High above the Kingdom of Clifford, Alvis Island.
Ground Research Base: Proving Ground No. 3 (Desert).
"Argh—!"
In the middle of the desolate, vast desert, a blood-curdling scream echoed through the shifting dunes.
Aeridar sat cross-legged in the center of a sand pit, his face contorted in agony. The sheer force of his voice manifested as rolling sonic waves, rippling outward and kicking up a massive storm of dust.
Steam billowed from his flushed, pink skin, and the veins across his body throbbed like writhing serpents.
Suddenly, Aeridar's right arm surged, swelling a full size larger in an instant before snapping back to its original form. Then his left arm followed, then his legs, then his head... localized protrusions erupted across his body in an erratic, grotesque rhythm.
Finally, his entire frame expanded rapidly. He transformed into a small giant, at least seven or eight meters tall, towering over the sand. But in the blink of an eye, his massive body shrank back down, his skin puckering as he returned to his normal size.
"I can sense it... the cells... the mass... the energy I've hidden within every single cell... cellular division is slowing..." Aeridar's expression shifted between a feral snarl and a haunting calm as he muttered to himself.
In the Observation Room…
Switch Dalt, Jason, Oliver, Gilbert Arlan, Enel, and Zephyr stood before a bank of monitors, their eyes glued to the feed of Aeridar in the sand pit.
"Unlike the usual test subjects, the Captain is personally deconstructing the potion's effects. Any bets on whether he succeeds this time?" Dalt asked, his eyes darting between the monitors and several nearby diagnostic instruments to monitor the data streams.
The numbers on the screens were fluctuating wildly, but for now, they remained within the "yellow" safety margins.
"Hard to say," Jason said, shaking his head with a grimace. "We've done plenty of human trials with the Giant Potion, but the subjects couldn't handle the sheer physical tearing caused by the sudden growth. Every single one died of total genetic collapse after only a few seconds of transformation."
"Controlling one's size at will and turning into a Giant... the whole idea is madness," Enel remarked, his brow furrowed as he watched the screen.
"The Captain is a madman to begin with," Oliver added with a sigh. "He has the immortality of 'Pure Gold' right in front of him, yet he claims he won't rely on external objects. He insists on evolving his own biology."
To a man like Oliver, who had dedicated his life to the way of the sword, the joy of eternal life paled in comparison to the thrill of reaching the pinnacle of swordsmanship.
"Even if he fails, his mastery over Life Return should allow him to control his cells well enough to survive," Zephyr said calmly. "But he'll likely be heavily injured. He might even end up with permanent internal damage."
Truthfully, Zephyr had never seen anyone push the technique of Life Return to such an extreme.
"Are you absolutely sure it was the subjects' bodies that failed, and not a flaw in the potion that caused the genetic collapse?" Arlan asked, his voice trembling with worry.
"You've asked that a dozen times," Dalt snapped impatiently. "The Giant Potion is perfect. In the past 103 experiments, there hasn't been a single scrap of data suggesting the potion itself was the issue."
The Giant Potion was an expensive concoction synthesized by cracking the genomes of Giants and Calamodus. In theory, it could turn an ordinary human into a twenty-meter-tall Giant in an instant.
However, until today, the potion had a 100% mortality rate. No subject had ever survived the transition. To prove its efficacy, Aeridar had put his own body on the line.
Back in Proving Ground No. 3…
"RAAAAUGH!"
Aeridar suddenly lurched to his feet, letting out a thunderous roar.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The sound hit like a series of high-explosive detonations, sending shockwaves through the air that leveled the sand for a hundred meters in every direction.
Then, his body inflated like a balloon. Within seconds, a twenty-meter-tall Giant stood where a man once was.
"Did I... succeed? Wait—"
Aeridar looked down at his massive hands with a flash of triumph, but the joy was short-lived. A wave of excruciating pain washed over him.
"No... my muscles are tearing... no, it's the cells themselves. They're being stretched too far... I'm too big..."
Gritting his teeth against the sensation of being shredded from the inside out, Aeridar dropped to one knee.
Slowly, his body began to "deflate" again. Nineteen meters... eighteen... seventeen... sixteen... As his height decreased, the agonizing tearing sensation began to recede.
When he hit approximately twelve meters, the pain vanished entirely.
"This feeling... did it work?!"
He flexed his massive arm. It felt light, natural, and effortless. He closed his eyes to sense his internal biology; his cells had stabilized, now vibrating with a dense, potent energy.
Aeridar opened his eyes and stood up. He raised a foot and slammed it into the sand.
CRASH!
The sheer force caused the sand to collapse into a crater, and the entire desert proving ground shook as if struck by a localized earthquake.
"In this state... my physical strength has more than tripled."
"My skin density has increased significantly, too. Normal gunfire and cannons probably won't even scratch me now."
"The downside is my movement speed; it's dropped quite a bit."
"But it doesn't matter. This is enough to face Big Mom and Kaido!"
In the monitoring room, the tension broke into a chorus of cheers. The experiment was a success. Their Captain had mastered the art of human gigantification.
"I knew it! The Giant Potion was never the problem, it was just too potent for a normal body!"
"Exactly! Even with a monstrous physique like the Captain's, he can only maintain a height of twelve meters. Anyone else would have been ripped apart at the cellular level!"
"Look at the readouts. His internal structure has shifted to mimic a Giant's. His cellular division rate has slowed to half that of a normal human. I don't know if he'll break the Hayflick limit, but based on this data, he has officially reached the level of a True Giant!"
Dalt and Jason were screaming like madmen, their fingers flying across the controls as they recorded every byte of data coming from Aeridar's body.
Oliver, Arlan, Enel, and Zephyr simply stood there, mouths agape, staring at the screen.
"He actually did it..."
"Cellular aging at half the rate of a human? Doesn't that mean he'll live for at least two hundred years?"
"Damn it... that guy just got even stronger."
"Is this the power of science? It's terrifying. He's turning himself into a physical freak on the level of Big Mom and Kaido!"