Gart was dead.
A big-name pirate with a bounty of 48,000,000 Berries.
Captain of the Sword-Lion Pirates.
A terror of the Grand Line.
All gone, today.
If word got out…
No one would believe it.
That the one who blasted Sword-Lion Gart to death was a brat only four years old.
The enormous warehouse was suffocatingly quiet.
Oppressive.
Silent.
The ground was riddled with craters and pits, dense cracks spreading like spiderwebs across the shattered floor, enough to make one's scalp tingle.
Devastation everywhere.
A ruin.
The entire warehouse looked like a collapsed, abandoned ruin site.
When their eyes fell on Sword-Lion Gart's corpse, the four officers of the Sword-Lion Pirates completely lost it.
Each of them had a bounty of over 30,000,000 Berries.
But after witnessing their captain being blown apart alive right in front of them, even they couldn't help feeling their blood run cold.
Their boss, a pirate worth nearly fifty million Berries…
Had been smashed to pieces on the spot.
So in the face of this terrifying monster, what were they supposed to do?
"H-He's dead…"
"Boss is dead!"
"Blown apart alive…!"
"And it was in a head-on clash, too. He was smashed to pieces by a monster that's only four years old."
"My god…"
"I never thought I'd see something like this in my life. It's like my entire understanding of the world just got overturned…"
All four officers were trembling, faces pale and tight with fear.
Their gazes shifted.
Almost in unison, they looked toward that four-year-old monster who had blown Gart apart.
At the same time—
Kai lifted his eyes and looked back at them, expression calm.
In that instant, the minds of the four officers went completely blank.
Gulp.
They swallowed hard, terror swelling in their chests until it felt like it would burst.
"W-What do we do?"
"He…"
"It feels like that monster has his eyes on us."
One of the officers spoke, his voice shaking.
A monster who had just blown their captain apart…
Was now staring right at them.
How could they not feel terrified?
Their bodies shivered uncontrollably.
Under the fearful stares of the four officers and the few pirates who had managed to stay conscious through the earlier blast of Conqueror's Haki…
Kai, who had just killed Gart, looked at them with a playful light in his eyes. His lips curled as he spoke.
"Next up… it's your turn, little rats."
The instant his voice fell—
The four officers felt needles stabbing into their backs. A chill shot up from the soles of their feet to the tops of their heads.
Their hair stood on end.
"He… he's going to kill us?!"
One of them stammered.
"Run!"
"Run, now!"
"That monster's gotten addicted to killing!"
"He's clearly planning to blow all of us apart!"
"If we don't run, we won't get another chance!"
Driven by pure, bone-deep fear, the four officers spun around without hesitation and bolted toward the warehouse gates.
If even their boss—
A fifty-million pirate—
Had been smashed to pieces by that monster…
The four of them didn't believe for a second that even working together they could shake someone like Kai.
That was impossible.
So their first thought was simple.
Run.
Run as far as possible.
Otherwise, they'd die here.
They knew very clearly that this level of monster was not someone they could resist.
They didn't even have the courage to try.
Following the lead of the four officers, the other pirates who had managed to stay awake through the Conqueror's Haki also panicked. Faces twisted in terror, they scattered, trying to flee the warehouse.
Seeing this, Kai raised an eyebrow.
He glanced at the direction the four officers were fleeing, then at the paths taken by the other pirates.
He turned his head slightly and spoke to the stunned Lucci beside him.
"Those pirates with bounties over ten million… I'll leave them to you. You can handle that much, right?"
Those words jolted Lucci out of his daze.
He snapped back to himself and quickly nodded.
"No problem."
With his current strength, he couldn't handle Sword-Lion Gart, and it would be tough to deal with those four officers worth over thirty million each…
But dealing with a few pirates in the twelve- or thirteen-million range?
That, he could manage.
"Those guys are yours."
"As for the four officers…"
"I'll take care of them."
Kai smiled lightly.
Then he stepped forward, his body blurring.
"Soru."
"Geppo."
He kicked off the air with Geppo while using Rokushiki's Soru. His figure vanished from where he stood, shooting after the fleeing officers.
Watching Kai's back fade into the distance, Lucci took a deep breath and forced down the heavy shock in his chest.
"I can't let this monster completely overshadow me."
"It's just a few pirates with bounties over ten million…"
"For me, that's more than manageable."
He activated Soru as well, his figure disappearing as he raced after the three pirates fleeing the warehouse.
Left behind—
Only a field of rubble and debris.
Cold corpses.
And countless pirates lying unconscious on the floor, knocked out by that earlier wave of Conqueror's Haki.
