New World, a sea area similar to the one where Sleepy Ancient Town lies.
Because the currents there are peculiar and the weather capricious, and because it is extremely remote, the islands in this sea are almost all uninhabited and overrun by ferocious beasts.
But some time ago, a human arrived on one of these islands, and soon the beasts there became his meals—and the calories he needed to grow stronger.
Boom! Boom! Boom…
Thunderous detonations echoed across the entire island with each strike, frightening the surviving beasts into shivering in their massive hides, eyes filled with human-like terror.
Following the sound, the view pulled across a ravaged plain to a figure several meters tall, using a mountain as a punching post.
Every blow—now a straight, iron-hard smash, now an inch punch that mixed steel with suppleness—sent shards of rock spraying as cracks of every size crawled over two-thirds of the massif.
At this rate, it wouldn't be long before the entire mountain was blasted apart by this towering brute.
People of the new era would not recognize this man.
But if the Great Pirate Era had just begun, and the first class of Supernovas were present, they would certainly know him.
Among that first generation, no one had a more ferocious record.
The Marines even mobilized then-Admiral Sengoku, the Marine Hero, and—still not yet admirals at the time—Borsalino, Sakazuki, and Kuzan, plus a ten-warship Buster Call, to capture him and throw him into Impel Down, Level 6.
Yes—the man who went berserk across the seas after Gol D. Roger's death, losing his purpose and turning the world upside down—the Demon Heir, Douglas Barrett.
"Doesn't training alone feel lonely?"
At that moment, a voice sounded beside Douglas Barrett's ear.
He turned, and behind him—he didn't know when—stood a tiny figure.
White robe without a single pattern, waist-length black hair like a waterfall—yet the energy within was as vast as the sea. In a strong man's eyes it stood like a mountain, blazed like the sun in the heavens.
That aura condensed from standing at the world's summit—one glance from such a person could make even a battle-hardened fighter's legs give out, or knock him straight into a faint.
But Douglas Barrett's eyes burned with fighting spirit. Grinning savagely, he said, "No need for me to look—you came to me yourself… World's Strongest!"
Link smiled as well. "Want the title of World's Strongest? Then a duel to the death."
"Just what I wanted!"
Barrett's grin widened. The ground under his feet shattered, and his massive body erupted with speed that defied its size, an arrow loosed from the string, streaking at Link.
Link neither dodged nor flinched, watching Barrett close.
When the vast shadow fell over him and a fist nearly as big as a man slammed down, Link calmly lifted a foot and kicked.
In the next instant, Barrett's savage grin flickered.
That hammer-blow fist—the kind that could make a mountain shudder and shed boulders—ran into a layer of invisible substance and stopped.
Zzzzt, zzzzt…
Dark red lightning flickered around the unseen barrier.
A heartbeat later, an invisible shockwave surged out from that same point, crashed into Barrett's body, ignored his near-invulnerable guard, and struck straight at his vitals.
Vastly bigger than Link, Barrett shot backward like a fired shell.
"Conqueror's Haki—coating!"
Blood traced the corner of Barrett's mouth as he instantly grasped the gap between himself and the World's Strongest.
His gaze hardened, and he triggered the awakening of his Devil Fruit.
Rumble…
In a blink, the ground heaved as if under the sway of a Float-Float Fruit master, lifted by an unseen rule.
Countless scattered stones, the cracked mountain, even the far forest where beasts hid—all liquefied into a black flood that surged toward Barrett.
Even the Catapult moored at the island's shore, and the sailboat Link had shaped with wood techniques, melted into liquid.
Those mixed elements gathered into one, forming a black giant wolf over two hundred meters tall.
It was a small island with few man-made structures.
Otherwise, that black giant wolf could have been even larger.
The Paramecia-type Clank-Clank Fruit, upon awakening, could fuse all inanimate matter, assembling it into a towering war-frame.
In sheer size it was one of the few powers that could rival—or surpass—the Wood Human.
But as always, Link liked fighting oversized opponents best.
What he hated most were Logias and those small, agile types.
"Sage Mode—"
Seeing Barrett take only a nick and immediately unleash his strongest move without hesitation, Link reciprocated in kind, bringing his hands together and entering Sage Mode.
Blue chakra flames burst from him. "Wood Human Technique!"
Rumble…
The island the fusion fruit had scoured into a barren waste convulsed violently.
As fissures webbed outward, a gigantic wooden hand thrust up from a crack and slapped down on the earth.
Stones tumbled away, and a Wood Human over two hundred meters tall hauled itself up like a giant waking from its slumber underground.
Two colossi of equal height now occupied most of the island, facing off.
"Rooaar…"
The black giant wolf broke first, loosing a gale of a roar, then lifting a fist clad in Armament Haki and smashing at the Wood Human.
The Wood Human simply raised an arm and blocked, casually stopping a blow that could have wiped out five Vice Admirals in a Buster Call.
Then, standing atop the Wood Human's head, Link formed a seal at an unhurried pace, ready to show Douglas Barrett just how disadvantaged a giant is when it fights wood.
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