Oven's blazing water pillars clashed with Creed's thunderous sword strike, detonating in a cataclysmic explosion. His warship split apart with a loud crack, while every pirate ship within several hundred meters was blasted apart, none spared.
This was the might of an SSS-level clash.
Lightning and boiling seawater lashed out, sweeping away the pirates who had been cheering for Oven's arrival. Their screams filled the air.
"Fourth brother, save me! It hurts! I'm dying!"
Brownie, his body covered in blood and burns, floated helplessly in the sea, crying out.
Oven himself didn't fare much better. A deep sword wound carved across his chest, bleeding heavily. His cloak, his beloved hair, and nearly all his clothes had been incinerated, leaving him in nothing but a tattered pair of pants.
Eyes wide with horror, Oven looked at Creed, who calmly sheathed his blade. That strike… had come from nearly two kilometers away, yet he still couldn't block it.
This was no ordinary swordsman. This was a top-class Great Swordsman!
"When did the New World gain such a figure?! Is he a newly dispatched Marine Admiral? Has the Navy already begun its big counteroffensive?!"
Oven's heart pounded with dread. He dared not move recklessly, waiting for Creed's words.
The battlefield fell into silence. Only the groans of the wounded pirates echoed faintly.
Those in the port, who had mocked the Navy as "trash," now stared in stunned disbelief. Oven — Big Mom's fourth son, one of her trusted ministers, second only to the Sweet Commanders — had his ship cleaved before docking, his body scarred, his brother nearly dead. And he hadn't even fought back.
Creed's voice rang out:
"Don't want to die? Then come here and be my hostage. Call the Sweet Commanders and tell them to prepare twenty billion berries for ransom!"
He hadn't forgotten the earlier ambush — someone had put a ten-billion-berry bounty on his head. Fine then, he'd extort the Big Mom Pirates in return.
It wasn't really about the money. What he wanted was to lure one of the Sweet Commanders here. And with such a humiliating demand, they wouldn't sit quietly.
"Hopefully one of them has a treasure chest. Then I'll leave."
But Oven exploded in rage:
"You dare go this far!"
He unleashed his powers.
The sea roared and bubbled violently as his Heat-Heat Fruit boiled a thousand meters of ocean into steam.
"Fourth brother, I'm still down here!"
Brownie screamed, struggling to swim as the boiling water scalded him further.
"They call Oven the Little Akainu. His fruit, pushed to the extreme, rivals magma itself."
Creed's expression turned serious. "Then today, I'll grant you defeat!"
Crackling arcs of lightning burst from his body, illuminating half the island, brighter than the midday sun. To the watching pirates, it was as if a thunder god had descended to purge evil itself.
"Is he… not even going to use his sword?!"
"No… that woman with him used lightning too. Could it be…?"
"So young, yet this powerful… truly worthy of being Garp's grandson!"
"Why isn't he a pirate? With someone like him in the Navy, the New World will never know peace!"
Dark clouds gathered above, and thunder rolled. Pirates trembled at the sight.
Oven, wreathed in waves of blistering heat, screamed:
"Heat Sea: Ten Thousand Waves!!"
Nine colossal, crimson steam pillars surged upward like roaring dragons, crashing toward Creed.
Creed's response was calm, his words soft as the storm:
"Ten Thousand Thunders!"
The heavens split open. Countless bolts of lightning poured down like a tidal wave, engulfing Oven's attack.
The clash was apocalyptic. Red steam dragons met the endless rain of thunder. In moments, the heat dissolved, leaving only searing lightning.
"Ahhhh!"
Even Oven cried out in agony as he was overwhelmed.
When the light faded, he lay charred and broken. With a flick of his hand, Creed used the Ope-Ope Fruit's powers to seize him midair.
"Kill me if you must. I won't make the call."
Oven's body was ruined, but his pride remained.
"You don't have to. Someone else will."
Creed smirked. "Baron Tamago, call Katakuri."
Baron Tamago paled but obeyed instantly, while Oven cursed him furiously.
Creed looked out over the ruined town, smoke still rising, the port reduced to rubble. He sneered:
"Now, who still dares say the Navy of the New World is trash?"
(End of Chapter)
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