"So…"
"No one stops Mama!"
"Mama will make everyone in this world one big family!"
Charlotte Linlin had tipped into a rampage. Red-black lightning snarled thicker around her fra, her aura spiking wild.
"Mingguang Cannon!"
She swung the long blade braided with her three Homies. Their grinning faces stretched in manic delight as power pooled at the tip and then speared out as a high-density laser.
It was almost instant.
It punched straight into Tengetsu Ares' chest.
BOOM!
Ares' massive body flew backward and slamd into the ground hard enough to cough up a storm of dust.
Even he hadn't had ti to slip it. Too fast.
By then a crowd had arrived just in ti to see him blasted away.
Silver Axe took one look at Linlin's crazed face and shivered. "She's really gone off the rails."
"This is bad. Of all people to cross… he poked a woman."
"Tsk, tsk…"
"When a woman snaps, she stops being a woman. She's a devil."
This wasn't any old woman it was Charlotte Linlin, a walking catastrophe. Silver Axe glanced toward the crater where Ares had fallen and muttered, "Kid, you're on your own," before quietly edging farther back, out of the blast zone.
Ares stood up out of the dust a heartbeat later. A ten-plus-centiter pit marred the slab of muscle across his chest, a whisper of smoke still curling from it. The flesh writhed and knitted at frightening speed no, not fast enough to seal in seconds, but fast enough to scare.
It didn't blunt his appetite for battle in the slightest. He charged straight at Linlin, unleashing a savage flurry.
Blood-red fists and kicks detonated with monstrous power. Blade-thin slashes shredded surging fla and split snarling lightning.
Kaido finally let out a breath. Watching his big brother fight on his behalf left a knot of guilt in his chest.
It's because I'm too weak. If I had the strength to face Linlin, Ares wouldn't have to take these hits for …
He'd trained his heart out this past year. It still wasn't enough. Against a force like Linlin, the gap was a chasm.
For a while Kaido had felt proud of his growth. Now that pride crumbled. He could only watch Ares fight, powerless to help.
The thought gnawed at him. He burned for strength strength like Ares'.
Kaido's face went pale. His fists clenched until the knuckles blanched, joints creaking.
At his side, Wang Zhi noticed and spoke gently. "Don't beat yourself up. Strength isn't the only thing. If you and Ares traded places, would you step up?"
"I would."
No hesitation. The answer rang like steel.
A light of satisfaction and a flicker of envy touched Wang Zhi's eyes. "Then take this another way. If you feel guilty, treat it like this: when Ares is hurt or resting and off guard that's your ti to protect him."
Comfort would only go so far; he chose to give Kaido a task he could hold onto.
Kaido took it to heart. Don't worry. I'll stay at Ares' side. He's the one who truly treats like family.
Ares is my only kin.
Those who've lost family, who've suffered when they find that bond again, they guard it fiercely. Kaido's expression fird, like a man who'd finally set his course.
Wang Zhi, catching the change in his periphery, smiled and turned back to the fight.
The battle only climbed.
Pirates packed the ruins' edges, and other Rocks cadres still on Hive Island hurried in, gaping at the devastation.
"That's Ares. The kid vanished for a year and ca back this strong?!"
"Those slashes… that body… he's a complete monster!"
"A year ago when he boarded, I could've beaten him. Now? I can't even stand in the shockwaves."
"Too vicious. Is that body made of steel?!"
…
No one dared wade into a clash like that; even commanders could get pulped by accident.
At the center: everything was flattened to open ground.
"Now that's what I'm talking about!"
"Hit harder!"
Ares fought like a man possessed reveling in the impact, the bone-deep tremors, even the pain. The CP0 Director had refused to et him head-on, relying on sly elental tricks; Linlin t him crush for crush.
He finally got the straight-on brawl he'd craved through a year of training. It was intoxicating.
His transitions smoothed, his rhythm sharpened. He was only getting hotter.
Linlin, for her part, grew more and more unsettled. Ares fought like a rampaging behemoth his strength inexhaustible, his hits heavier and heavier. That brutal body and obscene recovery made him feel like a tireless, pain-blind war machine.
Even the "steel body" she'd always been proud of felt second best.
"Enough!"
The voice cut through their eardrums and seed to strike the brainstem. It rolled over the shockwaves and the thunder of blows, and the crowd parted on instinct.
Rocks and Captain John walked through.
Ares and Linlin halted in the sa instant, as if by unspoken agreent.
Rocks strode straight up to Ares, then turned to face the sea of pirates.
"My judgnt is this," he said, voice carrying like a hamr. "Tengetsu Ares is to be promoted to cadre of the Rocks Pirates effective now Captain of the Sixteenth Division."
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