Inside the Sea Demon.
Bluebeard felt the death of his Master and slowly closed his eyes.
"Ryuunosuke, my dear Master, you've left me behind and gone on ahead. But don't worry... I, Gilles de Rais, will fulfill our promise…"
When he opened his eyes again, he pulled his hands free from the writhing tendrils surrounding him and raised a grimy grimoire high into the air.
Outside, the colossal Sea Demon shrieked as countless tentacles extended with terrifying speed, stretching hundreds of meters to snatch up those who hadn't managed to flee.
"Ryuunosuke, look! This is my gift to you… my ultimate cool—ah!!"
Bluebeard screamed with mad glee on his face.
The people caught by the tentacles wore expressions of frozen horror. In the next instant—
Splurt!
Over a hundred crimson blossoms burst open in midair—gory, seductive, and deadly.
Laughing maniacally, Bluebeard continued to command the Sea Demon, which strode forward, its tentacles thrashing.
Just then—
A white, towering figure appeared in midair, streaking toward the Sea Demon at supersonic speed.
His two-meter-tall frame was minuscule compared to the monster that stretched hundreds of meters high.
But in the face of this massive beast—
Garp's eyes burned with fury. Black Haki swirled around his fist as he slammed it downward.
"Fist of Punishment!"
His fist, the size of a cooking pot, struck without sound. Where it made contact with the Sea Demon's flesh, a circular area with a radius of dozens of meters disintegrated as though struck by a massive cannon.
BOOM!
A deafening shockwave echoed moments later. In the center of the Sea Demon's body, a giant hole was blasted through, revealing the sky on the other side.
The Iron Fist—like a living cannonball.
"You again…?"
Bluebeard's eyes bulged in disbelief.
But in the next second, the Sea Demon's wound writhed as its tentacles wove together and sealed it shut. The horrific injury regenerated in mere seconds!
With a piercing screech, the Sea Demon whipped a massive tentacle at Garp, striking with a speed almost equal to sound. The sheer number of attacks made dodging nearly impossible.
But…
It was facing Garp.
Hero of the Marines. Iron Fist Garp!
"Impressive regeneration. Definitely different from the Sea Kings of the Blue Sea... But even if you can heal fast, if the rest of you is weak, it's still useless."
Garp smirked, his dog-head cap casting a shadow over his grinning face.
Rather than retreat, he punched head-on against the incoming tentacles!
BOOM!
His Haki-coated fist compressed the air around it, forming a devastating shockwave that blasted the tentacles into ash.
And not just that—the Sea Demon's body behind them was punched into another gaping hole!
Tap, tap.
As the hole formed, Garp didn't wait around this time. He kicked off the air and launched himself into the wound, striking upward with another mighty punch.
BOOM!
To other Heroic Spirits who lacked wide-range attacks, the Sea Demon's regeneration might've been a nightmare—draining their mana and wearing them down.
But Garp? Using his Armament Haki and overwhelming physical prowess, every punch created area-of-effect damage.
With his blinding speed…
He pulverized the Sea Demon section by section!
"Whether you've got a core or whatever, I don't care. If I grind you into dust, let's see if you can still regenerate."
Simple reasoning. Overwhelming dominance.
That's the natural arrogance of the man who chased the Pirate King for decades.
And it worked.
As Garp punched deeper into the Sea Demon's core, he finally spotted the man wrapped in tendrils—Bluebeard.
"So it's you."
Grinning, Garp smashed a punch straight into him.
His fist gleamed with black metallic sheen—Armament Haki.
Not only did it greatly enhance both offense and defense when coating a weapon, it also transformed ordinary attacks into "special attacks", capable of damaging spirits and elemental beings normally immune to physical harm.
In cross-world combat, even if damage scaling varied, the impact wouldn't change much.
WHAM!
The blow landed.
Bluebeard's body shattered instantly.
His power had never been strong to begin with. Taking a full-power punch from Garp—even with partial damage reduction thanks to his Heroic Spirit nature—he had no chance of surviving.
Only the spirit body's nature allowed him a few lingering seconds…
His bulging eyes looked at his crumbling body.
"Ah… dying again."
He had longed to meet Jeanne again, to bask once more in the radiance of the Holy Maiden, to fight beneath her banner…
"I guess… gods truly cannot be defiled…"
In that fleeting moment—
Gilles de Rais, through the Sea Demon's eyes, saw a valiant young woman standing amidst the ruins. Clad in silver armor, with dazzling golden hair flowing in the wind…
His frog-like eyes widened with joy, and a fading smile appeared on his lips.
"To see that brilliant golden light once more… it's truly… wonderful…"
Pop.
The Heroic Spirit's mana-forged body dissolved into the air.
Garp retracted his fist and landed lightly on the ground.
As expected, with Bluebeard dead, the summoned Sea Demon began to disintegrate as well.
Seeing this, the surviving civilians collapsed to the ground, their faces finally relaxing in relief.
That terrifying monster… was gone!
Garp looked at the exhausted citizens and burst into hearty laughter.
"Alright—time to go home and eat breakfast with my granddaughter!"
---
In the distance, at the last spot Bluebeard had glimpsed before his death—
A young girl clad in silver medieval armor, with a blue dress underneath, stood among the ruins. Her golden hair was tied back, and her emerald-green eyes sparkled as she watched Garp's retreating figure.
The ahoge on her head swayed. The invisible sword in her hand was quietly sheathed.
"What a powerful man. Is he a Heroic Spirit too? But… I didn't sense any mana at all... If he were a Berserker, he shouldn't be this stealthy…"
Her eyes held a trace of confusion. It was hard to comprehend.
After all, no one who witnessed that battle would be foolish enough to think Garp was just an ordinary human.
Elsewhere, she was not the only one watching Garp leave.
From various corners of the battlefield, numerous mages and summoned Heroic Spirits had seen the entire clash with their own eyes.
~~~
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