Rumble!
High in the sky, terrifying silver serpents of lightning danced wildly. The ocean churned violently until, finally, a colossal sphere of lightning broke through the thick cloud layer and crashed heavily into the sea.
In an instant, a blinding white light erupted.
Terrifying shockwaves exploded outward as towering waves surged in every direction, swallowing and destroying everything in their path. The scene looked like the end of the world itself.
The sea was blasted open into a massive crater thousands of ters wide, while endless steam rolled upward into the sky. Only after a long while did the seawater slowly flood back in and fill the void once more.
High above the sky, Matthew stood in the air, arcs of electricity winding around his hand.
This was not the red-and-black lightning of Conqueror's Haki coating, but blue-white lightning instead.
Nor was it magic.
It was pure thunder itself—the power of lightning from one of the strongest Logia-type Devil Fruits in the world of One Piece: the Rumble-Rumble Fruit.
That's right. He had unlocked the Rumble-Rumble Fruit in the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia and eaten it.
Under normal circumstances, according to the established rules, a person could not consu two Devil Fruits. Any ability user who ate a second Devil Fruit would die.
But Matthew was different.
His Glint-Glint Fruit powers had been granted directly through the sign-in system rather than by actually consuming a Devil Fruit.
In other words, he had essentially exploited a loophole.
He was now a dual Devil Fruit user.
Before unlocking the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia, he had considered many different fruits: Whitebeard's Tremor-Tremor Fruit, Blackbeard's Dark-Dark Fruit, the Magma Fruit, the Heal-Heal Fruit, the Fish-Fish Fruit: Azure Dragon Form, the Op-Op Fruit, and more.
There was also the rubber fruit that was known as the embodint of freedom and the power of the Sun God Nika.
After thinking it over again and again, he still chose the Rumble-Rumble Fruit.
Among all his options, the ones he had seriously considered were actually only two: the Op-Op Fruit and the Rubber Fruit.
But he quickly gave up on them.
The Op-Op Fruit was undeniably a top-tier Devil Fruit in existence. Whether it was its abilities or its rumored power to grant eternal youth—often spoken of as a form of immortality—it stood among the most exceptional. Unfortunately, it simply wasn't that useful to him. He didn't need its abilities, and even the concept of immortality, in any form, ant nothing to him anyway.
As far as lifespan was concerned, magic alone could solve that problem.
Magic could subtly influence and alter a person's lifespan over ti. Take the Ancient One, for example—she had lived for over seven hundred years since her birth.
If she truly wished to, she could essentially live forever.
The only reason she willingly gave up her life was to pave the way for Doctor Strange.
Of course, that kind of "death" had little to do with true death itself.
She had rely achieved immortality in another form.
Once a being's level of existence reached a certain height, lifespan beca nothing more than a number. And that level of existence wasn't limited to the physical body alone—it also included the soul.
The Ancient One's body was stronger than that of ordinary humans, but compared to Matthew—or even the soldiers under Reacher—she was far inferior physically. Yet she could still achieve immortality because the level of her soul had already reached that of a Skyfather.
Not only could the soul achieve immortality, but magic could also influence the physical body. At worst, the body itself would simply be sowhat weaker.
As for the Rubber Fruit, Matthew instinctively felt uneasy about it.
There was sothing strange about that thing. Ever since Luffy awakened his Nika form, his personality seed to have changed completely. There had always been a theory that the fruit itself influenced Luffy's will.
Whether that was true or not, even if Matthew could unlock that fruit, he would only study it rather than eat it himself.
It was undeniably powerful, but it wasn't sothing he absolutely needed.
The Dark-Dark Fruit was also extrely strong. It possessed black hole-like gravity and spatial abilities capable of absorbing anything touched by darkness, crushing and compressing it with limitless force, and even pulling in ability users while nullifying their powers.
Its abilities were exceptional, but again, not indispensable.
Many forms of magic could achieve similar effects anyway, not to ntion the fruit's major drawback—its ability to absorb damage made the user far more sensitive to pain than ordinary people.
Compared to that, Marco's Bird-Bird Fruit, Mythical Zoan: Phoenix Form was actually more appealing.
At the very least, it granted absurd regenerative abilities.
The mont he was injured, blue flas would instantly cover and heal the wounds, though it consud stamina in the process. Unfortunately, that ability overlapped sowhat with Life Return (Seii Kikan), making it less useful to Matthew as well.
By comparison, the Rumble-Rumble Fruit was entirely different.
In terms of speed, it might be slightly inferior to the Glint-Glint Fruit, but it possessed far more advantages and practical uses. First of all, its destructive power surpassed that of the Glint-Glint Fruit.
The Glint-Glint Fruit excelled more in concentrated piercing attacks against single targets, while the Rumble-Rumble Fruit possessed overwhelming large-scale destructive power that the Glint-Glint Fruit simply could not match.
Whether it was "Mamaragan," "Raigo," or "200 Million Volts: Amaru," all of them far exceeded the Glint-Glint Fruit in raw destructive capability.
At the sa ti, it also provided trendous amplification to Observation Haki.
By combining electromagnetic waves generated from lightning with Observation Haki, one could greatly expand sensory range and even intercept all electromagnetic signals.
On top of that, the fruit's developnt ceiling was incredibly high.
With sufficient scientific knowledge, many extrely practical abilities could be developed from it.
It could also make up for many of Matthew's weaknesses.
Over the past three days, after consuming the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, Matthew had continuously experinted within the Mirror Dinsion. After countless tests, he confird that his choice had been the correct one.
Whether in terms of developnt potential or imdiate combat enhancent, the Rumble-Rumble Fruit offered him trendous benefits.
In the future, he could continue developing even more lightning-related abilities.
Still…
He had already beco a "light man" through the Glint-Glint Fruit, and the Rumble-Rumble Fruit had turned him into a "lightning man." So what exactly did that make him after both abilities fused together?
An electro-light human?
The thought made Matthew laugh involuntarily.
After finishing his preliminary tests, he dismissed the Mirror Dinsion and returned to the island base.
Only after returning did he learn from Reacher that Neagley and Natasha had already left.
Matthew did not pay much attention to it and did not even ask for the reason.
He trusted the two won completely. With their current abilities, aside from the Hulk—that green giant who loved wearing nothing but shorts—he could not think of anyone capable of threatening them for the ti being.
And even if sothing really did happen, he could simply open a portal and send over more than a thousand super soldiers, each possessing physical strength in the range of seventy to eighty tons. Even the Hulk would struggle against that.
After setting that matter aside, Reacher began seriously discussing ways to compensate for the shortcomings within the warbands.
Matthew did not treat the topic lightly. On the contrary, he took it very seriously.
The two warbands were the core of his future plans. The more thoroughly they could be refined, the greater the benefit for training additional soldiers in the future.
Matthew gave Reacher his approval for being so invested as a warbands commander.
And it wasn't just Reacher. lina from the Technology Departnt, Neagley from Intelligence, and everyone else were working toward the organization's growth. That kind of unity was the key to success.
Matthew could not carry every burden alone.
Knowing how to listen to advice was a quality every leader needed to possess.
While Matthew and Reacher were still discussing matters, neither of them realized that the side they believed would have no problems—Neagley and Natasha's mission—had actually run into trouble.
The two won had boarded the stealth transport plane and arrived in New York before dawn.
After reaching the city, they followed the clues gathered through Neagley's intelligence network all the way into Hell's Kitchen, eventually locating the last place where the girl Neagley had taken interest in had disappeared.
It was an old repair shop.
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