"So this is what they call a beast?"
Gion took a fighting stance the moment she saw it.
"Clang!"
The famous blade, "Konpira," left its sheath in an instant.
A pink slash cut through the air.
The monster bird froze in midair.
The next second, its body split apart and dropped to the ground in chunks. The cuts were so clean that the blood did not even spill right away.
"Too weak." Gion put her sword back into its sheath.
As a future Vice Admiral candidate, something at this level posed no threat to her at all.
However, this was only the beginning.
The thick smell of blood spread at once, as if it had touched the nerves of the whole island.
"Roar!!"
"Awooo!!"
"Hisss!!"
Roars suddenly erupted from deep inside the jungle, one after another.
The ground began to shake, as if a whole pack was charging toward them.
"Looks like we're not welcome here," Aiden said calmly.
In the blink of an eye, countless scarlet eyes lit up in the jungle shadows.
Huge tyrannosaurs, saber-toothed tigers the size of hills, giant wild boars covered in spikes... they came rushing in from every direction and completely surrounded the two of them.
There was no order among them. Some were even snapping at each other. But the moment they saw humans, they all charged at the same target, drool hanging from their mouths.
"There are quite a lot of them."
Gion frowned slightly and gripped her sword again. Killing them all would not be difficult, but it would take time.
"I'll do it."
Aiden stepped forward and stood in front of Gion.
He looked at the beasts around them, all driven mad by the IQ plants, and a trace of impatience flashed through his eyes. Then he raised his right hand, extended one finger, and aimed at the place where the beasts were packed the closest.
"Bzzzt..."
Terrifying high-voltage current gathered at his fingertip, letting out a sharp buzzing sound.
"Whoosh!!!"
A blue-white beam of lightning, no thicker than a finger, shot out in an instant.
It was so fast that it seemed to tear a straight line through the air.
It pierced through the first dinosaur's head, then the second, then the third...
The lightning moved through the herd at terrifying speed, bouncing from one target to the next.
Any beast struck by it did not even have time to scream. Its body locked up at once, and a burnt smell spread from inside. Its brain and heart were fried by the high voltage in an instant.
In only one breath,
the lightning disappeared.
The dozens of giant beasts that had looked so fierce just moments ago were all frozen in place. Then they dropped stiffly to the ground, black smoke rising from their bodies. Not one of them could move.
"Let's go."
Aiden lowered his hand as if he had done nothing important. Then he stepped over the bodies and walked deeper into the island.
Gion watched him, and a strange look flashed in her eyes. She could have wiped them all out too, but the fact that Aiden could do it with such terrifying efficiency while making it look effortless really was the advantage of a Logia user.
The two of them continued deeper into the island and headed straight for the high ground in the center.
The farther they went, the stranger the island became.
This place looked like a twisted laboratory.
Aiden saw a giant Venus flytrap more than thirty meters tall. It opened a huge crimson mouth wide enough to swallow an elephant and devoured a mutated wild boar that had just passed by. Not far away, in a swamp, several giant flowers with unnaturally bright colors were releasing light purple poison gas. A few small beasts that had wandered too close were already lying dead nearby, and their bodies were rotting quickly.
The laws of life here had been completely twisted.
The plants were no longer just part of the scenery. They were even more aggressive and territorial than the beasts. Even the predators at the top of the food chain could become prey at any moment.
"These plants are growing far too fast..."
Gion watched a vine strangle a rhinoceros to death in just a few seconds, her expression serious. "It's like hundreds of years of evolution were forced into just a few days."
"That's the strange power of the plants here."
Aiden's eyes swept across the twisted vegetation. His Observation Haki spread across the entire island like a net.
He was searching.
He was trying to find any trace left behind by the Golden Lion.
However...
Ten minutes later, the two of them stood on a piece of high ground in the center of the island, looking down at the island below.
Aiden opened his eyes. His brows tightened slightly, and a trace of disappointment flashed through his eyes.
"Nothing..."
In his senses, the entire island was filled with violent primitive life. But other than the mutated beasts and the IQ plants, there was no sign of any human presence.
No laboratory. And no man with a ship's wheel stuck in his head.
"Looks like the Golden Lion hasn't come here yet."
For now, this island was still nothing more than a primitive land full of monsters.
"How is it?" Gion could tell Aiden was disappointed. "Did you find anything?"
"The environment is too bad."
