Snow lay heavy on the rooftops, drifting down from a slate-gray sky.
The courtyard was stone-still.
Celestial Dragon Saint Hilding, his blade dripping red, pressed a palm to the doorframe, breath fogging in white bursts. The thrill of the hunt made his hands tremble. The iron scent of blood from the house sharpened his grin into something feral.
"Stop struggling. No one in this world can save you."
His cruel gaze swept the three people cowering inside.
The middle-aged man was soaked in blood, a gash across his chest cut down to bone. Barely able to stand, he still gripped an iron hammer, rough, calloused hands barring the way to his wife and child.
"No! The— the Marines will come!" Will's wife stammered, voice shaking.
At that, despair flickered in Will's eyes.
"The Marines? Hahahaha!"
Hilding threw back his head and laughed as if at a fine joke.
"The Marines? Don't be absurd. Your 'Marine Excellencies' have blockaded the island!"
"You're dogs to us. I could drag you before the Fleet Admiral and slaughter you there, and he wouldn't dare make a sound."
Will and his family went white, struck dumb. His wife turned to him, pleading for denial. He could only clench his jaw, tears gathering, with nothing to say.
"No..."
The light bled from her eyes. As if the last prop had been kicked away, she crumpled to the floor.
"Vice Admiral Darren… he promised to protect us."
She swayed, on the edge of fainting.
Against pirates or Mafia thugs, these poor townsfolk might have fought to the end. But before the sea's most exalted "gods," they could not even beg.
Hilding's cackle curdled. "He can't protect anyone."
His gaze dropped to the child—five or six at most. "Come here," he beckoned, licking his lips.
Paralyzed with terror, the boy staggered forward while his parents stared in horror.
And then—everything stopped.
A tall figure, drenched in blood, stood in the quiet courtyard as if the snow itself had birthed him. A warm, broad hand clamped onto the boy's shoulder and held him fast.
The child looked up, dazed.
Through the slow drift of flakes, an arrogant, blood-streaked face filled his vision.
Will and his wife froze, blank with disbelief.
"Da—Darren…"
"Vice Admiral Darren!!"
They gasped, trembling. They had never seen him with their own eyes, but that hardly mattered. In the North Blue, ordinary people followed this man's exploits in the paper the way others followed fads. They knew him at once.
"Hide. This will be over soon."
"You take the money, you do the job."
He said it almost lazily.
"Those are my rules."
He vanished.
Before the family could breathe, the arrogant noble's head burst apart.
Blood fell with the snow—
red and white together—
like petals blown across the sky.
---
As Darren cut down Celestial Dragons with impossible speed, the others realized, far too late, that something had gone catastrophically wrong.
A message raced through their ranks: Vice Admiral Rogers Darren of Marine Headquarters—the "escort" for the hunting party—had turned on them, launching a relentless massacre across the island.
Rage boiled over—then drowned in terror.
To hell with the hunting competition. To hell with the Holy Knights.
Survive.
They were the most exalted beings on the sea—how could they risk their lives, much less lose them, on a winter island in the North Blue?
They ran.
But how could they outrun him?
When the fleeing nobles tried to reach the coast and signal the Marine cordon for rescue, they found the Vice Admiral already there, blocking the way. From above, one would have seen a crimson phantom flicker and reappear, sealing every exit alone.
If they wanted to live, there was only one path: deeper inland, toward the mountains. The coast meant death.
"That Marine's gone mad!"
They scrambled uphill, panting, weapons long since discarded. In a panic they snatched up personal Den Den Mushi, frantically cranking calls to the Holy Land and the Marines.
Nothing answered.
Every Den Den Mushi slept, signals severed. Even the Visual Den Den Mushi scattered around the island were blocked and blind.
"What's happening?!"
"Why is there no signal?!"
"Where are the Marines?!"
"Sengoku—what are you doing?!"
"He's finished! When I return to the Holy Land, I'll strip his rank and make him pay!"
Screams pealed through the trees as the "gods'" blood soaked into the frozen earth.
One by one, the nobles fell, their bodies strewing the snow. In under two minutes, a quarter of the Celestial Dragons on the island were dead.
Darren's aura flared, slipping toward something raw and ungoverned.
Conqueror's Haki: 0.01!
Conqueror's Haki: 0.02!
Conqueror's Haki: 0.008!
Even as the yield diminished, his will kept climbing, fierce and steady.
"You brat!"
The Gyuki's vast spider-leg tore through the pines to smash into the clearing. Saint Saturn bore down—eyes venomous, voice a rasp of rage.
"Don't get carried away!"
His swollen, furred abdomen pulsed—and spat a volley of dark purple orbs, more than a dozen, arcing toward Darren.
His most insidious technique.
Corrosive. Weakening. Viral. Even an Awakened Zoan would be undone, their body failing as the Gyuki's web closed in.
What happened next made Saint Saturn's eyes almost bulge from his skull in disbelief.
To be continued...