This was an unceremonious warning, one could even call it a provocation.
But...
Dalton couldn't say a word, he just stiffly turned his neck, looking a dozen meters away at that "wound" on the earth, at least forty or fifty meters wide and a kilometer long.
Yes, the man before him had killed Wapol and posed a threat to the kingdom.
But...
Could they resist? Could they fight? Could they defend their kingdom?
Such questions surfaced in everyone's hearts, and then, looking at that terrifying "abyss," they received a cold answer.
There was no way, no possibility. No matter what they chose, there was no hope.
The only hope they could cling to was simply praying that the other party would not destroy them.
"What... do you want to do?" Dalton asked with difficulty.
"Nothing."
Hiroto sighed. "It's a very difficult thing to step over an ant without hurting it, especially a particularly disgusting ant like Wapol. So I didn't choose to restrain myself, but as for the rest of you, I harbor no hostility."
"Even though I killed your king, it's a good thing for this kingdom, isn't it? Hasn't the Drum Kingdom turned from a medically advanced nation into what it is now precisely because of his greed?"
This man... knows so much!
Dalton was somewhat surprised, but mostly confused. However, he soon stopped focusing on that.
Compared to that, the lack of hostility shown by the other party was the most important thing.
Moreover, this man named Hiroto wasn't wrong.
Even in the eyes of the Royal Guard Captain and Wapol's confidant, destroying the country's medical system, gathering some doctors around himself and then banishing all the others, resulting in the people of the Drum Kingdom having to find ways to please the king just to get treatment when they fall ill....
No matter how you look at it, such things were far too excessive.
In such freezing conditions, people get sick easily.
To some extent, Dalton even felt a bit grateful to the man before him.
Thus, he chose silence.
As for those guards, they certainly didn't have the courage to harbor any hostility.
How many berries do they make a month to face a monster that can tear apart the sky and the earth?
Hiroto ignored them and simply opened his panel to check the information.
As he said, killing Wapol was partly to demonstrate to the Marines and the World Government. Essentially, it was to put some pressure on them.
The death of a king of an affiliated nation is a major event that the World Government would inevitably take seriously.
Part of it was also his dislike for Wapol's character. In the original story, this king was of the extremely vile sort. He was a coward who feared death and viewed his subjects as tools for amassing wealth and pleasing himself.
But more than that, he wanted to see if Wapol's Munch-Munch fruit could bring a useful entry.
Wapol had eaten the Paramecia-type Munch-Munch Fruit and could swallow anything and absorb what he swallowed into his body, making it a part of himself or synthesize them.
For example, after being defeated by Luffy in the original story, Wapol used the Munch-Munch fruit's ability to swallow minerals and synthesize the shape-memory alloy "Wapometal," using it to earn a vast fortune and become a king once again.
[Entry: Munch-Munch Space]
[Quality: Purple]
[Type: Active]
[Effect: Consumes stamina to create a portable "Munch-Munch Space" that can take in and spit out matter, limited in size to 1m x 1m x 1m.]
[Cost: Stamina]
[Note: Mukbang time!]
With a consumption of stamina, Hiroto felt an extra space in his palm. With a thought, Shusui was "swallowed" into the invisible space, placed inside sideways.
How should he put it? It's somewhat useful, but not by much.
This made Hiroto realize that while timing [Gluttony] correctly could indeed get him scraps of Devil Fruit abilities from Devil Fruit Users, not everything would form a powerful and particularly useful entry. It emphasized a sense of randomness more than anything.
'Better than nothing.'
Hiroto's Observation Haki spread out, continuously expanding and extending toward the horizon.
Ahead, Zoro was still in a fierce battle.
However, what concerned him was actually someone else.
Viola!
[Incoming Chaos] was triggered just in time, and he vanished in the next instant.
Spin Spin Projectile Cannon!
Buffalo, speeding through the sky, began to spin, whipping up a gale like a typhoon.
When his rotation speed peaked, he suddenly threw Baby 5, who had turned her upper body into a missile.
Boom!
Baby 5, in her missile form, successfully hit the target, and a soaring explosion rose into a small mushroom cloud.
The shockwave from the explosion spread in a circle, instantly clearing the falling snow within a kilometer, showing its immense power.
"Is it over?"
Baby 5 returned to her original form, looking tensely at the smoke screen of snow and dust radiating heat.
About half an hour had passed since they were at the tavern.
She and Buffalo had teamed up against that green-haired swordsman, thinking they could eliminate him easily, but they hadn't expected it to be an evenly matched fight.
The opponent had Haki, something even Senor Pink didn't.
His combat ability was terrifyingly high. With the slightest lapse... or rather, she already had more than a dozen wounds on her body.
If she hadn't been constantly transforming her body into weapons, it would have been more than just scars.