Aiden pulled back his gaze and gave his conclusion in a serious tone. "The beasts here are too strong, and far too aggressive. On top of that, there's pollen in the air that can drive people mad. This place is completely unfit to be a training ground. If we throw new recruits in here, forget training. If one out of ten survives, they'll already be lucky."
"Let's keep this place marked as a forbidden zone."
Gion nodded. That was a reasonable conclusion.
Aiden shook his head and sighed. A trace of regret entered his voice. "I thought I might find something useful, but it was all for nothing. Let's head back. After we return, have people keep watch over this sea area. If they notice any strange weather or unknown ships coming close, tell them to report it to me immediately."
"This time... it looks like I have no fate with that man."
Aiden waved his hand and started walking down the mountain.
Gion felt that his words seemed to mean more than they showed, but she did not ask any further questions.
The two of them followed the same route back. Before long, they walked out of the jungle and reached a wide plain.
Once they crossed it, they would reach the coast.
However.
The moment Aiden stepped into the open area...
"Whoo..."
The wind stopped.
The sea wind that had been howling around them suddenly came to a halt under some terrifying force.
The whole world fell into a suffocating silence.
Even the beasts roaring deep in the jungle seemed to sense something. They all went quiet, lay trembling on the ground, and let out frightened whimpers.
It was the instinctive fear all living things felt toward something above them.
Then...
The sky darkened.
Not because of clouds.
And not because the sun was setting.
A huge shadow had fallen from directly overhead and swallowed all the light within several miles.
"What is going on?!"
Gion looked up in shock.
The next second, all color drained from her face.
Her pupils shrank violently as they reflected a terrifying sight.
"Ai... Aiden!! Look at the sky!!!"
Aiden stopped at once and looked up.
The clouds overhead were being torn apart by an invisible force.
An island.
A floating island so huge it blocked out the sky was slowly descending from the clouds with overwhelming force, wrapped in wind and thunder strong enough to crush everything below.
It was like an entire mountain was falling from the sky.
It floated in the air, and its huge shadow covered the sea and the land below. The rocks at the bottom of the island looked like the fangs of a monster. Thick chains hung down from it and slammed into each other in the strong wind, making a deafening metallic roar.
"That is..."
Aiden stared at the island above, and his eyes suddenly shone with wild excitement.
There was no need to confirm it.
In this world, only one kind of power could make an island float in the sky like that.
"Hahahaha..."
Aiden suddenly laughed. Even in the roaring wind, his laughter was still clear, full of excitement.
"I knew it... I knew my instinct was right!"
"I was just about to leave, and you came right to me!"
"What?" Gion looked at him in disbelief. Under that crushing pressure, she could barely keep her footing. "You know what that is?!"
Aiden did not answer.
He stood in the middle of the plain, facing the giant island descending with overwhelming force, and slowly lowered his center of gravity.
"Zzng."
His left thumb gently pushed the sword at his waist out of its sheath.
"Bzzzt!"
Violent blue lightning burst from his body at once and poured wildly into the blade.
"Buzz..."
Pitch-black Armament Haki wrapped around it, clashing violently with the high-voltage lightning. In the end, the silver-white blade turned dark purple.
The blade trembled as if it could barely withstand the power. The air around him began to distort under the strong electromagnetic field. Tiny stones rose into the air around Aiden as if gravity had lost its hold on them, then crumbled into powder in an instant.
A powerful aura began gathering around him, compressed to the limit.
"Aiden! You... what are you trying to do?!" Gion felt that terrifying power and shouted, "That's an island falling from the sky! Get out of the way!!"
In front of such terrifying mass, personal strength seemed so small. Even an Admiral, when faced with something like a falling island, would choose to avoid it first.
But Aiden did not move.
He looked at the rocky base getting closer and closer. He looked at that massive shadow that could crush everything below. The smile on his lips grew even wilder, and the lightning in his eyes looked ready to tear through the sky.
"Move? Why should I move?"
"If the sky is falling..."
Aiden suddenly stomped on the ground.
"Boom!!!"
The hard rocky ground beneath his feet exploded at once, collapsing into a huge crater dozens of meters wide.
Using that terrifying recoil, along with the thrust of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, his whole body turned into a streak of purple lightning that shot upward. Instead of retreating, he charged straight at the falling floating island like a meteor rising into the sky.
"Then I'll split it apart!!!"
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