Chapter 55: The Five Senses Shattered
Ginrummy shook her head, finally recovering from the lingering pressure of Ian's Conqueror's Haki. As long as she didn't have to face that monster directly, she felt confident dealing with any ordinary Marine.
Fizz!
Hiss...
Just as she prepared to move and support Sheepshead, a strange, electrical sound crackled to her side.
Nami stood there, her Climate Baton held ready, her expression resolute as she stepped into the fray.
"A woman? A Marine?" Ginrummy sneered, her voice dripping with contempt. "You look so weak! You want to be my opponent? Should I just kick your pretty face in right now?"
Nami's delicate features seemed to ignite a spark of jealousy within the beastly pirate.
"Look weak?" Nami retorted, spinning her baton expertly. "I'm more than enough to deal with a pirate who only knows how to follow others around and beg for scraps!"
"So, you were just covering your men's retreat? And now so many more show up," Jack growled, his mammoth eyes flicking towards the newly arrived Marines. "Could it be they're desperate, rushing out to get themselves killed?"
He held considerable confidence in his cadre. They were all seasoned fighters, hardened by the brutal crucible of the New World.
"Courting death?" Ian's voice brought his attention back. "Hahaha, let's see who dies first. My subordinates aren't mindless brutes like yours. If I, a Major General, had to personally deal with every random underling, wouldn't that be utterly pathetic?"
He took a step closer, his gaze locking onto Jack's. "And... your opponent is right here. Are you really in the mood to look elsewhere?"
Ian had no intention of letting this battle drag on. An Ancient Zoan versus an Awakened Zoan—both possessed recovery abilities far beyond the norm. A protracted battle of attrition could last for an unknowable amount of time.
Shave!
In a burst of speed, Ian didn't bother with a tricky angle. He flashed directly in front of Jack and threw a powerful punch into his abdomen.
"You look down on me! An attack like this is useless!" Jack roared, using his Observation Haki to track the movement. His trunk, still wrapped in Haki, shot out and coiled tightly around Ian's torso.
At over two meters tall, Ian was still dwarfed by Jack's hybrid form. "You little brat, can't run now, can you?" Jack tightened his grip, refusing to give Ian any room to escape. He refused to believe that after all the previous setbacks, Ian would make such a reckless, fatal error.
"Hey, sorry," Ian said, a triumphant smirk spreading across his face. "I never planned on running."
At that moment, his Awakened ability activated.
[The Five Senses Are Destroyed!]
As his fruit power had grown, so had the range of this ability. However, the further from the epicenter, the weaker the effect. The most potent application, the one that maximized its power, required direct physical contact!
His brief exchange with Jack had led him to a conclusion. Defeating Jack with Haki and physical prowess alone was not impossible, but the duration of such a battle was unpredictable—a day? A night? Several days? To end this quickly, he needed his trump card. And the timing had to be perfect. Using it from a distance would drastically reduce its effectiveness against an opponent of near-Yonko Commander caliber. If it failed the first time, Jack would be wary, making a second attempt far more difficult.
Buzz...
"What... what's going on?" Jack's mind was suddenly filled with a sharp, dissonant roar. In the next second, his sight and sound vanished simultaneously. The sensation in his trunk, still wrapped around Ian, disappeared as if severed from his body. His limbs felt like they were floating in seawater, disconnected from his brain's commands.
"This guy... he has a hidden technique! He kept it until now! So just now... he let himself be caught on purpose!" A sliver of genuine fear, something he hadn't felt since facing the true monsters of the sea, crept into Jack's heart. This was a teenage kid!
Yet, his will remained formidable, his mind clear. His internal perception hadn't been completely erased...
In the real world, the Jack before Ian had lost the conscious control needed to maintain his hybrid form. Seizing the opportunity, Ian's super-vision sharpened to its absolute peak. This ability granted him not just a panoramic field of view, but the power to focus on microscopic details and perceive the very essence of things.
Jack was a fishman. His bone structure and meridian system were completely different from a human's. Even so, with his super-vision, Ian could clearly see the weakest points in the massive fishman body.
"It's as clear as day... the weaknesses of the fishman physique!" Ian thought. "As long as I strike these areas, no matter how strong his recovery is, he won't be able to fully heal in a short time!"
Activating Moon Step, Ian walked on air, leaping onto Jack's shoulder.
"Human Fist, Tiger Style!"
Explosive Armament Haki concentrated around Ian's knuckles. He aimed mercilessly at the most vulnerable joints in Jack's arms and shoulders and unleashed his power. The concentrated Haki exploded internally like countless sharp blades, tearing through muscle and sinew from within.
BOOM!
CRACK!
The hunched shoulder, now defenseless, was ravaged from the inside. In an instant, the joint dislocated and shattered. Jack's powerful arm went limp, hanging uselessly.
His body, already deprived of sensory input, now suffered a catastrophic physical blow. He began to topple backward.
BOOM!
CRACK!
BOOM!
CRACK!
Ian did not let up. He was a relentless storm of precise, devastating strikes, systematically targeting every weakness his vision revealed, hammering the calamity into the ground.
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