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Boom… Crack!!
The sound was deafening, like muffled thunder rolling across the distant sky. Even from far away, in the bustling capital of Flower Capital, the commotion was clearly visible.
Inside a lavish mansion, Orrick quietly turned his head. He set down the book in his hand and calmly raised a teacup to his lips.
"Things are getting lively, Lirisk…" he murmured with an amused smile. "But you'd better be careful. That Kurozumi Orochi isn't someone you can deal with so easily."
Meanwhile, the man in question, Kurozumi Orochi himself, was galloping down the road that led out of the city, giving chase. He frowned deeply as the thunderous explosion reached his ears.
"That came from the direction of Oden City. Who's fighting there? Lirisk? And who is he fighting?"
He glanced upward. In the distance, Oden City looked as if a stockpile of explosives had detonated beneath it. Black smoke rose thickly into the sky.
Who in all of Wano could push Lirisk hard enough to unleash such overwhelming destruction without holding back?
"Speaking of which… where's Kaido?"
It had been a while since Kaido left the banquet hall. The drunken beast had vanished before Orochi even stepped outside. Now, with Lirisk causing such chaos, Orochi couldn't help but feel a nagging sense of unease.
"Reporting, General… After Kaido got drunk, even his right-hand man, Queen didn't dare stop him. As for where he went… this subordinate…"
A trembling samurai trailed off nervously, bowing low.
Orochi's expression darkened, but after a moment, he sighed.
"Forget it. He's a fool, after all."
Then his gaze sharpened. "Pick up the pace! I don't care if those two kill each other, but no one is to harm my Komurasaki!"
"Yes, General!"
At the same time, in the smoking ruins of Oden City, as the dust and smoke cleared, Lirisk's hand, which had been gripping Rowen's shoulder, dropped limply to his side. His chest heaved violently. His nose was broken, his eyes unfocused.
Blood gushed from his mouth in great, bubbling spurts, carrying with it fragments of shredded organs.
If that punch had been thrown at an ordinary man, Rowen was certain even Akainu would've been left half-dead.
But as a top-tier Zoan user, Lirisk endured it.
His body was battered and broken, but he hadn't even lost consciousness. His willpower burned on, refusing to flicker out.
"As expected of my old rival," Rowen said coolly, his massive hand seizing Lirisk by the skull and lifting him off the ground. "Among everyone I've faced, only Kaido and Big Mom have taken hits like that and lived. You're third on the list."
His voice was calm, almost bored.
"But… it's a shame. You chose the wrong side."
"You… bastard…!" Lirisk wheezed through ragged breaths, eyes blazing with fury.
The punch that shattered his ribs wasn't the true killing blow. What was truly fatal was the relentless accumulation of damage to his skull and nervous system from the very start of this fight.
Rowen had hunted him like a predator stalking prey. First, he'd crippled him with precision traps, then systematically struck every vital point, building a foundation for inevitable victory.
If this had been a straightforward fight, without Rowen holding back his powers and relying only on physical combat, Lirisk was certain he wouldn't have fallen so quickly. He might even have forced Rowen to unleash his Goro Goro no Mi's devastating, wide-area attacks, even if it meant exposing Rowen's position.
But "what ifs" held no weight here.
The moment he'd wasted time tangling with the Straw Hat Pirates, Lirisk had already stepped into Rowen's carefully laid trap.
"What's your goal in Wano?" Lirisk's pupils shrank as the thought struck him. "Is this… retaliation for our earlier operations?"
Then his expression twisted.
"Wait… Straw Hat's crew… they've allied with the Marines?!"
Wham!
His words were cut short as Rowen drove his knee brutally into Lirisk's gut. The Zoan warrior doubled over, coughing up blood in a scarlet spray.
"Allied?" Rowen sneered, his voice dripping with disdain. "You call that an alliance? When the Marines act, it's not 'collusion', it's knowing which way the wind blows. It's abandoning the darkness for the light. Try choosing your words carefully, will you?"
With his free hand, Rowen pulled out a cigar, igniting it with a spark of electricity from his fingertips. He took a drag, exhaling smoke slowly.
"Don't forget where you stand, Lirisk. Don't make me… disappointed."
"Heh… Do you really think I care?" Lirisk rasped, coughing up another mouthful of blood. His lips curled into a defiant grin. "Go on, kill me. Don't forget, it was me who taught you how to awaken your fruit's power. Remember the danger I put you in back then?"
