The changes brought by evolution surged through Bullet's body like the prelude to a volcanic eruption.
He sat cross legged on the wreckage of an enemy ship, eyes closed, looking inward.
The black core within him, now upgraded from LV.1 to LV.2, had not grown larger, but its density had tripled. Every beat released energy that was purer and more domineering.
The faith energy he had just devoured was being smelted again and again inside the core, its impurities stripped away before it was turned into something that was truly his.
He could feel it clearly. His very level of life had shifted.
This was not simple accumulation in quantity. It was a qualitative metamorphosis.
Like a lump of iron being forged into steel. Still metal, but with a completely different internal structure.
At the same time, a kind of swelling, aching pressure he had never felt before spread through his body.
The container was too small for the amount of energy stuffed inside.
The faith power he had swallowed was simply too massive. Even with the core's evolution, it could not be digested all at once.
The excess rampaged through his meridians, crashing around in search of an outlet.
Bullet tried guiding it with his internal reinforcement technique, but the effect was limited.
Faith energy was a tier higher. Ordinary Haki control methods barely worked on it.
"I need time..."
He opened his eyes and exhaled, a strand of breath laced with tiny motes of dark gold light.
"At least a day to stabilize this."
That was when things went wrong.
In the distance, among the scattered remnants of Karl's forces, three ships suddenly changed course.
They were not fleeing. They were charging.
All three were medium sized warships, hulls mostly intact. Clearly they had held back earlier, deliberately preserving their combat strength.
Now they formed a triangle formation and raced forward at full speed toward a single target.
The Oro Jackson.
"Those lunatics!"
A shout came from the lookout post.
"They are going for a ram!"
Rayleigh spun the wheel instantly, trying to dodge.
But earlier, to avoid the main battlefield, the Oro Jackson had slipped into a relatively narrow patch of sea.
Wreckage and whirlpools from the shattered ships dotted the area, leaving very little room to maneuver.
Worse still, something about the state of those three ships' crews was off.
Bullet's Observation picked up their mental waves.
They were not afraid. Not despairing.
They were burning with fanatical martyrdom.
Their eyes shone with a final madness. Their lips moved, mumbling blurred prayers. They were not sailing to die. They were sailing to a holy place.
"Arohan's lingering influence," Bullet realized in an instant.
The Faith Fruit user was dead, but the "belief" he had hammered into these pirates had not vanished with him.
Those warped spiritual suggestions, now ownerless, had instead grown stronger, twisting into this suicidal loyalty.
The distance shrank rapidly.
Five hundred meters. Four hundred. Three hundred...
On deck, the pirates began pouring lamp oil across the boards and lighting fuses.
They had no intention of boarding. They were turning the ships themselves into colossal bombs, planning to drag the Roger Pirates to the bottom with them.
"Fire! Sink them!"
Rayleigh's order rang out.
All guns on the Oro Jackson roared, smashing into the lead ship.
Its hull shattered, water rushed in, speed dropped, but it did not stop.
The pirates aboard used their bodies to plug leaks, grabbed oars with bloody hands and kept forcing the ship forward.
The second ship took a slash of Rayleigh's flying blade along the side. It nearly split in two.
But even in two pieces, the broken hull, driven by inertia and the last of its engine power, continued to slide toward its target.
The third ship was the craftiest. It used the other two as cover, slipping through a gap and lunging straight for the Oro Jackson's belly.
The weakest point of the whole ship.
Two hundred meters.
The flames on its deck were clearly visible. Even across the water, they could hear the hiss of the burning fuses.
One hundred meters.
They could see the pirates' faces now.
There was no twisted rage there, only a strange serenity, as if they were completing a sacred rite.
Then, at that moment...
"That is enough."
The calm voice was not loud, yet it carried clearly into every ear.
Bullet was on his feet.
He did not move immediately. He stood where he was, looking at the three suicide ships, at the zealots twisted by faith, at the faces on the distant Oro Jackson.
Rayleigh's hands white knuckled on the wheel. Shanks poised to swing his sword. John frantically ramming shells down the cannon. The head chef shielding the trainees as he hustled them toward the stern...
And Roger.
He simply stood at the prow, arms folded, quietly watching the incoming ships.
A smile still played on his lips.
As if to say: Kid, it is your stage.
Something unnameable surged in Bullet's chest.
He did not want them to be hurt.
That single "do not want" ignited every restless spark inside him.
The faith power he had devoured, Karl's life essence, Arohan's leftover divinity, all the material energy he had accumulated these days...
Everything boiled, crashed together, fused.
And then found a way out.
Bullet opened his mouth.
He did not roar.
He... sighed.
A long, slow sigh.
With that breath, space itself began to warp around him.
Air congealed. Waves froze in place. Even time seemed to slow.
Then something beyond description exploded outward.
It was not dragon's aura, not ordinary Haki, but a fusion of both, heightened by a will from a higher plane.
Boom.
Black ripples burst from Bullet in an instant.
The first ring swept across the sea surface.
The water was pressed flat, turning into a mirror.
The heaving waves, the flying spray, even tiny drifting plankton... all stopped in mid motion.
The second ring washed over the three suicide ships.
The hulls themselves remained intact, but every living thing aboard them froze.
Their eyes lost focus. Pupils dilated. Then, as if a scythe had passed through them all at once, they toppled together like wheat in harvest.
The third ring rolled outward.
Within a radius of a thousand meters, on every remaining ship of Karl's shattered fleet, it made no difference whether they had joined the suicide charge or were hiding below decks.
Every pirate collapsed at the same instant.
Some fell mid stride.
Some slumped over where they sat at the controls.
Some never even understood what had happened before consciousness flicked out.
No screams. No struggle.
Just silence.
When the black ripples finally faded, the sea presented a strange and haunting scene...
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