Even in his powerful Ancient Zoan form, King could not resist the life-draining power of the scepter.
He was trapped in a state of helpless confusion as his vitality was siphoned away, a steady stream of power flowing from his body into the bone-white staff.
"Alright, that's enough," Rocks said, his voice cold. "I know you're loyal to your captain, but if you continue to stand in my way, don't blame me for what happens next."
A brilliant white light flashed from the scepter, enveloping King in a blinding shroud.
He felt an extremely dangerous aura wash over him, and then the light vanished, followed by a wave of pure deathly energy.
The last dregs of life force were ripped from his body.
The colossal Pteranodon, now a shriveled, desiccated husk, fell from the sky.
It crashed into a corner of Onigashima, its body as brittle as dry bone, completely unconscious.
After effortlessly disposing of Kaido's strongest commander, Rocks descended leisurely.
Below, another figure was waiting for him, clutching his head in pain from the residual deathly aura.
Rocks recognized him at a glance: Jack the Drought, the last of the three All-Stars.
Jack, whose notoriously foul temper was already frayed, looked up at the black-robed figure floating in the sky.
"You!" he bellowed, pointing an accusatory finger. "Get down here!"
Rocks slowly turned his head, a playful, contemptuous smile touching his lips.
Seeing this, Jack's eyes bulged with rage.
"You bastard!" he roared. "You really want to die!"
He grabbed a nearby subordinate and threw him toward a mobile cannon turret.
"FIRE!" Jack screamed. "Shoot that bastard out of the sky!"
A series of rumbling explosions echoed as the fort opened fire.
Jack squinted into the sky, eager to see this arrogant fool blown to pieces.
When the smoke cleared, however, the black-robed figure was still there, completely unharmed, casually dusting off his robe.
He then swooped down, landing on the cannon fort in a blur of motion.
The cannon crew was already dead, their life force drained.
"Little man," Rocks's voice was impossibly calm, but it carried a cold that chilled the soul.
"You will pay for your arrogance."
He launched himself forward, ignoring the cannon fire that continued to rage around him.
His cold eyes were locked on Jack.
You asked for this.
A black light shot from his hand, streaking toward Jack.
"Who do you think I am?!" Jack roared, completely underestimating his opponent.
"I'm Jack the Drought! It'll take more than that to kill me!"
As the words left his mouth, the scepter, stained with the despair of countless deaths, was suddenly embedded in his chest.
A strange, black mist emanated from it, corroding his body from the inside out.
Jack panicked, scrambling backward, but Rocks's speed was absolute.
He was on him in an instant, his hand closing around Jack's thick neck.
With a sharp, brutal squeeze, Rocks snapped his neck.
Jack's heavy body fell backward, hitting the ground with a sickening thud.
His legs twitched for a moment, and then he was still.
He was dead.
Rocks then raised the Necromancer's Staff over the corpse.
A fantastic, sickly green light flashed.
Slowly, unnaturally, Jack's dead body stood up.
He turned to face Rocks and bowed his head slightly.
"At your service, my lord," the corpse of Jack said, his voice a respectful, empty whisper.
A satisfied smile curled Rocks's lips.
"It seems the Necromancer's Staff can indeed turn the dead into my servants," he mused.
He turned and strode toward the center of Onigashima, his new undead servant following silently behind him.
A rare, joyful expression was on his face.
He had finally confirmed the full scope of his new power.
The endless killing was about to begin.
The entire ocean would be filled with corpses and the lingering energy of death, and with his staff, he could turn every last one of them into his own personal soldier.
The Marines would face an endless, immortal army.
Every pirate they killed would simply be reanimated to fight for him.
As long as he held the staff, his army could never truly be defeated.
As long as life continued to die in this world, the unholy fire of the Necromancer's Staff would never be extinguished.
Rocks smiled, imagining the endless despair of the Marines as they faced an immortal, ever-growing army of the dead.
With that cruel thought, he strode deeper into the fortress of Onigashima.
To bring the Beasts Pirates under his command, only one obstacle remained: Kaido himself.
Whether Kaido chose to cooperate willingly or be subjugated by force, Rocks didn't care.
All he wanted was more death.
.....
At the same time, on the flattened and scarred continent of the Red Line, Leon, wearing a pair of reinforced glasses, stared intently at the data scrolling across his monitor.
"That's it," he whispered, a sudden, excited grin spreading across his face.
"That has to be it!"
After weeks of intense work, he had finally made a breakthrough.
Of course, his other project was already a resounding success.
Thanks to the unique resource system at his disposal, he now had access to a virtually unlimited supply of Adamantium alloy.
Stored in the subterranean hangars beneath his lab were tens of thousands of newly-minted, special-issue Seraphim, an army so vast and powerful it could conquer the world on its own.
But that wasn't what fascinated him.
His true focus was on the small, strange shard of metal sitting on his test bench.
The fragment of the mysterious missile was covered in dense, complex runes, some sort of limiter.
He had taken every precaution imaginable, terrified of setting off another blast that could shatter what was left of the Red Line.
His goal was not to replicate the missile, but to understand and isolate the "growth" factor within it.
The idea of a substance that could physically grow and trigger a secondary, even more powerful explosion was a scientific concept that bordered on magic.
It was unheard of.
And now that he had a piece of it, a thousand new theories were blooming in his mind.
As his fingers flew across the keyboard, a series of dense data strings appeared on his screen.
He frowned.
"Huh? What is this?"
The longer he looked, the tighter his brow furrowed.
Something was fundamentally wrong with the readings.
This wasn't the data signature of an inanimate object.
Suddenly, Leon shot up from his chair, his fists slamming down on the table.
His expression was one of profound, world-altering shock.
"It's not a dead thing," he breathed, his voice filled with disbelief.
"It's alive."
His previous guess had been completely wrong.
All the data confirmed it.
The missile fragment wasn't a piece of technology.
It was a piece of a living creature.
The missile hadn't been a weapon; it had been an organism.
He deduced that for some reason, the creature was bound to a "core area," unable to move freely, only to grow.
He had to understand that core.
For the next month, Leon did not leave his laboratory.
He ignored everything, dedicating his entire being to unraveling the secrets of the living weapon.
Finally, after a long and arduous period of research, he walked to the other side of his lab, where Fleet Admiral Sengoku had been waiting patiently.
"Dr. Leon," Sengoku said, his voice deep and serious. "You called for me?"
"Sengoku-san," Leon replied, a tired but triumphant smile on his face.
"I need your cooperation for an experiment."
He gestured to a large monitor.
On the screen, a translucent, circular object was slowly wriggling.
It emitted a brilliant, internal light.
"Is that... a living thing?!" Sengoku asked, his eyes wide with surprise.
Even for a man who had seen all the wonders and horrors of the world, this was something new.
Leon's smile widened.
"It is indeed a living thing," he confirmed.
"But it has lost its ability to think."
Sengoku was taken aback, pondering the meaning of those words.
"Doctor... you mean to say this creature won't have any negative effects on a person?" he asked tentatively, completely in the dark as to where this was going.