"TATAKAE!!"
The Giant's earth-shaking roar rolled across the heavens.
Dust geysered; viscous fluids spattered. Under the crushing weight of the towering behemoth, jungles and snow-capped ridges buckled and fell, avalanches of ice and snow rippling outward with every tremor.
The thunder, the quakes, the pounding steps—everyone on the island felt them at once.
Celestial Dragons, stampeding in panic.
Civilians and slaves, cowering and shaking in dark corners.
Dragon, trading guerrilla blows with Saint Mars in his Itsumade form.
Even Kaido, Big Mom, and Fleet Admiral Sengoku battling with the Marine elites on the distant frozen sea—
All turned their heads as if confronted by some unspeakable horror, eyes blown wide, faces carved with dread.
A hundred-meter Giant with jet-black hair, bare-chested and corded with scars, stood like an ancient hunter returned from the wild. He raised the colossal Sandworm high over his head; yellow-green slime sluiced down his frame as he roared to the sky.
It was a sight branded forever into the minds on Felsek Island.
Saint Shepherd Ju Peter—one of the Gorosei, the "Warrior God of Agriculture"—and his monstrous Mythical Zoan Sandworm, hoisted like a trophy in a hunter's fist.
The Giant's triumphant bellow seemed to echo across the world.
Marines stared upward, stunned into silence by the black-haired Giant blazing with battle intent deep within the island. Their minds balked at what their eyes insisted on.
Marine Headquarters maintained its own Giant units. Adult Giants, with their overwhelming size and might, fought at a level comparable to Headquarters Vice Admirals. Every Giant Marine therefore held at least Vice Admiral rank.
But compared to the hundred-meter colossus looming now, those twenty-to-thirty-meter Vice Admirals looked like children.
"What… what is that?"
"A Giant?"
"Impossible! Giants aren't that big!"
"Unless it's an Oars—Demon blood!"
"No, that face… I've seen it!"
"Vice Admiral Darren! Our enemy Vice Admiral Darren!"
"Vice Admiral Darren turned into a Giant?!"
"He's tearing a Gorosei apart with his bare hands?!"
Realization rippled through the ranks; disbelief replaced speech.
Darren was human. How was he a Giant?
Elbaf blood? The fabled Demon line?
"Hahahaha! Darren's so cool! He can actually turn into a Giant!!" Kuzan didn't bother wiping the blood from his mouth, stars bright in his eyes.
Sakazuki's motions hitched, surprise flaring—and gone.
Borsalino, blade of Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi in hand, stroked his stubble with a lazy smile. "You were hiding deepest after all… What's your tie to Elbaf, Darren?"
Kaido, kanabo clenched, panted hard, eyes blazing as he ground his teeth. "I knew it. That brat's body is special."
"How else do you forge an Indestructible Body?"
It was the proof he'd wanted. He threw his head back and roared, venting rage.
Exactly! This proves it!
That damned brat Darren's "Indestructible Body" had nothing to do with me!
It's his blood—innately powerful!
If taking my beatings alone made you stronger, that idiot Queen would've been Indestructible ages ago!
Big Mom, meanwhile, burst into delighted laughter, cheeks flushed, body quivering.
"Mamamama… Truly the man I chose!" She licked her crimson lips, a predator's hunger lighting her gaze as it devoured the black-haired Giant. "The purest Giant bloodline… such perfect power. I must have his genes."
"To forge the strongest Giant army in Totto Land!"
"You won't!" Sengoku roared. He charged, body blooming into the Golden Buddha, and unleashed a devastating punch. Golden light exploded in a blinding peal.
Even as he struck, he reeled inside.
Darren… with the purest Giant bloodline?
Some hidden tie to Elbaf—the strongest nation of Giants?
Even without it, today's power alone crowned him a tyrant of the seas.
An Indestructible Physique. The demonic vastness of a Giant. Unthinkable strength. And the strange workings of the Magnet-Magnet Fruit—Darren's might defied language.
Taking cities, seizing seas, moving islands—child's play for him.
And the Gorosei had driven this cataclysm into enmity with the Marines.
For the first time in his life, Sengoku felt a thin crack of doubt in the judgment of the World Government's supreme authority—an uncertainty he barely dared to name.
"Mamamama! How could it not be?" Big Mom cackled, her burning greatsword parrying the Admiral's relentless blows. "Darren is no Marine anymore. The World Government forced him to the edge—defection was all that remained."
"Sengoku," she purred, "think: once he cuts your leash—his kind of scoundrel—won't he become a true pirate, free to roam the seas?"
The words hit like a slap. Sengoku's pupils shrank. Off guard, he took her punch full on, staggering as his cheek ballooned.
Darren… a pirate?
He ignored the fire in his face as his stomach plunged, mind conjuring calamity.
With that monstrous combat power—and the flight the Magnet-Magnet Fruit could grant—
The future Fleet Admiral swallowed hard.
This could be another Golden Lion—another world-shaking Flying Admiral.
No!
The sheer power and threat Darren displayed today surpassed even Golden Lion Shiki's prime!
To be continued...