"That's right. This old man is the captain of this generation's CP0 Guard Unit. At the same time, I'm a user of the Special Paramecia-type Dust-Dust Fruit. I can freely manipulate dust, and when it comes purely to the fruit's abilities, it's in no way inferior to a Logia."
"Is that so?"
A powerful aura surged throughout King's body.
Then, with a bang, he forcibly broke apart the dust restraining his body.
However, more and more dust immediately began closing in around him.
"It's useless! I can not only manipulate dust, but also create dust at will. My own body can also transform into dust. The Paramecia-type Dust-Dust Fruit possesses three different aspects—creation, domination, and a superhuman body. It's not something you can break through so easily!!"
Elsewhere, Shiryu held a cigar between his lips as he wiped down Raiu, stepping forward to face another of the agents who had already moved into battle.
"Judging by your aura, you're not young either. You must be one of the old-timers from the previous generation, right?"
Shiryu raised his sword.
In an instant, his entire presence surged to its absolute peak.
"This old man was the captain of the previous generation's CP0."
"Then you've got to be at least eighty or ninety years old, right? At your age, shouldn't you be peacefully enjoying retirement? Why come out here looking to die? Isn't staying alive better?"
Shiryu's words showed absolutely no mercy.
At the same time, he swung the sword in his hand several times, releasing a pink glow into the surrounding area.
"Your ability controls air, doesn't it? A Logia-type Air-Air Fruit. The World Government really does have plenty of good things hidden away."
A red gleam flashed through Shiryu's eyes.
Clearly, he had already mastered the ability to foresee the future as well. He had caught a glimpse of what was about to happen and used the Slow-Slow Fruit to counter it in advance.
"The Paramecia-type Slow-Slow Fruit?" the former CP0 captain said in a muffled voice.
"And you've developed it to an extremely high level, approaching complete suppression."
"Hmph! You were planning to drain all the air from around me, weren't you? Unfortunately for you, now that the air around me has been slowed down, if you want to remove it, you'll have to wait at least thirty minutes before it can even respond."
Shiryu sneered.
By now, Shiryu had developed the Slow-Slow Fruit to the point where he could slow things down for roughly thirty minutes at most.
"So suffocating me is impossible. And I've slowed down the entire environment around me as well. If you want to use the surrounding air itself to attack me, you won't be able to do that either."
As he spoke, a fierce light flashed through Shiryu's eyes.
"Then let me show you what Thousand Shadows can really do!"
While Burgess, King, and Shiryu had each found their opponents, the other division commanders of the Thunder God Pirates also entered the battlefield one after another and sought out enemies of their own.
At that moment, one of the three agents who had rushed out first suddenly charged directly toward Roy!
"Foolish."
Burgess merely glanced sideways before withdrawing his gaze, grinning as he once again hurled a fist toward Kong.
Roy stared at the CP agent rapidly approaching him without even raising his head.
His expression remained completely undisturbed.
"Die, Thunder Emperor!"
A trace of shock flashed through the eyes beneath the agent's mask.
But before he could even raise his hand, he suddenly felt as though his body no longer belonged to him!
"BANG!"
Under everyone's horrified gazes, the agent suddenly exploded in midair, bursting into a cloud of blood!
"C-Conqueror's... Haki..."
Everyone abruptly froze.
Their pupils contracted violently as they stared at Roy with disbelief filling their eyes.
All of them were extremely proficient in Haki.
Naturally, they knew that the power just now had been Conqueror's Haki.
But precisely because they knew that, they found it even harder to believe.
Conqueror's Haki was different from Armament Haki and Observation Haki.
It could not simply be learned through ordinary training. Whether a person possessed it depended on whether they were born with the qualities of a king.
Once Conqueror's Haki reached a sufficiently advanced level, its user could control which targets within its effective range would be affected.
For example, when Silvers Rayleigh used Conqueror's Haki at the auction house, most of the people inside collapsed.
Two years later, Luffy used Conqueror's Haki alone on Fish-Man Island and knocked out fifty thousand fish-man pirates.
The oppressive force of Conqueror's Haki could be overwhelmingly powerful.
It could even inflict tangible physical effects upon its targets.
At this stage, Charlotte Linlin's Conqueror's Haki was powerful enough to cause KX Launchers fired from close range to explode, while Shanks' Conqueror's pressure could even cause cracks to appear in a ship.
Furthermore, the intimidation and pressure generated by Conqueror's Haki would only produce truly overwhelming results when there was an enormous gap between the user and the opponent.
And yet—
Just now, that powerful CP0 agent had actually been physically crushed by the Thunder Emperor's Conqueror's Haki until his entire body exploded into a cloud of blood!
Don't joke around!!
Among every member of Cipher Pol, including all of its retired veterans from previous generations, that dead agent could rank among the top three in terms of pure strength!
Even across the entire sea, he could be considered one of the absolute top-tier powerhouses.
His strength was no weaker than that of a Marine Admiral or even a Fleet Admiral!
Yet even someone like that had been directly crushed to death by nothing more than the Thunder Emperor's Haki.
Didn't that mean...
Were all of them nothing more than fodder being delivered straight to the Thunder Emperor?!
The moment they thought of this, Kong, the other two top-class agents, and all of their subordinates felt their morale plunge straight to rock bottom.
Was the Thunder Emperor really this powerful?
Was he truly unbeatable?!!
"What are you thinking about?!"
The voices of Burgess, King, and Shiryu rang out simultaneously.
While Kong and the others were distracted and shaken, the three immediately unleashed their strongest attacks.
"CRACK!"
"Pteranodon—Rampage Form!"
"Wave Motion: Boiling Shockwave—Sea, Sky, Void!"
"Slow-Slow: Disarray Slash!"
The three of them possessed an almost fanatical, blind admiration for Roy.
No matter how powerful Roy became, they considered it completely natural.
Therefore, they were not affected in the slightest.
Instead, they seized the opportunity and unleashed their maximum offensive power.
"PFFFFT!"
After taking the attacks head-on, several of their opponents were instantly sent flying backward.
"Commander-in-Chief Kong!!"
The people inside Mary Geoise cried out anxiously when they saw what was happening on the battlefield.
Among them, Gion—Momousagi, the Admiral candidate who had been deliberately kept behind as one of the Marines' surviving reserve forces—gripped the Famous Blade Konpira tightly in her hand.
But in the end, she could only helplessly loosen her grip again.
(End of Chapter)
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