Seeing Mihawk's hand twitch toward his massive black blade, Cyrus immediately decided to change the subject to avoid the ship being sunk.
"Wait, is my swordplay really that obviously flawed?" Cyrus asked, looking back at Rayleigh.
"No obviously, not. Most people on the sea would be dead long before they had the chance to notice," Rayleigh admitted, shaking his head.
Cyrus's raw technique with a blade was indeed a glaring weak point when compared to his monstrous physique and Haki, but that flaw was only visible to the absolute pinnacle fighters of the world.
"Honestly, because your physical strength is so absurd, if you pair it with high-level Observation Haki to anticipate counters, and actively hold back some of your raw power so you don't overextend your swings... very few people in the world would ever be able to exploit your lack of technique," Rayleigh analyzed clinically.
Rayleigh was genuinely confused.
Cyrus was a world-class monster in every single physical category, but his pure swordsmanship seemed weirdly unrefined, almost amateurish compared to his terrifying body.
What the Dark King didn't know—and couldn't possibly comprehend—was that Cyrus's current, god-like physique had been rapidly cultivated by the system in less than two years.
He knew even less that Cyrus had only actually been holding a sword for about twelve months.
Cyrus nodded, quite agreeing with Rayleigh's tactical assessment.
Holding back his raw power to maintain balance and using Observation Haki to preemptively change his stance was a solid strategy.
But... swinging a sword while actively holding back just didn't feel satisfying.
He liked hitting things as hard as he could.
As a heavy silence fell over the ship, Mihawk's piercing hawk-like eyes slowly sized Cyrus up, before shifting dangerously toward Rayleigh.
"I cannot simply pretend you didn't just insult my teachings," Mihawk said, his voice terrifyingly calm.
"Since you believe my student's swordsmanship is lacking, Dark King... perhaps you should experience my blade for yourself."
Rayleigh: "..."
"Actually, this blind old man would also very much like to witness the legendary strength of the Dark King firsthand," Issho chimed in from the corner, a polite smile on his face.
Rayleigh's eyes twitched violently.
'Is this nightmare never going to end?!'
Cyrus alone was already a migraine, and now the World's Strongest Swordsman and a monster with gravity powers wanted to jump him?!
Deciding that silence was the only way to survive the boat ride, Rayleigh forcefully closed his eyes and pretended to sleep.
Seeing the old man tap out, neither Mihawk nor Issho pressed the issue.
For now, Rayleigh belonged to Cyrus.
....
The galleon quickly sailed back to the Sabaody Archipelago.
Meanwhile, fresh photos of the day's clash had already been delivered to the World Economy News Paper headquarters.
Looking over the new batch of pictures, Morgans wasn't quite as manic as the day before.
The collateral damage was far less apocalyptic than yesterday's island-shattering debut.
'It won't do to have no bombshells,' Morgans thought, stroking his beak.
'If the pictures aren't enough to cause a global panic, I might as well leak some highly classified information to spice things up.'
After a brief, very profitable conversation with Crocodile over the Den Den Mushi, Morgans hung up and aggressively rang the bell for his secretary.
"In tomorrow's headline, I want you to officially add a new title to Cyrus's name: President of the Hunter Guild," Morgans instructed quickly.
"Is that all, sir?" the beautiful secretary asked, looking somewhat puzzled. "To suddenly drop a massive title like that, without actually releasing any concrete news about what the Guild is or does... won't the readers be confused?"
"Just do exactly as I say!" Morgans squawked, waving a wing dismissively.
It was basic journalism!
Laying down a mysterious foundation now would absolutely captivate the world's attention.
Later, when the Hunter Guild was officially established on Sabaody, he could leverage the massive hype Cyrus had generated to cook up the greatest scoop of the century.
'Hehehe... perhaps I should even propose a formal partnership with them. If this Hunter Guild actually manages to survive the Marines, it's going to control the underworld.'
....
Back on Sabaody, Cyrus's group disembarked from the ship and headed straight toward Area 13 to grab a drink at the Rip-off Bar.
This time, however, long before they even reached the bar's street, the entire group came to a dead halt.
A massive, suffocating crowd had completely occupied Area 13.
Standing blockading the street was a massive coalition of pirates of all shapes, sizes, and bounties.
They were fully armed and waiting.
The second a pirate lookout spotted Rayleigh walking down the street, his jaw dropped, and he screamed in absolute ecstasy.
In an instant, hundreds of bloodthirsty gazes violently snapped toward Cyrus's group.
"It's him! The Dark King Rayleigh!"
The pirates' eyes literally glowed with greed and ambition.
The legendary stepping stone was actually here!
Drawing their cutlasses and flintlocks, the massive mob of pirates roared and surged forward like a tidal wave, their eyes fixed solely on Rayleigh's head.
