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"Major General… we have a serious problem."
The officer moved briskly toward Major General Carlos and the assembled command staff, his steps sharp and hurried. One look at his grim expression was enough to make the atmosphere in the room tense.
Carlos's heart skipped. A heavy sense of dread settled in his chest as the officer produced a tablet he had clearly prepared beforehand. Without saying another word, he tapped the screen twice.
The display flickered to life.
*Szzzt! Szzzt!*
"Aaaah!"
The footage was brief but horrifying.
A young Eastern man stood calmly in the open, both arms raised. From his hands erupted an overwhelming storm of golden light, beams flooding the sky like divine judgment. In an instant, Colonel Kyle and every soldier at his side were swallowed whole.
There was no struggle. No escape.
And worse, no remains.
The soldiers on screen were completely annihilated, erased so thoroughly that not even ashes were left behind.
"..."
The room fell into a suffocating silence.
Every person present stared at the frozen image, shock written plainly across their faces. Power like that, firing radiant torrents directly from one's body, wasn't just exaggerated.
It was utterly insane.
That Devil Fruit shop owner… possessed this kind of power?
The realization hit them all at once. Fear, disbelief, and fury twisted together as they processed what they had just witnessed. Rosh's strength was overwhelming, and his utter lack of restraint felt like a slap in the face.
*Slam!*
Major General Carlos shattered the silence by slamming his palm against the table. Rage burned openly across his features.
"Outrageous! Absolutely outrageous!"
To slaughter his men in public, in broad daylight, without even attempting to hide it, this wasn't just violence.
It was a direct challenge.
Carlos had clawed his way to the rank of major general through decades of chaos and bloodshed. He had faced criminals, extremists, and monsters wearing human skin.
But someone this blatantly defiant? That was new.
"This is intolerable! He clearly has no respect for us whatsoever!" another colonel barked angrily. "Major General, this cannot be allowed to stand!"
"If he refuses to recognize his place," Carlos replied coldly, eyes sharp as steel, "then neither will I show restraint."
He turned toward the reporting officer. "Initiate arrest protocol immediately."
*Bang! Bang! Bang!*
*Bang! Bang! Bang!*
The words had barely left his mouth when a rapid burst of gunfire echoed from outside the room.
Carlos's expression darkened. "What's happening now?"
*Beeeeep! Beeeep! Beeeep!*
A shrill alarm erupted throughout the base, blaring loudly enough to make the walls seem to vibrate.
*Bang!*
The doors flew open as another officer rushed inside, flanked by armed personnel. Sweat dotted his brow, and his voice carried unmistakable urgency.
"Gentlemen," he shouted, "the base is under attack! Situation critical, immediate evacuation is required!"
"Under attack?!"
Carlos and the others froze, momentarily struck dumb by the report.
This wasn't a battlefield. There was no war going on. An outright assault on a fully operational military base, something like that shouldn't even be possible.
Who in their right mind would dare attempt it?
"We're under attack? Bullshit," Carlos scoffed, his voice dripping with disdain. "There isn't a single organization on this planet reckless enough to pull something like that off."
"It's not an organization, sir!" the officer replied urgently, panic clear in his tone. "It's a mutant!"
"Sir, you need to evacuate immediately! That mutant can transform into light; he's extremely dangerous!"
'A mutant… light?' Carlos exchanged glances with the other generals. No one needed to say it out loud.
They all knew exactly who it was.
In an instant, their expressions darkened, fury boiling beneath the surface. Slaughtering their men hadn't been enough. Now that madman had the audacity to storm their base personally?
This wasn't just lawless.
It was a declaration of war.
"Sir, please!" the officer pleaded. "We have to move now, there's no time left!"
*Smack!*
The sharp sound echoed through the room as Carlos backhanded the officer across the face.
"Enough nonsense!" Carlos roared. "Are you telling me the hundreds of soldiers stationed here are all fucking useless? Driven back by one man? Don't make me laugh!"
Even after witnessing Rosh's horrifying power firsthand on video, Carlos still refused to accept it. One man overwhelming an entire military base?
Impossible.
No one on Earth could do something like that.
*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!*
The world seemed to answer him with violence.
Deafening explosions tore through the air, one after another. The entire base lurched violently, shaking as if a massive earthquake had struck from below.
*Crack! Crack! Crack!*
The walls split apart with terrifying force. Concrete collapsed inward as chunks of debris rained down from the ceiling, filling the air with dust and smoke.
The scene was pure chaos and apocalyptic, like something ripped straight out of a disaster movie, without the slightest hint of exaggeration.
Carlos and the others went pale. For the first time, genuine fear crept into their eyes.
What… was happening?
How could this possibly be real?!
There was no time left for questions. No time for pride or denial.
Instinct took over.
They bolted from the room, sprinting through corridors that twisted, collapsed, and split apart around them. Alarms screamed overhead as the structure groaned in protest, threatening to bury everything inside.
Only when they finally burst out into the open courtyard did they slow down, gasping for breath, hearts pounding wildly, surrounded by a base that was rapidly being torn apart from within.
"Jesus Christ…"
The moment Carlos and the others laid eyes on the scene before them, they froze in place, minds going completely blank.
They couldn't believe what they were seeing.
High above the base, suspended effortlessly in the air, was the same Eastern young man from the footage. He hovered there arrogantly, arms folded across his chest, gaze cold and indifferent, as if everything below him were nothing more than ants scrambling on the ground.
*Szzzt! Szzzt!*
*Szzzt! Szzzt!*
With every sharp burst of energy, endless streams of radiant light poured down from the sky. Photon rounds cascaded like a merciless storm, swallowing the entire base in golden brilliance.
"Blotting out the sky" wasn't a figure of speech here.
It was reality.
And what terrified them even more was that this assault was on a completely different level from what they had seen earlier. Back then, the attacks could still be described as photon bullets.
Now? These were photon artillery shells.
Each blast that struck the ground detonated with overwhelming force, erupting like a high-yield bomb.
*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!*
The base was hammered from every direction. It looked less like an attack and more like total annihilation, carpet bombing on an unimaginable scale.
Fighter jets were torn apart midair. Tanks and armored vehicles were reduced to twisted scrap in seconds. Every weapon of war they had proudly relied on was wiped out as if it were made of paper.
The soldiers who rushed out to respond didn't stand a chance.
They were crushed like insects beneath a god's heel, blown apart before they could even process what was happening.
The devastation didn't stop there. Buildings surrounding the base collapsed one after another, unable to withstand the relentless bombardment. Concrete shattered, steel buckled, and entire structures were reduced to rubble.
Right before Carlos's eyes, the military base he had once believed to be impregnable was erased, swiftly, violently, and without mercy.
"My God…"
His voice trembled as the words slipped out.
"What kind of monster did we provoke?"
Despair flooded Carlos's eyes. Only now did the full weight of reality crash down on him. Only now did he understand how catastrophically wrong he had been.
Regret gnawed at his heart.
If only he had been more cautious. If only he hadn't acted so recklessly against that Devil Fruit shop…
But regret was meaningless now.
There was no remedy for it in this world.
*BOOM!*
Several photon shells slammed down at once, their blinding light swallowing Carlos and the others whole, leaving nothing behind but destruction.
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Next Chapter: A Living Nightmare for America
Next Next Chapter: One Man Holds an Entire Nation in Check
Next Next Next Chapter: Tony Stark Realizes How Dangerous Rosh Is
Visit my P@tr3on or K0‑fi ''Isopuff'' page and unlock +20 extra chapters and daily updates!