A small boat was lowered from the warship. Roya descended lightly from the deck, drifting down like a feather and landing gently on the boat—his presence alone stabilizing the vessel completely.
Jinbei and Law followed, leaping down heavily onto the boat.
Yet even under their combined weight, the vessel remained perfectly steady, as unmoving as a mountain.
Seeing the two of them steady themselves, Roya gave a slight nod.
"Let's go. Ti to land."
Jinbei and Law began to row in tandem, driving the small boat swiftly toward Punk Hazard.
Back on the warship, the presence of Squard and the others began to completely vanish.
The massive Navy flagship took on the eerie aura of a ghost ship, devoid of all signs of life.
In a short ti, the boat reached a shallow inlet, and the group disembarked.
Roya took the lead, heading straight toward the abandoned building complex on the island.
The buildings bore obvious signs of corrosion—though it had only been three or four years since the incident with the Science Division, the place looked as though it had been decaying for decades.
As they walked through the ruins, occasional tremors stirred up faint purple mists—strange gases that filled the air with an unsettling dread.
But Jinbei and Law soon noticed that an invisible barrier emanated from Roya, shielding the three of them.
The ominous purple gas couldn't penetrate the barrier at all.
Both n, seasoned warriors, quickly noticed sothing else.
Though the ruins appeared deserted, fresh signs of human activity were scattered about.
What was strange, though, was the scale of the footprints and debris—far larger than any normal human, approaching the size of giants.
Law asked in confusion,
"The number of footprints here… At least several dozen, maybe over a hundred. Do giants even gather in numbers like this?"
Jinbei shook his head.
"To my knowledge, the giant race is rare, and they tend to be solitary. Even gathering three or five is rare. A hundred giants? That'd be enough to start a revolution against the World Governnt!"
Law was about to respond when Roya suddenly stopped, as if waiting for sothing.
Both Jinbei and Law halted as well, falling silent and scanning their surroundings carefully.
The area appeared to be what was once a large public square, with several streets and alleys converging at the location.
Then—suddenly—the heavy thudding of footsteps rang out from multiple alleyways at once.
Law's ears twitched, picking up on the unusual cadence. He looked at Jinbei in surprise—only to see the sa confusion in his expression.
The steps were heavy, yes—suggesting large, powerful bodies—but they were also clumsy, unbalanced, staggering, like children just learning to walk.
Even stranger—every set of footsteps was like this.
Surely it couldn't be that dozens of toddler-sized giants had all gathered to play here…?
That thought had barely ford when the source of the noise erged—dozens of enormous figures stumbled into the square.
Jinbei and Law were stunned speechless, staring wide-eyed at the sight.
It really was—a group of giants!
So stood over 20 to 30 ters tall, the smaller ones still over 10 ters.
But they were unmistakably—children.
Not children of the giant race—but human children, enlarged to gigantic proportions.
Jinbei and Law looked to Roya in shock.
They had both heard the grim rumors surrounding this island—a haven for human experintation conducted by the World Governnt's Science Division using prisoners as test subjects.
But they had never imagined things had devolved to the point of experinting on children, attempting to forcibly gigantify human kids.
On the surface, the children seed happy, chasing and playing without care across the plaza.
But both Jinbei and Law felt a deep chill rising in their chests.
Instinct told them—this unnatural giantification was not as innocent as it looked.
The price paid to achieve such bodily transformation… must have been terrible.
Sure enough, not even ten minutes passed before sothing changed.
Their play suddenly turned wild, the level of violence escalating exponentially.
One child grabbed another and perford a savage over-the-shoulder throw, hurling them into a nearby building.
Dust and that sa purple gas billowed out from the wreckage.
The child who'd been thrown staggered out of the rubble—and let out a beast-like roar.
Jinbei's face went pale.
That child's eyes… were now completely white, and within those whites swirled a sinister purple mist.
"Poisoned?!" Jinbei gasped, unsure, glancing toward Roya for confirmation.
Roya gave a subtle shake of his head, motioning for them to keep watching.
The roar seed to trigger sothing in the rest.
One by one, the other children also descended into madness, entering the sa violent, berserker state, attacking everyone and everything around them without reason or control.
In the blink of an eye, the plaza beca a battleground of shattered bones and crumbling ruins.
Jinbei and Law were filled with urgency, wanting to intervene—but without Roya's command, they didn't dare act rashly and risk harming the children further.
Just as their restraint reached its breaking point, a squad of heavily suited figures erged from the surrounding streets.
Clad in full protective gear, they wielded strange weapons.
With a squeeze of the trigger, purple gas shot out in dense clouds, quickly engulfing the entire square.
The berserk children collapsed almost imdiately, knocked unconscious.
The suited team moved swiftly and in sync, binding the children and hauling them away into the deeper alleys.
Only then did Roya move, silently following the group.
Jinbei and Law finally understood—
Roya had waited, remaining hidden, to follow the trail to its source. His goal wasn't just to stop the rampage—it was to rescue all the children in one move.
This island's twisted research base clearly operated with ticulous secrecy, relying on neurotoxic gases as a primary ans of control.
One false move, and all the children could perish.
Only by infiltrating the core without alerting the enemy, locating the central holding facility, and disabling the system, could they truly free the children.
And after that, they'd still need to heal their altered bodies and prevent further berserk transformations.
This wasn't a task brute force alone could solve—not even with Roya's all-seeing Observation Haki and overwhelming strength.
As they followed the retreating scientists, a massive tal door lood into view at the end of the alley.
The entrance… to the heart of the facility.
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