"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"
The barrels of dozens of rifles flashed at the same time! Deafening gunfire rang throughout all of Mock Town!
The bullets came down like a storm of steel. Mixed with the smell of gunpowder, it looked like the two men at the bottom of the crater were about to be swallowed whole!
"Click... click... click..."
The gunfire gradually thinned out as the rifles ran dry.
The surrounding pirates backed away in fear.
The two men at the bottom of the crater were still standing in the same spot, completely unharmed.
One meter in front of them, hundreds of bullets had stopped together in midair, as if they had hit an invisible wall!
Thin blue arcs of electricity wrapped around each bullet, crackling softly as they hung there without moving forward even an inch.
Aiden did not even bother using Armament Haki. He had simply raised a small electromagnetic field.
The pirates who had fired were still locked in their shooting stances, the expressions on their faces completely frozen.
The wind blew through, kicking up dust from the ground.
The entire Mock Town fell silent.
"Clang."
A rifle slipped from the hands of a pirate in the front row and hit the ground. He did not even notice. His legs were shaking violently, and his teeth would not stop chattering.
"How... how is that possible?"
"The... the bullets... they stopped..."
Aiden looked at the bullets hanging in the air, then at the terrified pirates. Calmly, he opened his hand.
"Clink... clank... clatter..."
The bullets instantly lost their support and all dropped to the ground in a shower of metal.
"Boss Mills..." a pirate said in a trembling voice as he looked at Mills, only to find that even his leader was backing away in fear.
One pirate with a little more experience looked at the two unharmed figures at the bottom of the crater. His legs gave out, and he collapsed to the ground. His voice shook with despair. "That... is that a... Devil Fruit user?!"
Panic spread through the pirates nearby like a plague.
"Run... run!"
"Too noisy."
Aiden spoke coldly as he watched the pirates scatter in every direction.
He had no intention of letting the pirates of Mock Town go. To him, they were all walking Sin Points.
Sure, for every hundred pirates, there might be one innocent adventurer mixed in. But Aiden had no interest in digging through the trash to find that one person right now. They had chosen this life at sea. They should have been ready for what came with it.
Besides, he was a Marine. Marines killing pirates was only natural.
He slowly closed his eyes.
His Observation Haki instantly spread over all of Mock Town!
In his perception, hundreds of life signs lit up.
One second later, the filtering was complete.
More than five hundred pirates across all of Mock Town were locked onto with perfect accuracy.
Aiden slowly raised one hand and pointed it at the sky.
At that moment, his face was expressionless.
"Ten Thousand Lightning."
In an instant, the sky that had been clear just moments ago turned dark at a visible speed!
A terrifying thundercloud large enough to cover all of Mock Town gathered overhead!
"Rumble!!!!"
Blinding blue bolts of electricity ran wildly through the dark clouds. The pressure alone was enough to leave everyone breathless!
"What... what is that?!"
"Oh... God!!"
Aiden slowly lowered his hand.
"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!!!!!"
Hundreds of thick bolts of lightning fell from the sky at the same time!
It was a rain of lightning, beautiful and terrifying at the same time.
The lightning formed a web of pure destruction!
A pirate sprinting toward the harbor was struck through the head by lightning. Both he and his boat were turned to charcoal together!
A pirate hiding inside a wine barrel vanished along with the barrel when the lightning hit!
A pirate who tried to fight back was burned to ash before he could even move!
The screams never had time to come out before they were drowned beneath the roar of thunder.
When the thunderclouds disappeared and sunlight fell over the town again,
all of Mock Town had gone silent.
The air was thick with the smell of burnt flesh.
Smoker stood at the edge of the crater with a cigar in his mouth, staring blankly at the street ahead.
No... he was not actually calm.
Even with the cigar still between his lips, his hand was shaking slightly. He had not even remembered to light it.
He looked at the scene around him, at the black shapes left behind on the ground, and then at Aiden, who stood there with sparks still flickering around him.
He was already almost certain. Aiden was that "Demon Arise" with the 500-million bounty.
Of course, he had no intention of reporting him.
After spending nearly a year together day and night, he already understood Aiden's character. What he felt now was helplessness in the face of someone that strong.
He had never imagined Aiden's power would go this far.
Smoker subconsciously looked at his own hand, the one that could only produce smoke. He wondered whether he could have wiped out all these pirates if he had been the one standing here.
[Sin Index: 990]
[Sin Index: 2,190]
[Sin Index: 760]
[Sin Index: 17,990]
[Sin Index: 4,790]
At that moment, system notifications were scrolling wildly through Aiden's mind. In just ten seconds, the Sin Index had jumped by hundreds of thousands.
Faced with the huge pile of rewards he could choose from, Aiden started checking through them. To his surprise, three pirates carried [B-Rank] Medical Skills. That was actually useful. After choosing all three, they merged into an [A-Rank] Medical Skill, which turned out to be a nice extra gain.
As for everything else, he chose [Physical Improvement] by default. Still, ever since he had reached an [S-Rank] Physique, low-level physical improvements had become almost meaningless.
Aiden stood among the fading sparks and slowly let out a breath, as if he had only done something trivial.
Smoker finally snapped out of it. His shaking hand fumbled around for a moment before he finally pulled out a lighter.
"Click."
He lit the cigar and took a deep drag. The hot smoke filled his lungs, finally bringing a little feeling back to his cold limbs.
Then... he turned around and put his back to the man he no longer wanted to look at directly.
"Let's go," Smoker said, his voice a little hoarse. "We need to find a ship at the harbor first."
"And then we need to find a way to contact Headquarters..."
He paused, as if it took everything he had just to finish the sentence. "...to report how we barely made it out alive."
Aiden looked at Smoker's broad back and smiled.
He walked forward and stood beside him, also looking toward the harbor.
"Yeah, you're right." Aiden's tone relaxed. "After all, we were captured by that 'Demon Arise' with the 500-million bounty. It's a miracle we managed to get away."
Smoker's body stiffened for a second, clearly annoyed by Aiden's shamelessness.
He did not look back. He only forced out a reply through clenched teeth. "Hmph... next time you cook, I'm eating first, and I'm eating until I'm full!"
"Deal."