Big Mom… among the Yonko, she was arguably the one who died the most unjustly. It was Lirisk who had offered Rowen the unorthodox method to forcefully awaken his Devil Fruit's power, without ever warning him of the backlash. That awakening nearly consumed Rowen, threatening to drown him in the overwhelming force of his own fruit.
He'd been one step away from ending up like Monet, the Yuki Yuki no Mi user who had lost her humanity entirely, her mind swallowed by her own power.
Rowen hadn't been consumed by the Devil Fruit's power like others before him, but its awakening had left him teetering on the edge of control. That overwhelming force needed release, he had to unleash it, or it would devour him from within.
And so, he'd set his sights on the Big Mom Pirates, who were locked in a brutal war with the Marines at the time.
The ensuing battle was cataclysmic. In one sweeping strike of destiny, Rowen leapt to the second stage of Awakening, the fabled "Fusion" realm, and in the same breath, executed Big Mom herself. Totto Land was reduced to ashes, erased from history.
For Nibelung, it had been a textbook case of trying to steal a chicken only to lose the rice.
Rowen now regarded Lirisk with a faint shake of his head, unfazed by the other man's mocking words.
"Relax," Rowen said coolly, exhaling smoke. "I won't kill you… at least, not yet."
"Oh? Because I'm a Celestial Dragon?" Lirisk sneered through clenched teeth.
"No," Rowen's gaze sharpened. "Because you're Orrick's son."
At that, Lirisk's face darkened, a gloomy shadow settling over his expression.
"What's that supposed to mean? Are you planning to use me as bait? Like you did with Whitebeard?"
He wasn't a fool. He'd already grasped Rowen's intent.
Rowen didn't bother denying it. He nodded once. "That's exactly what I intend."
"How laughable." Lirisk's lips twisted into a cold smirk. "That man? I know him better than any of you. To win a war, he'd throw away anything. Status as a Celestial Dragon, the so-called glory of our ancestors… he discarded them long ago. Do you really think he'd recklessly charge into enemy territory just because I'm his son? He's no Whitebeard."
And it was true. To walk the path of rebellion against the World Government, Orrick, Kaido, and even Orochi had all steeled themselves beyond sentimentality.
Rowen was oversimplifying. Not every man was Whitebeard, a pirate driven by blood and passion, who'd gamble his life for family. For Orrick, enduring humiliation, swallowing pride, and sacrificing attachments was second nature.
Rowen took a slow drag of his cigar, then blew out a thin stream of smoke, his expression unreadable.
"Is that truly what you believe?"
"…And if it is?"
Rowen said nothing. He lifted his head, eyes scanning the distance.
"Then keep believing it," he murmured. "We're done here. It's time to leave."
"Wait, what do you mean by, ugh!"
Rowen's hand came down like a blade, striking the back of Lirisk's neck. The Zoan warrior slumped, unconscious. Rowen hoisted him over his shoulder and launched himself forward, vanishing into the horizon.
Moments later, Kurozumi Orochi and his entourage arrived at the scene. The Wano shogun froze at the devastation before him, his face twisting with fury.
"What are you all standing around for?!" he roared. "Find her! If Komurasaki has so much as a scratch, I'll have all your heads!"
The once-proud Oden City lay in utter ruin. The city wall that had stood tall for twenty years was nothing but rubble, a gaping passage blasted clean through its heart. The sight alone was enough to chill any onlooker's blood.
Within the inner city, where towers once pierced the skyline, there now yawned an enormous crater, more than a hundred meters across, its shattered surface crisscrossed with web-like fissures. The sheer destructive power behind such an attack was beyond comprehension.
In this sea, the gap between ordinary men and true monsters was like that between two different species.
A battle at this level… even its shockwaves alone were enough to slaughter hundreds.
"Soryu (Azure Dragon) is gone… and Kurozumi Orochi's here," a voice whispered from the shadows.
From within the forest, Shinobu crouched behind a tree trunk, her sharp eyes observing the carnage. She gave a curt nod.
"With that monster on our side, maybe… maybe this time, we really can do it."
Her mind replayed the scene of Rowen brutalizing Lirisk with terrifying ease. A shiver ran down her spine, but she turned and darted away, moving swiftly through the undergrowth. She had to report back immediately.
If her side lost such a formidable ally because of hesitation or poor planning, the consequences would be catastrophic.
(End of Chapter)
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New Novels- 1. One Piece- Maxed Out Conqueror's Haki!
2. One Piece- Master Of Devil Fruits
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