Levi's voice, thick with weariness, seemed not to travel through the air but to seep directly into the deepest recesses of every pirate's mind on the opposing ship.
The effect was immediate and terrifying.
The pirates, who had been roaring, waving their weapons, and preparing for a boarding battle, all froze in place. The ferocity and fanaticism in their eyes were doused as if by cold water, quickly extinguished, and replaced by an irresistible haze and profound heaviness.
"Uh..."
"How... suddenly..."
"So sleepy..."
"Ha ah—yawwwn—"
*Thud! Thud! Thud!*
Like stalks of wheat being cut down in a single sweep, the pirates collapsed in swathes onto the deck, beside the cannons, and beneath the mast. Weapons slipped from their weakened hands, clattering for a moment before being drowned out by a rising chorus of thunderous snores. The pirate ship, which had been bristling with murderous intent just moments before, instantly transformed into a collective dormitory floating on the sea, filled with snores of various rhythms.
On the deck of *The Rock*, the Marine soldiers stared in disbelief, their jaws nearly hitting the wood. Their tightly gripped weapons were still raised, their prepared combat stances now seeming utterly pointless.
"This... it's over?"
"They all... just fell asleep?"
"I haven't even fired a single shot..."
"Is this... the Special Advisor's power?"
Whispers filled with incredulity and an absurd sense of shock rippled through the ranks.
On the bridge, Vice Admiral Ghoumil's pupils also contracted slightly. Although he had been mentally prepared, witnessing a single, tired sentence instantly strip a notorious pirate crew of its combat capability still delivered an incredibly strong visual and cognitive impact. His hand, holding the binoculars, tightened as he gained a new, more concrete understanding of "conceptual abilities."
Levi looked at the now "quiet" scene before him with satisfaction. He clapped his hands in a perfunctory gesture and turned to return to his cabin, as if he had merely swatted away a noisy fly.
"Finally dealt with... I can go back and catch up on..."
Before he could finish his internal monologue, an unexpected change shattered the quiet.
"Uh... Aaaah!!!"
A roar, suppressing extreme drowsiness and raw fury, erupted from the pirate ship's bow.
"Mountain Splitter" Orne, against all odds, was still standing.
His massive body swayed violently, his eyes bloodshot and filled with an intense sleepiness. His eyelids felt like thousand-pound boulders, constantly trying to close, yet were forcibly held open by his beast-like willpower. On the deck beneath his feet, his subordinates lay sprawled, sound asleep. Levi's ability had affected him, but not completely. The pirate captain, with a bounty of nearly 190 million, possessed a fierce will and robust physique that gave him considerable resistance to the erosion of "sloth."
"You... bas... tard...!" Orne's voice was slurred, like a sleep-talker's, yet filled with astonishing rage. "What... trick... did you... play... on my... crew...!"
A strong sense of crisis and the humiliation of his crew's defeat temporarily overwhelmed the tidal wave of sleepiness. He suddenly grabbed the enormous, gleaming double-bladed battle-axe beside him, his arm muscles bulging and veins popping.
"I'll... cleave you... and this rotten ship...!"
He used all his strength to hurl the heavy giant axe like a javelin towards the bridge of *The Rock*! The axe tore through the air with a heart-stopping whistle, carrying enough power to cleave through the armor of a small warship. This sudden turn of events made the hearts of all the Marine soldiers leap into their throats.
Vice Admiral Ghoumil's eyes narrowed, Armament Haki instantly covering his arm as he prepared to take the blow head-on.
However, one person reacted even "faster"—Levi, who had already half-turned to leave.
The thrown axe, with its whistling wind and sharp killing intent, precisely triggered the core definition of Levi's Absolute Sloth Domain: trouble. A huge, physical, and troublesome problem that would require effort to deal with. He didn't even fully see what was flying towards him; he was just intensely annoyed by the sound of it cutting through the air.
He turned his head with extreme impatience, glanced at the huge black shadow spinning through the air, and frowned even deeper.
"...So noisy..."
"Things flying around... are the worst..."
"Just looking at it... is such a bother..."
His complaints were not loud, but they carried an undeniable power of absolute rules. The next moment, a scene unfolded that completely subverted everyone's understanding of physical laws.
The giant axe, imbued with Orne's furious strength and seemingly unstoppable, mysteriously lost all momentum when it was about ten meters from *The Rock*. It was as if the axe itself had suddenly decided it "couldn't be bothered" to fly any further. Its kinetic energy seemed to be instantly drained by an invisible hand, its rotational speed plummeted, and its flight path became soft and wobbly, tracing a lazy, threatless arc.
Then, under the stunned gaze of every Marine and Orne himself, the huge battle-axe, like a listless falling leaf, "plunked" softly into the seawater between the two ships. It splashed a small, uninspired ripple before disappearing.
It was as if that fierce weapon, capable of splitting mountains, had never even been thrown.
The deck was dead silent, broken only by the sea breeze and Levi's even more impatient grumble:
"...Seriously... Now do I have to retrieve it? So much trouble... Forget it, I don't want it..."
Orne remained frozen in his throwing posture at the bow, his bloodshot eyes wide, his mouth agape, his brain utterly failing to process what he had just witnessed. His full-power strike... a throw capable of cleaving a warship... had just fallen into the sea like a piece of useless scrap metal?
A huge sense of absurdity and powerlessness, like the last straw, completely crushed his already exhausted will. The fatigue and sense of "trouble" that had been temporarily suppressed surged up like a tsunami, instantly engulfing him.
"Im... poss... ible..."
He mumbled, and his eyelids finally closed, heavy and complete. His massive body swayed twice, then crashed to the deck like a collapsing mountain, making the last loud noise of the day before joining the deafening chorus of snores around him.
The world, at last, was completely quiet.
Levi let out a long, satisfied sigh. "Now... I can finally sleep, right...?"
He didn't even glance at the dumbfounded Vice Admiral Ghoumil or the petrified soldiers, slowly and contentedly strolling back into his cabin, leaving only a lazy, yet incredibly accomplished, retreating figure for everyone to see.
Vice Admiral Ghoumil slowly lowered his Armament Haki-covered arm. He looked at the now-calm ripples on the sea, then at the pirates sleeping haphazardly on the opposite ship, and remained silent for a long time. Finally, he gave an order to his adjutant in an extremely complex tone:
"...Send men over. Take control of the ship and detain all the pirates. Be gentle... don't wake them up."
He paused, then added, with a subtle emotion he himself hadn't noticed, "Also... send someone good at swimming... to see if they can retrieve that axe from the sea. After all... it's important evidence." (Though he had a nagging feeling that the axe itself might also be "too lazy" to be salvaged.)