"Let's go! Blast this old bastard to smithereens!"
With Enel's roar, the air over the main square of Merveille seemed to freeze for a split second before exploding like a lit powder keg.
"200 Million Volts: Thunder Dragon Emperor!"
Enel struck first. His left cheek, swollen and bleeding from Garp's initial punch, only fueled his primal ferocity. A massive, almost tangible blue lightning dragon, far more ferocious than his previous constructs, roared as it swooped down from mid-air, systematically sealing off every possible line of retreat.
Almost simultaneously:
"Mechanical Cannons: Full Discharge!"
From the eastern edge of the courtyard, Jeno's right arm whirred wildly, unleashing a blinding torrent of high-temperature blue beams like a localized monsoon. These laser arrays, engineered with enough thermal density to melt reinforced plating, precisely saturated every foothold surrounding the Marine Hero.
"Fish-Man Karate: Eight Thousand Tile Straight Punch!"
Shark's towering figure surged forward with the momentum of a heavy chariot skimming the stone. His fists, coated in dense black Armament Haki, skillfully manipulated the high-altitude atmospheric moisture to unleash a visible, violent water-jet shockwave aimed directly at Garp's lower body.
"Flame Burst: Fire Dragon King!"
Directly in Garp's line of sight, the blue compressed fire at Sabo's heel emitted an extremely low, concussive boom. He transformed into a sound-barrier-breaking afterimage, the alloy pipe in his grip wrapped tightly with high-level Ryuo and scorching heat as it swept fiercely toward Garp's chest.
Thunder, lasers, water jets, and a blazing Ryuo staff—the four forces, representing a combined bounty clearing a billion berries, displayed terrifying combat synergy. Without a single word of spoken communication, they executed a near-untraceable, three-dimensional strangulation matrix with perfect tactical coordination.
This devastating combination was a force sequence engineered to make any Marine Vice Admiral, or even an Admiral candidate, break into a cold sweat.
Yet, sitting at the absolute epicenter of the incoming destruction, Garp simply picked his nose with a casual flick of his finger.
"Your momentum has decent weight, you little rookies..." Garp grinned, a fierce, predatory light flaring within his eyes like that of a visible, hunting tiger. "But your formations carry far too many structural flaws!"
Boom!
Garp made zero attempt to drop his altitude or duck the trajectories. His thick knees didn't even buckle to absorb the inertia; instead, a deep, highly restrained coat of pitch-black Armament Haki instantly enveloped his entire body like an unyielding barrier.
Then, his iron fists moved.
Clang!
The first asset to register contact was Sabo's heavy fire staff.
Garp simply extended his bare left hand, clamping his fingers directly around the burning, fire-wreathed alloy pipe despite the presence of Sabo's Ryuo.
"Sabo, your Observation Haki has at least scratched the surface of the future path, but what's the meaning of this weak, fluid Armament Hardening?!" Garp roared with laughter, his left arm instantly flexing with an immense, internal destructive force.
The backflow of the old man's Haki traveled through the handle like an electrical surge. Sabo felt his forearms turn entirely numb, his entire physical mass violently hoisted into the air along with his weapon as Garp used the pipe as a lever.
"Whoa!" Sabo lost his balance completely, suspended in the wind.
"Use your own hide to insulate the lightning, boy!"
Garp laughed boisterously, swinging Sabo's mass like a human shield to intercept the giant thunder dragon descending from the upper air with surgical accuracy.
Boom!
The blue static struck Sabo squarely. Although his internal Logia fire offered an elemental buffer, the sheer concussive force of two hundred million volts caused his muscles to convulse violently. Letting out a sharp yell, his form detonated alongside the dragon into a dazzling display of blue-white fire.
"What?!" Enel's eyes widened to their limits in pure disbelief.
Before the lightning could clear, Jeno's laser beams and Shark's pressurized water jet closed on Garp's coordinates.
"Too sluggish! A cyborg child and a little Fish-Man!"
Garp's silhouette vanished from the focal point, leaving only a fading afterimage to be shredded by the lasers.
"Shave."
Whoosh!
Garp rematerialized as if ignoring distance entirely, appearing directly at Shark's flank just as the martial artist cleared his stance.
"Your physical forms are solid, but you can't even project your Haki outward to anchor your weight!"
Garp brought his right leg around in a rapid, heavy whip kick. It was a completely unadorned, standard execution, yet the velocity produced an extreme sonic boom that ruptured the air.
