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"Tch... this hurts..."
"Hey, hey! The Piece of Spadille is broken. This has to be a joke, right?"
"Who... is that Marine?"
Aboard the Piece of Spadille, chaos reigned.
Moments ago, the injured crew members had all been slammed onto the deck. One could say they were lucky, having narrowly avoided being killed by that terrifying strike.
At the same time, however, the impact caused many of their wounds to split open again. The few who could still move stared in shock at the distant figure on the battleship slowly withdrawing his fist.
To them, he looked like an immovable mountain.
After all, during their journey to the Grand Line, they had encountered the Marines many times, and some of them could be called "strong."
But splitting the sea with a single punch, shattering Captain Ace's firewall, and erasing everything on the Piece of Spadille's deck was beyond anything they had ever imagined.
"Wait...where's Captain Ace?"
Then, a crewman's words brought everyone back to reality.
"Yeah... don't tell me Captain Ace was taken out by that attack..."
"How is that possible? That's Captain Ace we're talking about!"
They panicked when they realized that Captain Ace was nowhere to be seen after the attack.
But immediately afterward...
Crack! Crack!
The sound of breaking wood rang out.
Then...
"Boom!"
Amidst the flames, they saw Ace rise from the rear cabin wreckage.
"Captain Ace!"
"I knew it... Captain Ace would definitely be fine!"
The crowd erupted with renewed excitement. To those who had followed Ace all this way, he was practically the incarnation of "invincibility."
As long as the captain was standing, they believed they couldn't lose. But only moments later, they realized something was wrong.
Because Ace was clearly injured.
Bruise-like purple marks covered his abdomen and arms. Blood seeped from his forehead. Even the orange cowboy hat on his head had fallen off.
The sight stunned every member of the Spade Pirates.
Could their captain really have been hurt this badly from just a single exchange?
Ace had never suffered injuries of this level even when facing a Shichibukai's pursuit before.
"Ace!?" Deuce hurried to his side, looking at him anxiously. "Let me treat your wounds."
"Thanks, Deuce." As Ace spoke, his gaze remained fixed on the distant battleship. "Sorry... I couldn't stop that attack. That guy was just too strong. Thankfully, though, everyone's alive."
There was a hint of lingering fear in his voice.
During the previous clash, he had chosen to block the attack head-on with his ability instead of evading it through elementalization.
Clearly, he had overestimated himself and underestimated Roy. Despite giving it his all, his flames hadn't been able to stop the blow. Instead, he had ended up injured himself.
"That Marine... Roy Amos. I've never even heard that name."
Ace stared at the name written on the battleship's sail, doubt creeping into his heart. If such a punch had come from a Marine Admiral or a famous Vice Admiral, that would have made sense.
But the truth was, he had never heard of this person.
"How can someone like that be completely unknown on these seas?"
He didn't understand. But clearly, that no longer mattered.
"It's fine. No matter who the opponent is..." With that thought, Ace stood up, having roughly treated his wounds.
"I'll win."
Only by doing so could he surpass the man bound to him by blood, his father.
However, just as Ace was about to continue the fight...
"Ace!" Deuce interrupted him.
"Captain!" One of the original Spade Pirates looked directly at his captain.
"We can't keep fighting." He said gravely. "Hanafuda is still chasing us. We need to escape!"
'Escape?;
Ace froze for a moment.
As a Supernova of the Seas and someone who aimed to become the Pirate King, he had never feared facing a strong opponent head-on. He believed he could defeat anyone.
He acted freely, choosing his own path without fear.
But now...
"..."
Looking at his bandaged companions on the deck and the wounds that were still bleeding on many of them, after a brief daze, Ace let out a deep breath.
"Alright."
He nodded lightly.
He understood what Deuce meant. If they continued to fight that terrifyingly powerful Marine, it would inevitably drag on for a long time.
They couldn't forget that a Shichibukai was relentlessly pursuing them right behind them.
Once a full-scale battle broke out, regardless of who won, many of them would die.
That was something that Ace could not accept. He wanted to surpass his father and prove that his existence was meaningful.
But if it meant sacrificing the lives of his beloved companions...
"We're retreating!" The words fell, and Ace immediately stood up.
Under normal circumstances, a ship with all three masts destroyed would have almost no chance of escaping. But for the Piece of Spadille, that was clearly not the case.
