"Wahahahaha! Barely enough?"
Garp's boisterous laughter exploded once more, filled with the mischievous pride of someone teasing a child.
"Kid, confidence is a good thing, but being too confident... will get you a nasty beating from this old man!"
Before his voice even faded, Garp's figure abruptly vanished from where he stood.
No, it wasn't a disappearance.
Lorne's magic perception captured a trajectory that was ridiculously fast.
One second, the old man was laughing ten meters away; the next instant, his face was right in front of him.
That heavy body moved across the ice without kicking up a single shard of frost, and without making a sound.
So fast!
Is this... Soru?
Lorne's magic perception screamed a frantic warning. Almost out of instinct, an ice wall several meters thick rose from the ground, standing between him and Garp.
That ice wall was sturdy enough to withstand a direct hit from a Warship's main cannon.
However, in the next second, Lorne's heart suddenly constricted.
A fist wrapped in a pitch-black substance pressed into the ice wall.
Boom!
The moment that fist touched the ice, a dull, heavy explosion rang out. Countless spiderweb-like black cracks spread out in all directions from the point of contact across the thick ice wall.
Crack~!
The entire ice wall turned into dust. Before this pure and powerful physical strength, the ice wall was as fragile as thin paper.
Garp's figure passed through the cloud of ice crystals, grinning. That unadorned fist was already inches away.
"Too slow, kid!"
The hair on Lorne's body stood on end. An ice crystal flower bloomed beneath his feet instantly, and he turned into a streak of light, teleporting back nearly a hundred meters, his expression carrying a hint of lingering fear.
Garp's punch struck the empty air where he had just been standing.
BOOM!!!
Garp's fist landed on the ice field, which was dozens of meters thick.
With his fist as the center, a massive circular area over a hundred meters in diameter collapsed downward. Countless huge blocks of ice were sent flying hundreds of meters into the air by the violent force before crashing down heavily, stirring up towering waves and a sky full of ice mist.
The entire ice field shook violently and groaned under the impact.
Far away on the Baratie, the chefs only saw a moment of eerie silence on the distant horizon, followed by an iceberg rising from the sea and then violently exploding.
That terrifying sight left them all slack-jawed, unaware that the items in their hands had dropped to the floor.
"Hey, hey, hey... is that even human?" a chef stammered.
Zeff's single leg stomped heavily on the deck, his prosthetic making a dull thud.
He squinted, trying his best to see the distant battle, but he could see nothing but the chaotic mess of ice and sea.
On the ice field, Lorne's figure solidified again a hundred meters away. He looked down at the front of his clothes.
There was a faint fist print there.
It wasn't a direct hit; merely being grazed by the wind generated by that punch had left a mark.
Just what kind of monster is he!
Lorne's heart accelerated uncontrollably, but more than fear, it was a sense of excitement—the thrill of meeting a worthy opponent, or even being completely suppressed by a powerhouse.
"Oh? You dodge pretty fast."
Garp withdrew his fist and shook his hand, looking completely nonchalant.
He looked at Lorne and asked curiously:
"That thing you just did, kid, was it a devil fruit ability? It doesn't feel like it to me; it doesn't seem to have that kind of aura."
"It's not."
He estimated that even an ordinary Armament Haki user would need to use their full strength to shatter his ice wall, yet Garp had done it with a casual press.
Is this... top-tier Armament Haki?
It's completely unreasonable.
And also... so fascinating.
"Not a devil fruit?" Garp's interest grew. "That's truly interesting; I've never seen that before. However, just knowing how to hide won't cut it."
He bent down and casually grabbed a massive block of ice, the size of a small house, from the edge of the broken ice field.
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