Night deepened. The pitch-black sky now held a crescent moon.
The bright moonlight spilled onto the sea, creating shimmering waves. Reflected in the water was the silhouette of a solitary submarine ship anchored near the coast.
"Hmm?"
On the deck, a man feigning sleep with his hand resting on his sword suddenly opened his eyes. In the pale moonlight, his dark eyes were filled with shock.
"This is—Conquerors Haki?"
If this had happened before he landed on this island, he might not have found it strange, like the others enveloped by the aura, and certainly wouldn't have been awakened.
But just a few days ago, he had the privilege of personally witnessing the renowned "Dark King" use this very power at the Human Auction House.
Although the impact was far less intense than that day, he was certain the power was of the same origin.
It's not him… then who could it be? There is another "King" who has awakened this power on the island?
The man, clutching his sword, gazed toward the outline of a small, illuminated cottage several hundred meters away on the shore. He knew the source of the Haoshoku Haki was that cottage.
"Should I—go take a look?"
He reached out a finger, flicking his sword out of its sheath. With his other hand, palm down, a miniature, transparent bubble of air gradually condensed.
"Roo..."
Just as the man began to use his ability, a bear paw suddenly pressed down on his shoulder from behind.
The paw was large and heavy.
Startled, the man stumbled, causing his long sword to immediately return to its sheath and the transparent bubble condensing in his palm to burst like foam.
"Bepo!"
The man spun around furiously.
In view, there was indeed a white bear lying flat on the deck, sleeping soundly with its large belly rising and falling; its snores were audible, yet the bear paw was inexplicably stretched out and resting on his shoulder.
"Sumimasen... (I'm sorry)..."
As if sensing the man's anger, the white bear mumbled incoherently in its sleep.
"Don't apologize when you're asleep!"
He muttered the complaint under his breath, placed the bear paw back on the deck, and gripped his long sword again, his ability condensing once more in his palm.
But when he looked up again, he found that the light in the cottage on the shore had been extinguished.
The Next Day, Morning
As the first ray of sunlight poured into the house, Xiang En opened his eyes from the bed.
"Is it the sixth day of the transmigration?"
While getting up and changing clothes, he checked the clock on the wall.
Exactly seven o'clock—the time he used to wake up on workdays before he transmigrated. Half an hour for washing and breakfast, half an hour to rush to the subway, catching the 8:15 commute.
The miserable days were vivid in his memory. Although it was the same early start, being woken by an alarm clock and waking up naturally were two entirely different concepts.
"La la la~"
At least now, Xiang En's face no longer held its former lifelessness, but was beaming with observable joy. He hummed a tune as he walked out of the bedroom.
In the second-floor hallway, he noticed that Klee's and Kagura's doors were still tightly shut, but Drake's room was wide open. He wasn't surprised.
Kagura always slept early and woke up late. As for Klee, her room light was on until Xiang En fell asleep, so he didn't know when she finally finished her tinkering. Based on the volatile Pyro Element power fluctuations he sensed from her room last night, she was probably researching some new type of bomb.
As for Drake.
Xiang En looked at the floor. Scattered along the staircase leading down were bits of fragmented bandage.
When he followed the debris to the living room on the first floor, he found the front door wide open.
Xiang En looked up, his pupils widening instantly.
No sunlight was streaming in through the doorway, because all the light was being blocked by a massive figure.
It was a monster with a gaping maw, sharp fangs expelling heavy breaths—a terrifying figure with green skin and vicious tusks. Its two claws, oddly small compared to its huge body, shone with a sharp, metallic sheen in the sunlight.
It was a dinosaur, nearly as tall as the cottage itself!
Xiang En was stunned. When he saw the discarded bandages scattered around the dinosaur's feet, he realized this monster was Drake's transformed ability.
It's quite ugly, isn't it?
Ugly or not, it was a living, breathing dinosaur. Seeing a creature he had only ever seen in movies right in front of him was genuinely shocking.
The view from the doorway wasn't wide enough to see the dinosaur's full outline in the living room.
Just as Xiang En was about to step outside for a closer look, the dinosaur suddenly moved.
Swoosh—!
The silver-shining claw fiercely swung, leaving an afterimage in the air and letting out a whistling sound. The claw plunged with lethal force toward its own body.
Then, blood splattered out. The dinosaur let out a painful roar, forcefully grasping its own abdomen with its claw, tearing hard, and ripping off a piece of its scale.
"Hiss…" Xiang En knew Drake was fulfilling his promise, but he hadn't expected it to be so bloody.
It was then that he realized that, unlike the dragons of some fantasy works, a dinosaur's scale was like its skin; tearing off a scale was like tearing off a piece of its flesh.
Putting himself in Drake's position, he wasn't sure he could have been so resolute. This guy was a tough man, both externally and internally.
While he was caught in his inner awe, the dinosaur, nearly ten meters tall and as high as the two-story house, stopped roaring. Its body gradually shrank, the saurian form receding, and it instantly transformed back into a shirtless, muscular man over two meters tall.
"Well? What do you think of my ability?"
Drake, slightly out of breath, tossed the bloodied scale in his hand towards Xiang En, who was standing in the doorway.
"It's… utterly fantastic!"
Xiang En caught it. He gazed at the scale, stained scarlet with blood, and a curve lifted his lips as he heard the mechanical voice inside his mind.
[Detected compatible summoning medium. Absorb?]
Xiang En didn't absorb it immediately. He held the scale in his palm, looked up at Drake, and smiled:
"Let me show you my ability as well."
Without waiting for the bewildered Drake to reply, Xiang En concentrated his mind, skillfully channeling the Pyro Element power from the air.
Drake suddenly felt a wave of heat. He saw myriad strands of fiery red, strange energy converging towards Xiang En's palm in the air.
After those energies merged, a flame suddenly rose. A small lick of fire appeared in Xiang En's palm out of thin air. The flame, guided by an invisible force, nimbly climbed onto the scale.
In the next moment, the scale was enveloped in the flame, but there was no sign of charring. Instead, the bloodstains on its surface began to boil, evaporating into steam and dissipating into the air.
In less than a moment, after the flame vanished, Drake saw that the scale he had just torn from his body was now completely renewed, shining with a dazzling luster, like a piece of metallic machinery.
"Well, what do you think of my ability now?"
Xiang En smiled faintly. He clenched the scale and put it into his pants pocket, though in reality, the moment his hand entered his pocket, he mentally chanted "Absorb" and transferred the scale into his Golden Finger space.