Ace moved to a spot on the deck and stomped down hard with both feet. In the next instant, two openings were revealed beneath the deck, seemingly connected to pipes below.
Click! Click!
Accompanied by the sounds of gears turning and mechanical transformations, two enormous jet nozzles suddenly extended from beneath the Piece of Spadille.
Then...
"Boom!"
...flames erupted beneath Ace's feet.
The fire spread through the pipes and burst violently from the jet nozzles. The next moment, the entire Piece of Spadille shot forward like a rocket, racing off into the distance!
"A ship driven by a Devil Fruit ability, huh?"
Roy watched the Piece of Spadille speed away.
The sight didn't particularly surprise him; after all, in the future, Ace would join the Whitebeard Pirates and have a one-man craft powered by his own ability, known as the Striker.
It seemed likely that the origin of the Striker was this Piece of Spadille. But clearly, Roy didn't care much about that.
"... "
At that moment, he simply clenched his fist, excitement shining in his eyes.
He was very satisfied with that punch just now.
The Great Buddha Fruit lived up to its reputation as a Mythical Zoan. Once eaten, it gave the Marine Fleet Admiral incredible power, after reaching LV3, the power of its shockwaves was terrifying.
And this wasn't even its full strength!
If he didn't need to worry about exposing his identity, Roy could incarnate as a true "Great Buddha," unleashing even greater power!
But what excited Roy most wasn't that.
"Even an attack like that consumes very little stamina. No, actually, it consumes quite a bit. It's just that I've genuinely grown stronger."
That thrilled him the most.
This was the result of the intense training he had endured over this period of time.
Zephyr's "Black Body Style" held tremendous significance for Roy. The reason was simple: although Roy's body was obtained through loading a Devil Fruit, the training he underwent was real.
The muscle and physical enhancements he gained wouldn't disappear if he changed Devil Fruit effects later on. Instead, he would retain a portion of the improvement.
In a game analogy, Roy used his Enhancement Ability to add 100 points to his physique, enabling him to complete the extremely difficult "hard-resist deep-sea currents at 5,000 meters" training stage. Each session granted him five points toward his physique.
Even after Roy switched Devil Fruits and his physique returned to its original baseline, the five points he had gained would remain.
For someone like Roy, whose original strength wasn't particularly outstanding, that boost was enormous!
As a result, his physique and strength increased considerably in just one month, and he gained far more control over his abilities.
This is how fundamentals enhance an Enhancement Ability.
"…In that case, I can completely try those two moves."
Murmuring softly, Roy turned around.
"Hans, Fal... prepare to pursue..."
Before he could finish, his voice caught in his throat. When he turned around, he saw a bunch of blank, stunned faces.
The Marines of the Marine Detention Unit were still in a daze at that moment, not yet recovered from the shock of that punch.
"... "
Seeing this, Roy let out a sigh.
'Forget it. No point counting on these guys.'
He stepped up to the ship's rail once more.
"Buzz!"
Powerful vibrations began to gather in his hand again.
But just at that moment...
Bang! Bang! Bang!
...he heard a series of deafening booms from behind him.
It was the thunderous roar of cannon fire.
The next instant, he clearly saw the cannonballs flying one after another and landing on the sea surface ahead of the Piece of Spadille, which was speeding away and sending up towering columns of water.
And before Roy could even fully react...
"Bang!"
The entire battleship shuddered as a massive burst of fire erupted from its stern.
Only then did Roy finally see that a fleet had appeared on the sea behind them. The fleet wasn't especially large as there were only seven massive ships in total.
A Marine battleship is considered relatively large, yet compared to those seven vessels, it was barely a third of their size.
All seven ships shared the same design: They had dinosaur-like hulls and sails that resembled the membranous wings of dragons.
The same pirate flag flew from every mast. The skull flag with a protruding mouth like a Tyrannosaurus rex, and the figure standing on the foremost pirate ship, clearly revealed the fleet's identity.
Roy could see that the man wore a pitch-black hooded Marine Justice coat, with a Marine hat shaped like a dinosaur's head.
In his hands, he wielded an iron weapon, its front end a sickle, its back end a flail.
There was no doubt about it.
One of the Oka Shichibukai (Deven Warllords Of The Sea)…. "The Lizard King," Hanafuda!
(End of Chapter)