Rayleigh shot a deeply annoyed glare at the charging mob, then turned his head to look at Cyrus.
"You're the one who dragged me into the newspapers and brought this trouble to my doorstep. Why don't you clean it up?"
Cyrus grinned.
He didn't refuse the logic. "Fair enough."
"Dark King Rayleigh! I am the man who will take your head! I have a bounty of 240 mil—"
A massive minotaur, standing nearly five meters tall and built like a brick wall, roared as he charged at the very front of the pirate mob.
But before the beast could even finish his battle cry, a blur appeared directly in front of him.
Cyrus casually raised a leg completely coated in jet-black Armament Haki and ruthlessly kicked the minotaur in the chest.
BOOM!
The massive minotaur was launched backward at supersonic speed, plowing a bloody, devastating trench straight through the swarming pirate mob.
The pirates caught in his path suffered instantly shattered bones and ruptured organs, screaming in absolute agony as they were sent flying.
The surviving pirates instantly slammed on the brakes, their battle cries dying in their throats.
Trembling, their terrified gazes slowly shifted from Rayleigh to the monster standing in front of him.
"It's... it's the Pirate Hunter! Cyrus!"
Upon recognizing the Reaper of the North Blue, the pirates' expressions twisted into a mix of pure hostility and primal terror.
They were pirates.
He was a Pirate Hunter.
They were natural enemies!
"YOU BASTARD!"
A deafening, beastly roar echoed from the end of the street, shaking the very ground beneath their feet.
Everyone snapped their heads up to look.
The minotaur who had just been punted through a building was aggressively swelling in size. His previous height of five meters rapidly expanded to ten.
His muscles violently writhed and doubled in mass, his skin turned a furious, boiling blood-red, and his bovine eyes rolled back in rage.
"That is Sanjuan," Robin noted calmly from the sidelines, acting as the group's encyclopedia.
"A Supernova who ate the Zoan-type Ox-Ox Fruit. He currently holds a bounty of 240 million Berries."
"A Supernova?" Cyrus asked, sounding incredibly unimpressed as he looked at the massive, raging beast charging back down the street toward them.
The giant minotaur was blindly trampling his own crewmates underfoot, his massive hooves cracking the stone pavement with every step.
Stroke Cut!
Cyrus casually gripped the hilt of his sword. His figure simply vanished.
A blinding, singular flash of silver light streaked down the street, and the raging, ten-meter-tall bull warrior's charge came to an abrupt, violent halt.
A second of total silence passed.
Then, a massive geyser of blood violently erupted from the minotaur's chest.
The giant's eyes rolled back, and he crashed backward onto the street with an earth-shattering thud, completely dead.
Cyrus slowly sheathed his blade, now standing fifty feet behind the fallen giant.
Seeing their captain executed in a fraction of a second, the remaining pirates completely lost their minds.
Panic set in, and the mob desperately turned to flee back toward the docks.
"Torchlight," Cyrus commanded softly.
FWOOSH!
A terrifying inferno of roaring flames violently erupted from Cyrus's body, sweeping across the entire street in the blink of an eye.
The massive, spinning cyclone of fire generated a terrifying gravitational pull.
The fleeing pirates screamed in horror as their feet were dragged backward across the cobblestones, sucked helplessly into the heart of the vortex.
A few seconds later, the raging inferno abruptly vanished, leaving nothing but smoke and the smell of ozone in the air.
Hundreds of charred, blackened figures lay strewn across the destroyed street.
A few of the physically stronger pirates were still twitching and moaning in agony, but the vast majority were completely still.
Rayleigh watched Cyrus with a deeply wary eye.
'This kid shows zero mercy. And the sheer, effortless scale of his Devil Fruit control... Logia-users were truly walking natural disasters.'
During their training bouts, Cyrus hadn't used a single flame.
He had been intentionally handicapping himself to a terrifying degree.
"Alright, trash taken out!" Cyrus chirped, turning back to smile at Rayleigh.
"You really don't discriminate when you slaughter, do you?" Rayleigh muttered as he cautiously stepped over a charred corpse.
Though he was internally shocked by the ruthless efficiency of Cyrus's attack, Rayleigh was an old pirate.
He had sailed the Grand Line for decades.
He had seen islands burned to ash.
The sea was a place of constant, brutal death, he wasn't going to lose sleep over a few hundred dead rookies.
"Robin, call Crocodile," Cyrus instructed as he casually walked past the carnage.
"Tell him to send his Baroque Works agents to bag these guys and collect the bounties from the Marines. This is the first official deposit for the Guild's funding."
Robin smiled softly and nodded, pulling a Den Den Mushi from her cleavage to make the call.
---------
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