Bang!
Shark had no time to deploy a defensive parry. A terrifying, tsunami-like force collided directly with his midsection. His prized Fish-Man bone structure caved inward under the impact of the old man's heel, several ribs snapping with a crisp, distinct sound.
"Ugh!"
Shark coughed up a wave of fresh crimson, his tall frame accelerated into the air like an artillery shell. His body slammed directly into Jeno's mechanical arm on the far side of the square, the impact sending both figures rolling through the masonry debris like discarded gourds.
Within seconds, the three-dimensional strangulation matrix deployed by their primary vanguard was easily and thoroughly dismantled by Garp through absolute physical velocity, veteran combat intuition, and an unreasonable density of Haki.
"Damn it! Don't look down on the Eclipse Pirates, old relic!"
The microsecond Garp's boot touched the stones after discarding Shark and Jeno, a shadow loomed behind him.
"Karma: Oobutsu Shura!"
Urouge, who had been lingering within the perimeter of the ruins, finally isolated the brief window following Garp's transition. His five-meter-tall frame, provoked into an intense state of aggression after witnessing the trauma of his companions, expanded exponentially as his muscle fibers swelled. He locked his heart matrix, deliberately lowering the Armament defense along his chest to allow the concussive backflow of the previous explosions to tear his skin.
"Convert the agony... into the authority of salvation!"
Boom!
Urouge, resembling a furious, blood-stained Buddha, swung his massive hexagonal iron bar with a destructive force that had doubled after absorbing the environmental damage, bringing the metal down toward Garp's crown.
"Oh? The fruit that translates physical trauma into muscle mass? It's a pity your baseline strength is far too thin, big guy!"
Garp laughed loudly. Instead of shifting his boots, he casually raised his left hand, which wasn't even covered in a visible coat of Haki.
Clang!
Garp caught the heavy iron bar—a weapon engineered to cleave a mountain ridge—with a single palm. The ground beneath his heels didn't even develop a fracture; the entirety of Urouge's multi-ton impact seemed to vanish into empty space, completely neutralized by the old man's dense biology.
"How is this possible?!" A look of pure horror tightened Urouge's features.
"My turn!"
Garp grinned, his left fingers closing around the iron. With a sharp snap, the hardened hexagonal bar was crushed into loose fragments by his grip alone. Immediately after, Garp drove his forehead forward, delivering a brutal, unadorned headbutt straight into Urouge's jawline.
Bang!
Urouge's massive frame left the ground, flying backward like a kite with a severed string as he crashed through the face of a small mountain behind the ruins.
"Yellow Springs: Song of the Fallen—Snowfall!"
One-tenth of a second after the Monk was cleared from the field, an eerie, ethereal silhouette—so elusive that it barely registered on the margins of Observation Haki—glided into Garp's immediate blind spot like a ghost.
Brook's empty eye sockets skittered with a pale blue underworld flame. He targeted Garp's transitional opening with pinpoint accuracy, his Soul Solid blade thrusting silently toward the old man's spine, its steel packed with a freezing draft capable of locking a man's soul in ice.
"A swordsman from the cold dark? The velocity has decent quality!"
Garp didn't even turn his face.
An immense wave of high-tier Armament Haki erupted from his back like a sudden tidal wave—an absolute external defensive boundary. Brook's sharp blade struck the invisible wall of energy, unable to advance a single millimeter. Furthermore, the soul-freezing current leaving the steel evaporated on contact with Garp's frame, completely shattered by the intense, masculine warmth of the hero's raw physical presence.
"If your Haki lacks density, you can't cut through my coat, skeleton!"
Garp let out a loud roar, turning with extreme agility to sweep a heavy whip kick across the vacuum.
"Yo-ho-ho... this is truly going to be the end of my bones!"
Brook let out a strange rattle, attempting to slide his weight back, but Garp's foot outpaced his retreat. With a blunt concussion, Brook's light skeletal frame was hurled across the flagstones, his segments scattering into a loose pile of white bone against the dirt.
"Eye of God: Heavy Mode!"
On a distant architectural vantage point, Carina gritted her teeth. Though her purple eyes were dark with fear, her hands remained perfectly steady against the stock of her rifle. Guided by her full-map radar, she calculated Garp's landing trajectory following his kick with absolute precision.
Whoosh!
A blinding, high-explosive laser beam traversed a kilometer of empty space in a single frame, targeted straight for the old man's face.
