Drip... drip... drip...
Blood fell in slow, rhythmic drops from the shards of tal still hanging in the air—each droplet a glimring bead of crimson, painting the air like a war god’s curtain.
The pirates stared, pale-faced, their throats constricting as they swallowed in unison.
"M... monster..."
"Our attacks didn’t even scratch him..."
"His body... it’s like Big Mom’s..."
Before they could process what they’d seen, another wave of electric-blue arcs danced across Darren’s fra. The shattered blades hanging mid-air suddenly twitched—then shot forward in a violent storm of steel.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
They sliced through the pirates like whispers through paper.
Dozens dropped where they stood—throats slashed, eyes pierced, hearts punctured. So didn’t even realize they were dying until they collapsed into the growing pool of blood at their feet.
Then—
Boom!
Darren’s eyes lifted. His hair stread upward as his muscles tensed.
With an earth-shattering roar, he kicked off the ground, launching forward like a living cannonball. The force of his movent cracked the air behind him.
He struck the pirate ranks like a typhoon, his hands sheathed in obsidian Haki shaped into clawed talons.
The Dragon Claw Fist—brutal, elegant, rciless.
He tore through the crowd, every slash a blur, every impact a small-scale disaster. Blood fountained around him, and limbs fell like discarded debris. His montum was unstoppable. Wherever he passed, the ground broke, the air warped, and life ceased.
"Damn it—charge!"
"He’s just one man!"
"We’ll drown him in bodies if we have to!"
"Don’t back down!"
At first, Big Mom’s forces had faltered, gripped by shock and disbelief. But they were no greenhorns—these were pirates of the New World, veterans of countless bloodbaths. Their fear gave way to fury, and fury gave way to tactics.
They surrounded him with renewed aggression.
Simultaneously, Den Den Mushi lines crackled to life. Calls for backup echoed across the island. From every stronghold and checkpoint, reinforcents surged forth.
Swollen Town descended into chaos.
Pirates poured through the alleys like floodwaters. Civilians scread and fled in terror. Buildings crumbled beneath the weight of battle. Explosions lit the skyline.
And at the eye of the storm stood one man.
Through the Visual Den Den Mushi broadcast, the world watched.
Watched as a Marine Vice Admiral beca a beast.
He leveled buildings with his fists. He split the earth with his steps. His strikes left gaping fissures and shattered bodies. Smoke and blood choked the skies.
"Not enough!" Darren snarled, driving a kick into a pirate’s chest and launching him across town. The man crashed through building after building, leaving a trail of ruin in his wake.
"Not nearly enough!"
Three enormous battleaxes ca down on him.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The weapons shattered on impact.
Darren didn’t flinch.
The pirates recoiled, stunned, their hands torn open from the recoil.
He grinned, teeth flashing like a wolf’s.
In one brutal motion, Darren grabbed two of them by the skull and slamd their heads together with bone-crunching force.
Crack!
Their craniums exploded like overripe fruit. Blood sprayed across the stones.
"An opening!"
A pirate burst from the crowd—spiky-haired, spear in hand, surrounded by crackling black Haki. He lunged for Darren’s exposed nape, eyes wild with bloodlust.
Clang!
The spear struck.
But Darren’s neck had already hardened with Armant Haki—so dense and refined, the weapon bounced off with a spray of sparks.
"Not bad," Darren muttered. "But your Haki’s sloppy."
He snatched the spear from the pirate’s grip.
His free hand closed around the man’s face.
And then—slam.
Boom!
He drove him into the ground so hard that a crater burst outward, swallowing the plaza.
Buildings collapsed into the sinkhole. Pirates tumbled in screaming.
Darren rose from the dust, spinning the spear once, then hurling it like a javelin.
It tore through the air with a banshee’s wail, trailed by shockwaves of white energy.
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
It skewered a dozen charging pirates in a single strike, pinning them to the shattered ruins of a distant tower.
He was no longer fighting. He was purging.
With every step, every movent, he left a trail of devastation.
He had transcended technique. This was raw power, refined by war, sharpened by rage.
A force of nature.
Still they ca.
Still the pirates surged in from every direction, like ants desperate to smother a fla.
Through the Visual Den Den Mushi, the world looked on—held its breath—as Darren’s grin twisted wider with each kill.
He hadn’t felt this alive in years.
Too long, he’d been fighting uphill—crushed, outnumbered, outmatched.
Now, at last, he was the one trampling others beneath his feet.
"Who the hell do you think you are?! This is Totto Land!"
The roar split the sky.
A wave of searing heat surged toward Darren, and from within the smoke erged a towering figure wreathed in flas.
Charlotte Oven.
Crimson aura boiling from his skin, the air around him distorted with sheer heat.
"Lord Oven!"
"He’s here!"
"We’re saved!"
"That man’s a monster!"
The tide seed to turn as Oven stepped forward—heat radiating from every pore.
"Heatwave Fist!!"
His right hand blazed with molten fury. Flas licked his skin. Even his eyes burned like twin furnaces.
He hurled the fist forward with a snarl.
"If Mom wants you alive, I don’t care—you’re not walking out of here!"
Darren didn’t flinch.
He shifted into stance—Dragon Claw Fist—and lashed out with a pitch-black, three-fingered claw.
BOOM!!
Their fists collided.
The ground exploded beneath them. A ring of shattered earth blasted outward. The air cracked with the force of their clash.
Oven grinned. "You dared et my heat head-on?! You’re insane!"
"I ate the Heat-Heat Fruit, brat! I can boil the ocean!"
Then he stopped.
His face twisted.
Sothing was wrong.
Why... isn’t he burning?
Darren’s arm didn’t even sizzle.
No blisters. No smoke. Nothing.
Darren looked down at him.
"Sorry," he said with a cruel smile. "You’re not magma."
"And you call yourself a monster?"
With a savage twist—
CRACK!
Charlotte Oven’s arm bent in directions nature never intended. Bone, flesh, and sinew tore in a spray of blood.
"AaaAAAAHHHHH!!"
He scread in agony as his entire limb twisted like wet rope, the heat extinguished in an instant.
Fear overtook his rage.
This strength...
He was one of Big Mom’s top fighters—able to halt ships with a single hand.
And yet...
He didn’t know that Darren’s "training" included dragging warships through the sea with chains tied to his back.
Not pirate boats. Not rafts.
Full-scale Marine vessels.
Oven’s eyes locked on Darren’s grin.
And in that mont, he understood—
He wasn’t facing a Vice Admiral.
He was facing sothing far worse.
To be continued...
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