their faces.
Translation: I'm robbing you blind. What the fuck you gonna do about it?
For Sami to build her empire, she obviously had muscle before Aus showed up—just not top-shelf stuff.
Facing this level of disrespect, even the usually cool-headed businesswoman Sami couldn't hide her anger. She had her boys surround the two assholes immediately.
"Nobody walks with the money until we see the merchandise."
As the boss lady, Sami still had serious presence. Her gorgeous eyes burned with fury at the two men who acted like they didn't give a shit.
"Behehehe... Looks like Lady Sami wants to play hardball?"
Even with guns pointed at him, Trebol didn't look nervous. Just kept grinning like a maniac.
That arrogant expression screamed: I've got your number!
"You're the ones playing hardball!"
Sami's chest heaved with rage. She was about to order her guys to light them up when the bastards struck first.
Suddenly, the ground started rolling. The whole guest room began shaking.
Inside the room, Sami's seemingly badass enforcers couldn't even hold their clubs and guns steady against this sudden "earthquake."
They could only grab their buddies in panic, but that just meant falling together, then getting swallowed by the ground with only their heads sticking out to breathe.
Seeing her boys suddenly sink into the floor, Sami's face went ghost-white, but she quickly figured out what was happening.
"You're... Devil Fruit users?"
"Behehehe, ding ding ding! Too bad there's no prize!"
"Lady Sami..."
Just then, some barely-dressed woman burst through the door. Seeing both sides already throwing down, she looked scared shitless.
Sami looked at her subordinate with dread creeping up her spine.
"What's wrong, Eri?"
The red light district girl named Eri bit her lip, voice cracking:
"The district's crawling with pirates causing trouble! Taverns, restaurants, casinos—they're hitting everything! We can't fight back!"
"They've already killed several managers who tried to resist!"
At those words, Sami's already pale face went even whiter. She immediately stared at the smiling Trebol.
A fight breaks out here, and her businesses get attacked simultaneously.
No fucking way that was a coincidence.
~~~~❃❃~~~~~~~~❃❃~~~~
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