"Oh? Long-range surveillance? Your intuition is sharp, little girl!"
Garp tilted his chin a fraction of an inch, the high-velocity laser grazing his cheek.
Boom!
The beam detonated against the palace wall behind him, unleashing a wall of red fire. Yet, just as Garp turned his head to evade the projectile—his previous physical momentum exhausted and his new balance not yet locked—the shadows beneath his boots shifted.
"Chop-Chop: Microscopic Hidden Draw!"
Buggy, who had been weeping in panic within a crevice between the rocks, had split his right hand into tiny, fingernail-sized fragments. Mixed within the billowing gray dust, these pieces silently closed on Garp's calf, the missing finger wielding a highly concealed Sea Stone folding clasp.
"Hm?!"
The microsecond before the hidden weapon could sever his trouser leg, Garp's veteran instincts caught the treacherous sliver of intent.
"You red-nosed brat... your tools are incredibly dirty!"
Garp's eyes narrowed into slits. His right leg trembled with a sudden, violent contraction, releasing a concussive shockwave of pure Haki from his muscles.
"Waaaaah!"
Buggy's separated hand was instantly hounded back through the air, his main torso hiding within the rock crevice screaming in intense pain as the feedback hit his core.
"The opening is open, old man!"
A soft rush of air descended from the clouds. Leona, dragging her broken left arm, held White Night upside down in a single-handed grip. Utilizing her weightless state, she dropped from Garp's absolute blind spot like a silent, dark red phantom.
"Special Observation: The Anatomical Dead Line!"
In her heightened vision, after Garp had processed the consecutive attacks of eight individual outlaws, a thin, blood-red opening finally manifested across his upper back.
"Got you!"
Leona's eyes flared with a lethal light, White Night transforming into a silent ribbon of silver-black lightning that pierced straight toward the target.
Yet, faced with this hidden backstab, a wide expression of pure appreciation surfaced across Garp's wrinkled features.
"Little girl... your sight is exceptional, and your timing is flawless. But did your ears drop open when I gave my lecture earlier?"
Exactly 0.01 seconds before the tip of White Night could touch the cotton of his shirt, another immense shockwave of projected Armament Haki erupted from Garp's back.
Clang!
Leona felt her blade collide with a transparent wall of hyper-compressed air, her edge unable to advance even a fraction of an inch. Even the Armament Hardening she had managed to wrap around the steel dissolved under the weight of the recoil.
"If your Haki lacks mass, looking at a weakness won't clear the obstacle!"
Garp roared with laughter, spinning on his heel with absolute agility to bring his scarred face inches from Leona's position. He raised his sandbag-sized right fist once more.
"Remember this impact well!"
Bang!
Garp's knuckles didn't make direct contact with her leather gear; his fist stopped with absolute precision exactly one inch from her breastbone. But the compressed physical air pressure and the internal projection of his Ryuo pierced through her torso like a physical solid.
Leona felt a terrifying, concussive weight detonate inside her chest cavity, as if her internal organs had been forcibly shifted from their tracks. Spitting a torrent of fresh crimson, her body was launched off the edge of the floating island like a cannonball.
"Leona!"
Sabo, Enel, and the remaining officers dragged their broken frames out of the rubble, looking across the courtyard at their entire vanguard lying flattened along the dirt. Their synchronized ambush had been completely and systematically neutralized. A mixture of deep resentment and despair flashed within their eyes.
Even in a full-scale brawl, even after deploying every newly awakened asset and unique fruit trick within their arsenal, before the formidable master known as the Marine Hero, the outlaws of the Eclipse Pirates were still far too immature.
"Phew... well, that handles the warm-up parameters."
Garp looked over the line of fallen youths, twisting his thick neck until it popped as he exhaled a long plume of white steam into the wind. His tiger-like eyes scanned their broken positions, a deep trace of admiration lingering beneath his scowl.
"That brat Ace has a decent eye for raw timber. Though your Haki is completely unrefined, the courage to throw a punch at a superior baseline is barely acceptable."
Garp stepped slowly toward the officers who were recovering from the internal trauma, his suffocating, mountain-like pressure descending over the flagstones once more.
"However, now that I've climbed up to this altitude, this meeting can't dissolve so casually."
"Pull yourselves up, all of you! If you don't want your paths to end today, use whatever thin Haki you have left to block my knuckles with your lives!"
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