"Hey, big guy."
Leona glared at Ace, her voice dropping into a low, territorial growl. She stood over her kill like a lioness protecting a fresh carcass. "This Tyrannosaur is prime stock. I've been tracking it for twenty-four hours. Don't think just because you've got a big frame you can swoop in and scavenge. Touch my meat, and I'll carve you up alongside it!"
Ace stood his ground, completely unphased by the lethal aura rolling off her.
He wasn't even looking at the dinosaur. His eyes were locked on the precision of the cuts and the twin blades in her hands. His Observation Haki had replayed her strike in slow motion: she hadn't used a single drop of flashy sword-energy. Instead, through a terrifyingly deep understanding of anatomy, she had used the heavy cleaver to shatter the outer defenses and the light blade to sever the central nervous system in a single heartbeat.
It was more than butchery. It was an art form that preserved the life-force and "wild heat" of the meat perfectly.
"Flawless preparation," Ace murmured, his eyes flashing with genuine respect. He stepped forward, his long stride bringing him closer to the carcass. "However, on this ocean, ownership is decided by the strength of one's grip. And as it happens... I'm starving."
"Another arrogant pirate? You lot are all the same—plunderers who don't respect the ingredients!"
Leona's temper hit the boiling point. Lately, Bacchus had been crawled over by "trash" pirates using poison and heavy artillery to slaughter the local fauna for the World Government. To her, Ace was just a high-tier version of those vultures.
"You want to die? I'll accommodate you!"
Leona lunged. Her 1.9-meter frame blurred, descending from the Tyrannosaur's back like a falling mountain.
WHOOSH!
The Iron Tusk Cleaver swung in a massive, vertical arc toward Ace's shoulder, carrying enough kinetic force to split a boulder in half.
Ace didn't retreat. He didn't even coat his arm in Haki. He simply reached out with his bare, calloused palm to catch the slab of black steel.
"You're out of your mind!" Leona snarled. Taking her bone-cleaver with raw flesh? Even pirates with 50-million-Berry bounties would be cleaved to the brisket.
CLANG—!!
A sound like a massive bronze bell being struck echoed through the primordial jungle.
The sneer on Leona's face froze. A violent recoil traveled up the hilt, numbing her hands. She stared in disbelief as Ace's fingers clamped onto the spine of her blade. The edge had bit through the top layer of skin, but it was stopped dead by his muscle fibers—dense, compressed cords of flesh that felt like high-tensile steel cables.
How? she screamed internally. He stopped the Iron Tusk with pure physical density?!
"Good weight behind that," Ace said, a calm smile tugging at his lips. After weeks of "Destruction and Rebirth" training with his Celestial Flames, his body was becoming an impenetrable fortress.
"Don't get cocky, bastard!"
Leona twisted her body in mid-air with the flexibility of a gymnast. The Silver Talon in her left hand whipped out like a viper's tongue, aiming with surgical malice at the nerve cluster beneath Ace's ribs.
The heavy blade breaks the armor; the short blade carves the bone. It was her true killing intent.
But against Ace's high-tier Observation Haki, a strike of this level moved like it was underwater. Ace released the cleaver and swept his left hand down. His movement looked slow, yet he clamped onto Leona's wrist with absolute, bone-crushing precision.
"Got you," he said.
"Wh—!"
Leona tried to wrench herself free, but his grip was an immovable iron vice. Without giving her a second to breathe, Ace used his waist as a pivot, swung her over his head, and slammed her into the forest floor with brutal, clean efficiency.
BOOM!!!
Dirt and ancient leaves erupted into the air. Leona hit the ground so hard her vision went dark. Her bones felt like they'd been rattled loose, and her twin blades were thrown several meters away.
Ace controlled his strength perfectly—enough to incapacitate her without rupturing her organs.
"Cough... dammit..."
Leona lay in the crater, gasping for air, a trickle of blood at her lip. She glared up at the man blocking out the sun, her wild, cat-like eyes full of fierce defiance.
"A loss is a loss," she wheezed. "Kill me or eat me, I don't care. The prey is yours."
But the execution never came.
Ace stood over her, his shadow looming large. As he looked at the red-haired woman—at the untamed wildness she radiated even in defeat—a flash of absolute, kingly desire filled his eyes.
"I have no interest in killing you."
His tone was calm, but it carried the indisputable weight of an Emperor.
"Your knife skills are top-tier. Your understanding of ingredients is flawless. For a chef of your caliber to stay on this rock, feeding mindless beasts and spoiled nobles, is a waste of your soul."
"Become my exclusive chef."
Leona blinked. She forgot to wipe the blood from her chin, staring up at the man who had just slammed her into the dirt and was now casually recruiting her.
"Are you mental, big guy?" she snapped. "Why should I cook for some random bastard who just fell out of a tree? Do you even know what real cuisine is? My life's pursuit is to cook the most ferocious monsters in existence!"
"Which is exactly why you can't refuse."
Ace didn't get angry; he smiled with the composure of a man who had already won.
"On this island, the best you can do is carve up a thirty-meter lizard." Ace gestured to the dead Tyrannosaur, his voice rising with the arrogance of a world-conqueror.
"But if you board the Eclipse and follow me, I'll take you to the Calm Belt, where five-thousand-meter Sea Kings roam. I'll take you to the New World, to lands where mythical beasts are the only things on the menu."
"As long as the prey exists on this ocean, I will trample it underfoot and deliver it to your cutting board."
Leona's pupils constricted.
She looked into Ace's unfathomable dark eyes and felt her heart hammer against her ribs—not from fear, but from a wild, uncontrollable excitement.
What kind of man is this? To treat the terrors of the sea as mere ingredients for his table?
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