Chapter 6: Teacher Kai's First Appearance[1]
At the same time, elsewhere.
Loki Port.
A few years ago, this had still been an unknown barren island in the New World.
But because it wasn't far from the Pirate Island, Hachinosu—
After the Rocks Pirates seized it and spent a fortune building it up on purpose,
it had now become a famous port in the New World.
With the Rocks Pirates' protection,
this place became a transit hub for countless pirates, criminals, and the underworld.
Every day, countless shady deals were made here.
As the Rocks Pirates grew bigger and bigger,
attacks on this port had become rare in recent years.
After all, the Rocks Pirates' notorious reputation was right there.
Even the most reckless rookie pirates wouldn't joke with their own lives.
But today, the peace Loki Port had maintained for several years was shattered.
Boom!
Without any warning,
the pirates and criminals packed into the port—busy with all kinds of transactions—suddenly heard a deafening roar.
Before they could react, everyone realized the sky above had suddenly darkened.
As if a patch of storm clouds had appeared out of nowhere.
The pirates looked up in confusion, and their pupils instantly dilated, faces filling with disbelief and terror.
One hundred meters above the port of Loki Port,
a massive pirate ship was flying in.
Its huge hull blotted out the sunlight, casting a vast shadow over the ground.
"You've gotta be kidding… that's…"
"A pirate ship?!"
A few pirates from the Rocks Pirates—those in charge of keeping Loki Port running—hadn't even processed what was happening yet.
Staring up at the pirate ship flung through the air, they muttered to themselves,
"Why is a pirate ship flying in the sky? Could it be… Lord Shiki is here?"
In their minds,
the only one who could make a forty-to-fifty-meter-long pirate ship weighing hundreds of tons fly was that man's power.
But very quickly, they realized something was wrong.
Because this pirate ship came howling in with its deck and mast pointing downward, and its bottom facing up—like it had been flipped over!
Not only that.
Amid the rising screams, they also heard several shocked shouts.
"What's going on?! Why is our Kama-Itachi Pirates ship flying in the sky?!"
"Damn it, Rocks Pirates! Are you behind this?! You found out we brought treasure and you're going to rob us openly?!"
"You bastards!!"
The Rocks Pirates men wanted to explain.
But the pirate ship overhead was already unavoidable as it smashed down.
It came so suddenly,
and fell with such terrifying speed,
that the packed crowd at the port didn't even have time to scatter.
They were slammed beneath the enormous pirate ship, its hull still slick with seawater, as it crashed down like a lid.
Boom!!
The massive ship came down hard on the most crowded spot.
The dense crowd was like an anthill slapped by a giant hand—instantly exploding apart.
In an instant,
blood and flesh flew, severed limbs scattering everywhere.
The huge pirate ship shattered and broke apart, turning into countless wooden fragments that blasted in every direction.
Houses near the port were crushed, and thick smoke rose.
The ground trembled.
Panic, terror, and furious screams blended together.
The place turned into total chaos.
But the ship crushing down wasn't the worst part.
The worse part was that as the ship broke apart,
the ammunition stored inside by the Kama-Itachi Pirates—under that massive compression—
exploded!
Boom!!
Blinding firelight mixed with choking smoke shot up into the sky.
The shockwave swept outward in all directions.
The tightly packed crowd around it flew like straw dolls in a gale.
Flames surged outward from the center of the blast, making pirates wail and flee in every direction.
But before they could get far,
the sky above darkened again!
"What now?!"
A fleeing pirate looked up with a crying face, and in his widened pupils, another ship appeared.
A pirate ship spinning through the air—moving so fast its sails had been torn into rags!
No.
Not just one.
Two!
Three!
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Under the pirates' blank stares, one pirate ship after another—cargo ships too—came screaming in from the distant sea in all kinds of orientations.
Like gigantic shells being fired,
they smashed viciously into Loki Port's harbor, reducing it to a complete wreck.
At this point, even the dullest person understood: the port was under attack!
"Enemy attack! Enemy attack!!"
The pirates' panicked screams tore through the air over the harbor.
The Rocks Pirates men, meanwhile, wore faces of disbelief.
They couldn't believe it.
Someone actually dared to attack Loki Port?
Did this insane attacker not know this place was protected by the Rocks Pirates?
Very clearly…
the attacker did know!
Because the pirates in the harbor—already in chaos—soon heard a deep voice like thunder booming out through the nonstop crashes and explosions of the falling ships.
"Wororororo! Worororororo!"
"This is Rocks' territory, yeah?"
"Where's Rocks?!"
"Tell him to get out here and face me! I'm here to challenge him!!"
"If I beat him, then I'll be the pirate ruler of the New World, right?"
That sudden voice was even louder than the explosions.
It shook the fleeing pirates so hard it felt like their eardrums would rupture.
Following the direction the voice came from—
near the burning, collapsing shoreline—
at some point, a hulking, towering demonic silhouette had appeared!
The reason it didn't look like a human silhouette
was because atop that figure's head were two curved horns.
He was mountain-tall, powerfully built.
One arm hung at his side, while the other was raised, as if gripping some weapon and resting it on his shoulder.
Step by step, he walked along the burning street, heading into Loki Port.
As he advanced,
the raging flames in front of him seemed to flee in fear, parting on their own to make a path.
That posture was like a demon king stepping out of a flaming hell.
When the attacker's steel-forged, muscle-bulging body fully emerged,
a savage aura—more frenzied than the surrounding inferno—slammed into them.
The pirates and criminals in the harbor all changed expression.
People who could make it in the New World,
who could do business in a dangerous place like Loki Port,
which one of them was harmless?
Here, criminals with bounties in the tens of millions, hundreds of millions, even several hundred million were not unheard of.
With strength of their own, they immediately felt a huge threat from the newcomer.
For a moment,
even though they knew the demon-king-like man in front of them was the culprit behind the harbor's chaos,
the fear rising in their hearts kept the pirates from rushing in to attack right away.
But that restraint didn't last long.
Soon, someone couldn't take it anymore.
A middle-aged man of average height, with a gloomy gaze and two curved blades in hand, was the first to jump out and rush up to the attacker to question him.
"You damn bastard! You did something to my ship, didn't you?!"
"Who are you? Why did you do this?! Do you know how much premium tobacco and fine liquor was on my ship?! I worked my ass off to loot that—worth hundreds of millions of beli—"
A pitch-black, spiked kanabo, gripped in a massive hand with bulging muscles, blasted the air in front of the man apart.
A howling gale erupted!
In an instant, it crossed more than ten meters and crushed straight through the man's body!
Boom!!
In the next moment,
flesh burst apart, bone and meat ground into paste!
The middle-aged man who had been shouting and questioning—his entire upper body vanished instantly.
Only the lower half of his body, a bloody mangled stump, remained standing there, not even falling yet.
Under the horrified stares of countless pirates in the harbor,
the horned demon king, holding the kanabo in one hand and still in a sweeping stance, split his lips in a cold grin.
"The hell are you yapping about?"
"I can't hear you!"
On the roof of a building deep inside the port, seeing this from afar, Carlo's eyes lit up.
"Teacher Kai? What a coincidence?"
"Now this is getting interesting."