Among the unconscious were also the nobles and the royal guards who had been in the warehouse. They lay motionless amid the chaos.
A short while later—
Kai intercepted one of the fleeing officers.
"L-Let me go! I'll give you tens of millions of Berries!"
The man was terrified, and the first thing out of his mouth was an attempt to buy his life.
Unfortunately for him…
Kai had never cared much about Berries.
"Sorry," Kai said with a smile. "My job is to blow all of you up."
"Die!"
Hearing that, the officer's pupils shrank. He gritted his teeth and chose to charge.
Even knowing his chances were slim, he couldn't just lie down and wait for death.
"At least you've got the guts to swing at me."
Kai's body blurred.
He vanished from where he stood.
When he reappeared a second later, he was already next to the officer. His index finger snapped forward like a bullet, faster than the eye could follow.
Rokushiki—Shigan.
His finger pierced straight through the pirate's heart.
Puchi!
Blood burst out.
It sprayed through the air, painting it red.
Thud.
With a dull sound, the officer collapsed to the ground, fresh blood slowly pooling beneath his chest.
A pirate worth over thirty million Berries—
Couldn't withstand even a single direct attack from Kai.
Blood poured from the hole where his heart had been pierced, slowly spreading outward.
In moments, it had formed a small red puddle.
The thick smell of iron drifted on the wind.
"The first."
Kai gave the corpse a casual glance, his eyes narrowing as he looked off in the three remaining directions.
A playful smile tugged at his lips.
"Three little rats left."
"Run."
"Run as far as you can."
"That'll make this more fun."
"Just make sure you don't get caught by me."
"Otherwise, I'll crush you. Blow you up."
In the next instant, his figure vanished again.
"Soru."
…
About fifteen minutes later—
Lucci returned to the warehouse, his body covered in blood and his face slightly pale from exertion.
His hands were stained red.
His clothes were torn in several places.
Taking on three pirates with bounties over ten million Berries at once had been… a bit of a strain.
Of course—
He had still taken care of them.
It was just that his body had taken some hits along the way.
The injuries weren't severe, but they definitely affected his condition.
Huff…
Lucci exhaled deeply, letting his tense nerves relax a little.
He glanced down at the slash mark across his abdomen, blood still trickling from the wound, and at his back where five bullet holes oozed red.
Knife and bullets had both drawn blood.
But that was all.
Superficial wounds.
With his mastery of Tekkai, there was no way these attacks would leave him heavily injured.
"Finally done."
"I think… I finished faster than that monster Kai, right?"
With a faint sense of anticipation, Lucci stepped into the warehouse.
And then—
As soon as he walked in, he saw Kai.
The boy was standing calmly among a crowd of unconscious pirates, as though he had been waiting there for a long time.
From top to bottom, there was not a single scratch on him.
"Uh…"
Lucci was speechless for a moment.
He had thought his own cleanup speed would be way better this time.
But in the end…
Kai was still ahead of him.
In comparison, Lucci had taken on three pirates worth over ten million each, and he'd ended up injured.
Kai, on the other hand—
Had dealt with four officers, each worth more than thirty million Berries.
And walked away completely unharmed.
Not only that, he'd clearly finished faster.
The gap was huge.
So huge it made Lucci feel a little hopeless.
"That guy Kai…"
"He really is a monster."
Lucci let out a helpless sigh.
He walked forward, looking at the pirates and captives lying all around, unable to move.
At this point, he knew.
This emergency rescue mission—
Was over.
The Sword-Lion Pirates had been wiped out.
Their captain, Sword-Lion Gart.
Their four officers.
And more than four thousand pirates under their banner.
Every single one of them had been wiped out.
And the one who had done it…
Was a four-year-old monster named Kai.
The mission was complete.
Lucci, who had basically spent the whole time watching from the sidelines, had somehow finished a top-level emergency rescue mission.
He knew very clearly—
If Kai hadn't been so overwhelmingly strong, there was no way he would have survived, much less completed this assignment.
In fact, without Kai…
He might have died here today.
Fortunately—
Kai was too strong.
One person had practically annihilated the entire Sword-Lion Pirates.
He had almost single-handedly completed the mission.
"So in the end…"
"I was just running errands the whole time."
"In other words…"
"I was just the deadweight."
Lucci didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
For someone as proud as him, it was something he would never have imagined.
That one day—
He would become the one dragging others down.
"That feeling of winning while lying flat…"
"Actually doesn't feel too bad."
Battered inside and out, Lucci could only give himself that small bit of comfort in his heart.
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