Under the surge of the Star Spirit's furious will, the kinetic force of the Seastone shells more than doubled.
Especially the Pluton's bow gun—capable of blasting away an entire island with a single shot—which now fired not a shell, but a Seastone colossus nearly a hundred meters long.
It spun at high speed, wreathed in an unstoppable, crushing aura, and drove straight toward the one-eyed giant's sole eye.
The Star Spirit had confirmed countless times in his memory how lethal Seastone was against alien bioweapons like this one.
And the giant's greed for life matter was just as absolute—in this moment, it showed with brutal clarity.
Faced with a barrage of shells pouring down like a torrential storm, the one-eyed giant made no move to dodge or defend.
It merely buried its head in the corpse of the monster-fish Sea King, tearing and gulping with frenzy.
An instant later, the barrage struck home.
The giant was like a sticky rice dumpling dropped into a heap of black sesame—its entire body studded with black Seastone shells.
The shells shredded its immensely tough mutated skin, and the vast quantities of black, slime-like life matter it had just drained from the two Sea Kings now oozed out under the immense pressure.
The hundred-meter Seastone colossus hit dead-center on the giant's eye.
Like an iron rod striking an egg, it burst the fluids from that eyeball with ease.
At last, the one-eyed giant let out a hoarse, grating roar.
But Roya's spiritual sense caught something telling—the fury was not from the severity of its wounds, but from the rapid loss of the black slime inside its body.
Its fixation and hunger for life matter were imprinted deep into its very being.
"Hmph! I've got more Seastone than you can handle! If I can't kill you, I'll crush you to death!"
The Star Spirit gave a cold snort, rallying the Pluton's guns for another full broadside.
Just then—
As the black slime gushed away, the giant began an in-combat mutation.
Its tattered skin peeled away like strips of cloth, sloughing off cleanly.
In moments, all that remained was an enormous stomach sac, still pulsing and writhing.
The tons of Seastone embedded in its flesh fell away with the discarded skin—
—and with them, the suppression effect vanished.
Seeing this, Roya immediately sent a mental transmission to the Star Spirit, ordering him to cease fire so they could observe the sac's next evolution.
Inwardly, he thought: As expected. These bioweapons have no true weak points—they exist purely to harvest and transport life matter.
His spiritual sense swept inside and out of the sac, instantly parsing its biological structure.
This "stomach core" design isn't so different from Vegapunk's modifications to Kuma… Seems that man's research into his own body is coming along nicely.
Even in that brief moment, the sac was already forming a tight layer of bony armor.
This armor was composed of four layers of gray-white bone.
The two inner layers were a crisscross weave of solid bone rods no thicker than a little finger, able to block any kind of piercing damage.
The two outer layers were made of thick, hollow bones, with enough space between them for cushioning—filled with elastic cartilage to absorb impacts from the outside.
It was clear this armor was built to counter the Pluton's naval bombardment.
Though its formation was a bit slow for battlefield demands, these bioweapons usually fought in swarms—any delay could be offset by sheer numbers.
Smoker, who had watched the whole thing, was completely dumbfounded.
In his mind, a five-thousand-meter Sea King was already an unbeatable force in this world.
Even the Navy's elite, when faced with such monsters, would slink away rather than provoke them.
Yet here, three Sea Kings had charged in fury—only for the terrifying one-eyed giant to instantly kill two of them and devour them alive.
A giant that fed on Super Sea Kings!
Just when Smoker thought even Roya's new super warship would be doomed under such a monster's assault—
—the Pluton proved otherwise.
One full broadside. Ten thousand guns roaring in unison.
They reduced the arrogant one-eyed giant to a single surviving organ.
Smoker, feeling as though he'd escaped death itself, was still shaking with aftershock. In fact, he wanted nothing more than to take command from Roya and order another ten or eight volleys to blow this still-dangerous organ to pieces.
But to his disbelief, Roya didn't panic at all—he simply stood there, watching as the giant revealed its second form.
One glance at that complex bone armor told Smoker that naval artillery would now be completely useless.
At last, he couldn't help but shout:
"Lord Roya, we can't let him keep evolving!"
The cry served no practical purpose—except to instantly draw the attention of the now fully mutated bioweapon.
Roya's eyes lit up.
He'd been wondering what sensory method the creature would adopt after discarding its eye.
Smoker's shout gave him the answer: it sensed fear.
The fear in Smoker's voice was like a lighthouse in the dark, pointing the bioweapon straight toward its prey.
From within its hollow outer armor, countless sharp bone spears formed, launching through specialized openings in a ten-meter-wide spread toward Smoker's position.
They flew with terrifying speed, shrieking like wailing ghosts.
These spears were hollow, increasing their killing power while amplifying the aura of dread—murder that struck at both body and soul.
In an instant, they were upon him.
Smoker cried out, diving forward into a series of rolls.
He thought he'd escaped their range—until he glanced back and saw the spears curving after him with unnerving precision, locked onto his tail like guided missiles.
Out of momentum, he had no move left to dodge.
In desperation, he roared:
"Lord Roya, save me!"
A mass of blazing yellow photons streaked in, each one slamming into a spear's tip.
They slipped through the tiny, near-invisible holes in the spearheads and detonated all their energy inside.
In an instant, every spear exploded into a cloud of bone dust.
From above, Sengoku and Kizaru descended, landing on the Pluton's deck.
PS: Access the complete chapters/series at