Inside the cell, Enel shouted madly, acting as if he were not a prisoner at all, but a god passing judgment on mortals.
Uncle Tom stood beyond the Seastone bars, studying this strange guy who kept spitting out "god" and "mortal" every other sentence.
"Kael, you brat… this is the… generator you were talking about?" Tom's expression was hard to describe.
This guy looks like something's seriously wrong with his head. What if he messes up my precious ark later?
"Yep. That's him." Kael nodded.
Just then, Tesoro came in through another passageway. He still had bandages wrapped around him, but his complexion was much better.
"Lord Kael." He bowed to Kael first, then looked at Enel in the cell, shame flickering across his face. "Sorry, Lord Kael. This bastard's mouth is still filthy. I couldn't completely break him back on Skypiea."
Enel's rage burned even hotter the moment he saw Tesoro.
"You glittering piece of trash! You dared to ambush me with cowardly tricks! If you hadn't stuffed that filthy metal into my body, I would've erased you with a single move!"
"Enough. You're noisy." Kael dug a finger into his ear, annoyed.
Then he waved at Tesoro.
"Unlock the chains."
"Huh?" Tesoro and Tom both froze.
"Lord Kael, this…" Tesoro hesitated. "He's weak right now, but he's still a Rumble Rumble Fruit user. If we remove the Seastone restraints, it's dangerous."
"Unlock them." Kael repeated, leaving no room for argument.
"…Yes."
Tesoro did not understand, but he carried out the order immediately.
He walked to the cell door and used the key to open the heavy Seastone gate, then the Seastone chains binding Enel.
Clang!
With the crisp sound of chains dropping to the floor, Enel felt the suppressing force vanish.
His Devil Fruit power surged back through his limbs like a burst dam.
Crackle!
Pale blue arcs of electricity danced over his body, hissing in fine sparks.
"Stupid! So stupid it's beyond words, you mortals!" Enel's face twisted into a cruel, feverish grin. "You brought your own doom with your own hands! Now, feel the wrath of a god!"
Laughing wildly, he prepared to turn into a bolt of lightning and burst out of the cell.
Then, in the very next second, the smile on his face stiffened.
He realized his body would not turn into lightning.
His power had clearly returned, yet his body felt like it had been filled with molten lead, heavy and unmoving.
What?
Before he could understand it, a pressure beyond description slammed down from above, instantly wrapping around his entire being.
It was not physical weight.
It was something that crushed the soul, shattered will, and smothered thought.
Conqueror's Haki.
But it was nothing like any Conqueror's Haki he had ever known.
He had heard of people who possessed it, but theirs was like a mountain flood, violent, overwhelming, yet still something that followed a path.
This pressure was the universe.
It was the abyss.
It was infinite nothingness.
Enel felt his consciousness ripped away from his body, falling into a boundless black space.
And there, at the end of that darkness, sat a colossal presence beyond language.
That figure seemed to be formed from cosmic stardust. A pair of golden eyes burned brighter than the sun, deeper than a black hole.
Inside those eyes, Enel saw stars being born and dying.
He saw time flowing, then stopping.
He saw the cycle of life and death turning endlessly.
This was existence itself, beyond understanding, beyond imagination.
It radiated no killing intent, no hostility.
It simply watched him.
Yet that calm glance alone made Enel feel smaller than dust.
His pride in being a "god," his confidence in the Rumble Rumble Fruit, all of it became a child's pretend game in the face of that gaze.
Laughable.
Pitiful.
So this… is what a god really is?
So everything I chased, everything I claimed to be…
was a colossal joke.
He was not a god.
He was just a pathetic creature who had lucked into a bit of power and believed he could rule everything, like a frog at the bottom of a well staring at a slice of sky.
Thud.
In the real world, Enel's legs gave out, and he dropped straight to his knees.
Cold sweat drenched him. He trembled violently, gulping air like a fish thrown onto land.
The arrogance, the fury, the contempt on his face vanished without a trace.
All that remained was shock so extreme it bordered on collapse, and a hollow, broken confusion.
Kael slowly withdrew the Conqueror's Haki that had locked onto Enel with surgical precision.
The pressure in the cell disappeared in an instant.
Tesoro and Tom stared, dumbfounded.
They hadn't seen anything. They had only felt a flash of terror, a presence that came and went in a blink.
And the "god" who had been shouting a moment ago was now kneeling on the floor like a dead dog.
So this was Lord Kael's power.
To defeat without fighting.
He hadn't even lifted a finger, yet he had crushed a powerful Devil Fruit user from the inside out.
Tesoro's awe for Kael climbed to an even higher peak.
He remembered fighting Enel on Skypiea, trading life and death blows, winning only through strategy, while Lord Kael needed nothing more than a look.
The gap between them was not heaven and earth.
It was a different dimension entirely.
Enel knelt there, shaking for a long time before he slowly raised his head.
The way he looked at Kael had completely changed.
It was no longer the gaze of an enemy.
Not even the gaze of someone recognizing a stronger man.
It was…
the gaze of a believer, staring up at the one true god.
Fervent. Devout. And filled with something stranger still.
Joy.
Like a traveler who had been lost for ages and finally found the lighthouse that would guide his path.
Enel crawled forward on his knees, dragging himself to Kael's feet.
Trembling, he reached out as if to touch Kael's shoe, then stopped at the last moment, as though even that would be blasphemy.
He slammed his forehead against the cold floor.
"God…"
A hoarse syllable scraped out of his dry throat.