"Th-this… what just—
what happened?!"
"Sword-Lion Pirates, all four thousand of them—
plus five hundred hostages—
they were all dropped in the same instant?!"
Rob Lucci stood there slack-jawed, eyes wide, brain blanking out as he swept his gaze across the field. Everywhere he looked, pirates lay strewn about, unconscious and twitching, four thousand bodies collapsed like dominoes.
For a long breath, Lucci forgot how to breathe.
What kind of power… can erase more than four thousand people at once?
This can't be real…
He remembered that crushing wave that had ripped through the warehouse—the pressure that made his skin crawl and his heartbeat stumble.
"Was it… that aura?"
"Just a single surge of will… wiping out thousands?"
His scalp prickled.
Then his thoughts snagged on the only question that mattered.
Who did it?
A terrifying guess bubbled up. Lucci's head snapped toward the small figure standing at the centre of the devastation—the four-year-old boy.
"N-no way…
Was it him?"
"Impossible. He's only four!"
Yet the scene said otherwise. With four thousand pirates knocked out cold, Kai's slight back looked impossibly tall, mysterious—and terrifying. The pressure rolling off the boy twisted even Lucci's breathing.
How is he this strong?
What kind of monster did the Navy send me with?
In the shadows, two figures in pure white watched without being seen—CP0 officers Jolf and Res. Even they stood frozen for a heartbeat, masks tilted ever so slightly as if stunned.
Jolf swallowed hard. "R-Res… did you see that?"
Res's voice actually trembled. "I did. If I'm not mistaken… that was Conqueror's Haki, wasn't it?"
Two CP0 examiners—men who could stare down a Marine Admiral without bowing—were rattled. The god's-eye detachment they'd worn a moment ago had been blown apart by a single pulse of will.
"One in a million," Jolf murmured. "A king's disposition… and we just watched it with our own eyes."
He fixed on the tiny silhouette. The sight only deepened the chill running down his spine.
"More terrifying—he's four," Res said, almost laughing at the absurdity. "A four-year-old with Conqueror's Haki… when this reaches the top, they'll lose their minds trying to recruit him."
"We thought the Navy sent a child to die." Jolf exhaled shakily. "Turns out they sent a monster."
He and Res traded a helpless look. "So much for grading Lucci's trial. With the Sword-Lion Pirates nearly wiped by someone else, how do we even score him?"
Out front, Sword-Lion Gart and the handful of officers still standing stared at the human carpet of their own men.
"C-Conqueror's Haki," Gart rasped at last, face bloodless. "No mistake… that pressure was Conqueror's."
One officer blinked. "Boss… what is Conqueror's Haki?"
Gart's scar twitched. "A power only one in a million possess—a king's will. Only true monsters of the sea have it."
The officers blanched.
"So that little brat—
he's a one-in-a-million freak?"
"The one who just flattened four thousand of us… is a four-year-old?!"
Their eyes crept toward Kai. He turned his head slightly, gaze cool and unreadable. They jerked their stares away at once, throats bobbing.
Gart's thoughts spun. A four-year-old with Conqueror's… in Rosede? There was no way that doddering king had "hired" something like this.
He drew a steadying breath, forced his voice not to crack, and locked eyes with the boy.
"You… what are you?"
He'd been certain the thirteen-year-old CP prodigy was the real threat. Now he knew the truth.
The real terror, the unheard-of anomaly—the monster—was the child.
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