The quiet murmur of Luoyu's words echoed like thunder.
The crowd, once content to spectate, suddenly felt their nerves snap taut.
A ridiculous thought crept into their minds:
Was this Admiral… completely unhinged?
"W-what did you just say?" Spandain's face twisted.
"What?" Luoyu glanced at him. "Nothing worth repeating."
"Ain, when you report to old man Sengoku, ask him how much bounty a fake CP0 trying to snatch prisoners from an Admiral is worth."
"Since their identity can't be verified, we'll take them in."
He's insane.
Not just Luoyu.
Everyone felt like they were going insane.
Was he really about to take down CP0?
"Admiral Luoyu, this is treason! We're CP0—direct agents of the Five Elders! You dare question our identity? Ask around if you don't believe us!"
Spandain's voice cracked with panic.
And then he realized his mistake.
No one stepped forward to confirm their identity.
In fact, the crowd turned and ran.
Even CP9 bolted.
"Run! I told you—this guy doesn't play by the rules! He's completely unreasonable!" Iha shouted, fleeing.
Spandain and Iga stood frozen.
They were CP0.
Feared across the world.
When had they ever been treated like this?
Spandain's hand clenched around the metal case.
From his sleeve, he drew a pistol—loaded with a special Seastone bullet—and aimed it at Luoyu.
"You bastard! Let's see how you like losing your powers!"
BANG!
The shot rang out.
At point-blank range, the bullet flew straight at Luoyu.
Spandain smirked.
He'd seen Luoyu's Haki. But that golden Kannon?
Probably a Devil Fruit.
Luoyu caught the bullet with his fingers.
"Seastone?" he said, inspecting it.
He wasn't surprised.
The World Government had this tech.
Zephyr had a Seastone arm, after all.
"Spandain, no!" Iha screamed.
Too late.
Luoyu casually tossed the bullet aside.
"So you're fake CP0 after all."
He looked up.
His Conqueror's Haki surged again.
A tidal wave of pressure swept across the battlefield.
Everyone felt it.
Crushing. Suffocating.
And then—
A blood-red Qilin roared into existence.
It dove from the sky, no flourish, no warning.
Iha, barely a hundred meters away, screamed:
"I told you! You can't reason with this guy!"
BOOM!
The Qilin struck like a thunderclap.
The shockwave was a tsunami.
The crowd, despite having seen this once before, was still caught off guard.
They'd believed Luoyu might be reasonable.
They were wrong.
The blast flattened everything within a kilometer.
Again.
When the dust settled, the crowd—covered in ash and blood—fled in terror.
They'd brushed death twice.
They weren't risking a third.
SPLURT.
Three figures appeared, hundreds of meters from the crater.
Clothes torn. Faces pale. Blood on their lips.
Their original positions?
Now marked by three charred corpses.
At the last second, Iha had used his Substitute-Substitute Fruit to swap places with nearby pirates.
But even escaping the epicenter hadn't saved them.
The residual force had nearly killed them.
Iha looked at Luoyu.
Still calm.
Still sipping.
He tried to activate his ability again.
But his body was wrecked.
And everyone else was too far.
"So you fakes are Devil Fruit users too," Luoyu said, glancing at the corpses.
"Until we know who you really are, you're coming with me."
BOOM!
Another blast of Conqueror's Haki.
No beast this time.
Just raw force.
It crossed hundreds of meters in a blink.
Spandain and his men tried to run.
But their bodies were broken.
Their organs screamed.
Too late.
All they could do was shout in rage:
"Damn you, Admiral! We'll file a formal protest with Marine HQ!"