"Smoker's in trouble!"
Tina's expression changed at once. Her beautiful eyes locked onto Smoker's opponent, the Logia user named Morrison.
After just one exchange, she had already realized something.
Smoker wasn't his match.
Because—
their Devil Fruits were a bad matchup.
"Smoker's Smoke-Smoke Fruit is being countered by Morrison's Swamp-Swamp Fruit."
"Everyone knows…"
"when a Logia fights another Logia, the deciding factor is often whether one element suppresses the other."
"If there's no elemental advantage, then the fight comes down to everything else."
"But here, Smoker's smoke is being suppressed by swamp."
"If he wants to win… it's going to be incredibly difficult."
By the time she finished speaking, worry had already crept into Tina's face.
Then, from the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the young figure standing outside the battlefield, still dressed in white amid the corpses.
In an instant, her anxiety vanished.
"Thank goodness…"
"As long as he's here, even if Smoker loses, his life won't be in danger."
Tina quietly let out a breath of relief.
When it came to Kai, her trust was absolute.
Even against a Logia user, she didn't believe Morrison could possibly be Kai's match.
"So if Tina's right…"
"then Smoker really is going to lose."
"His Smoke-Smoke Fruit is perfectly countered by swamp."
"That means one of Smoker's biggest strengths is basically being cut in half."
"This is bad."
The cadets' expressions grew heavy.
On the battlefield, Morrison looked at Smoker's increasingly grim face and smiled in amusement.
"Want to surrender?"
"If I'm in a good mood, I might spare your life."
As a Logia user himself, Morrison had gone so long without encountering a true equal in the first half of the Grand Line that he had gradually come to believe something dangerous—
that he had already reached the summit of power in this sea.
With a Logia fruit, he was convinced he could stand against anyone.
Even Marine Vice Admirals.
Even Admirals.
Without ever having witnessed the true terror of an Admiral, Morrison's confidence in his own strength had become exaggerated and arrogant.
And now, facing someone like Smoker—a Marine who still looked green by comparison—Morrison naturally believed victory was already his.
"Boss is as strong as ever!"
"As a Logia user, Boss is unbeatable anywhere in these waters!"
"That Marine brat is a fruit user too, but too bad for him—his power is countered by the boss."
"This fight's over."
The pirates laughed smugly.
Beside them, Kurrin, captain of the Cerberus Pirates, stared at Morrison with visible wariness.
Though the two crews had done business before, this was his first time watching Morrison fight in person.
"He's strong."
"No wonder the Marines put a bounty of over a hundred million on him."
"Even on the open sea, there aren't many stronger than him."
"This time, every last one of these Marines is going to die."
Hatred burned in Kurrin's heart.
His crew had been nearly wiped out in a single day.
Years of effort, gone.
His anger was naturally reaching the limit.
"They all have to die."
He glared viciously at the cadets.
Then his eyes shifted to Smoker.
In his mind, as long as Smoker fell, the Marines were finished.
Smoker, the Logia user, was the hardest one to deal with.
As for five-year-old Kai?
Kurrin instinctively dismissed him.
Kai might be strong—but Kurrin still refused to believe that a child of five could contend with a monster like Morrison, a pirate worth over a hundred million.
At that moment, on the battlefield, the pressure on Smoker had become immense.
The elemental suppression between their fruits was crushing him.
From only one exchange, he had already understood the gap between them.
"I'm not his opponent."
Smoker gritted his teeth, his face dark and unwilling.
Even knowing he was outmatched—
he refused to give up.
So he attacked again.
"Soru!"
Using the Six Powers, Smoker burst forward, his body turning into gray-white smoke as he lunged toward Morrison.
"Still coming?"
"Looks like I'll have to show you the true gap between us."
"Kid…"
"Watch carefully."
"A Logia fruit isn't meant to be used the way you're using it."
Morrison sneered.
Then, under his control, the swampy ground within a hundred-meter radius churned violently. Mud surged upward from all directions, rushing toward Smoker in waves.
"This is bad!"
Smoker's face changed.
He tried to escape—
but the mud pursued him like it had a will of its own.
From every direction, it rose like towering waves nearly ten meters high, crashing down toward him.
Like a tidal wave of sludge.
Smoker naturally didn't dare take it lightly.
His smoke was exactly what this swamp countered.
If he got hit—
even his intangibility might fail.
That was the result of elemental suppression.
A countered Logia user couldn't rely on intangibility alone to avoid damage.
Just as smoke could not block swamp—
Smoker's element was at a terrible disadvantage.
"Die, brat!"
Morrison bared his teeth in savage laughter.
He thrust out a hand, and the mud came crashing down.
At the same time, more sludge poured from his body, spilling into the swamp below.
His entire form looked like melting wax.
Then Morrison vanished again.
In the next instant, he reappeared right beside Smoker, emerging from the swamp itself, his body turning into a great mass of mud that wrapped in around Smoker from all sides.
"Hahahaha!"
"Kid, you've already lost!"
"Even among Logias, there are still huge differences."
"And you…"
"are far too inferior."
Morrison laughed wildly.
He could already picture it—
Smoker swallowed by mud, dragged into the swamp below.
In the blink of an eye, swamp sludge surged up from beneath Smoker's feet and locked both legs in place.
"Damn it!"
Smoker's eyelids twitched violently.
A powerful sense of danger flooded him.
But his legs were trapped so tightly that he couldn't move.
He looked up—
and saw that sea of mud crashing down from above.
And Morrison stood close by, watching like a predator.
At that moment, Smoker acutely felt just how small and weak he was.
In front of a true Logia master, his own control over his Devil Fruit still wasn't enough.
In this battle—
the power he had always been proud of wasn't even enough to make a ripple.
"So this is how I lose?"
"How pathetic."
"The fight only just started, and I'm already beaten."
"So…"
"I really am this weak."
Smoker lowered his head in frustration.
He had once thought that after a full year of training, he might finally have caught up to that monster named Kai.
But now—
after fighting Morrison—
he understood the truth.
The gap between him and Kai was still unimaginably vast.
There was no comparison.
"Even if elemental suppression is the reason I'm losing so badly…"
"the real problem is still that I'm too weak."
"For the truly strong…"
"there's no such thing as being helplessly countered by ability."
Instead of looking for excuses, Smoker turned inward and reflected on himself.
At that very moment, the mud was already about to swallow him whole and drag him beneath the swamp.
"So much for a Logia Smoke-Smoke Fruit."
"And this is supposed to be one of the Navy's elite?"
"Not very impressive."
Morrison laughed arrogantly.
Clearly—
Smoker had been defeated.
At the same time, seeing Smoker's miserable loss, Kai shook his head lightly.
Then he took a step forward, walking calmly into the battlefield.
"In the end…"
"I still have to clean up after you."
"But then again, this graduation trial has gone way beyond what it was supposed to be."
And with Smoker defeated—
Kai could no longer stay out of it.
If he didn't step in now, Smoker might actually die.
So, at last—
Kai moved.
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