Sengoku's eyes lit up, his mind already racing with the strategic possibilities.
He was already looking forward to the next battle.
"Follow my movements, Marshal Sengoku," Leon instructed, placing his right hand behind his own left wrist.
Sengoku's eyes narrowed, and he carefully mimicked the gesture with a nervous look on his face.
This suit of armor was the most precious piece of technology in the world, the key to their future.
He couldn't allow anything to happen to it on his watch.
"This is the first step," Leon said calmly.
The moment Sengoku copied the gesture, a series of soft clicks echoed from the armor.
In the eyes of the stunned onlookers, the full suit of Living Armor began to reverse its transformation, flowing like liquid metal back toward his wrist.
In seconds, the formidable armor had once again become a simple, silver-white wristband.
A confident smile appeared on Leon's face.
"Perfect," he murmured. "Just as I designed."
He paused, then looked at Sengoku.
"Now, let me see what surprises you can really bring me."
With a soft hum, the wristband on Sengoku's arm vibrated, and an incomparably pure wave of powerful energy emanated from it.
"Let's see if the perfect combination I imagined can really be realized," Leon said, walking forward.
With the highest level of command authority as its creator, he issued a silent order.
The wristband detached from Sengoku's arm and shot through the air like a silver streamer, flying directly to Leon.
He stretched out his right hand, and the Living Armor eagerly attached itself to his own wrist, vibrating with what could almost be described as pleasure.
Apparently, it preferred its creator.
Then, without a command, it began to deploy.
CLICK!
With a series of crisp sounds, the Living Armor rapidly expanded, covering Leon's body.
He could only smile helplessly.
He hadn't expected its attachment to him to be so high that it would refuse to stay off him.
But then again, he was the one who built it.
After a moment of admiration, he retracted it back into its wrist guard form and put it away.
He then walked over to a reinforced safe and took out five more items.
A wrist guard identical to his own, a helmet, a pair of knee pads, and a set of gauntlets.
The Marine officers in the lab, who were responsible for recording the data, nearly had their eyeballs fall out of their heads.
They had assumed the armor was a one-of-a-kind prototype.
But Leon already had six completed pieces.
Each one was a treasure that nations would go to war over.
All of this was thanks to the boy genius in front of them.
Without him, the Marines would have been swept from the seas long ago.
Their awe turned to shock as the five pieces of equipment in Leon's hands dissolved into five beams of light, shooting toward the five waiting Seraphim.
The machines' eyes opened, and two golden beams of light burst from their pupils.
As the Living Armor bonded with their Adamantium frames, the aura of the five Seraphim suddenly soared.
An indescribable pressure, like a wave of pure Haki, spread out from them.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
After five loud bangs, a series of mechanical noises came from their bodies as they adapted to the upgrade.
They walked toward Leon, their movements faster and more fluid than ever before, and stopped before him.
Their armor let out a pleasant, resonant hum. They had perfectly synchronized.
The next moment, the five Seraphim rose into the air.
"We are not the only ones making progress in this world," Leon said, a grim look on his face.
"Go. Test their strength."
The red lights in the Seraphim's eyes flickered.
Then, with a flash, they vanished, streaking toward the distant battlefield at an impossible speed.
It all happened in the blink of an eye.
Before Sengoku and the others could even fully process what had happened, the new super-units had already been deployed.
Sengoku looked at the empty space where the five armored Seraphim had been with a deep look of worry in his eyes.
He couldn't help but remember a past crisis, a time when the pirates had managed to steal and reproduce their technology.
The pirates might not have a scientist of Leon's caliber, but they were resourceful.
Unleashing a weapon this powerful was always a gamble.
.....
Sengoku's worry, however, was not so easily assuaged.
"Their side has scientific minds as well," he argued, his expression grim.
"Vegapunk, Caesar Clown, Vinsmoke Judge, Queen... while they may not be able to invent on your level, Leon, they are masters of imitation. It didn't take them long to copy your previous weapons. If they get their hands on this Living Armor..."
He trailed off, the implication clear.
If the pirates copied their new technology, the gap between them would close once more, and their advantage would be lost.
Leon understood his concern immediately.
"Don't worry, Marshal Sengoku," he said with a reassuring calm.
"They can't replicate these things."
"Oh? Are you certain?" Sengoku asked, a hint of excitement in his voice.
"I am," Leon replied with a small smile.
"It's true that they copied my previous technology with impressive speed. But that was because they could acquire the necessary materials. This is different. They can try all they want, but they will never be able to build an Adamantium Seraphim out of thin air."
Sengoku recalled the name of the miraculous metal.
"But can't they create this 'Adamantium' themselves, Doctor?"
Leon shook his head. "Adamantium is an extremely rare and complex special alloy. They simply do not have the resources or the knowledge to replicate it."
A wave of relief washed over Sengoku.
The high cost of the material was well worth it if it guaranteed their technological supremacy.
"Of course," Leon added, "just to be safe, I've also implanted self-destruct templates in both the Seraphim and the Living Armor. If one is ever on the verge of being captured or destroyed by an invincible enemy, it will initiate a self-destruct sequence, ensuring the technology never falls into enemy hands."
He held up a small, intricate chip.
"Furthermore, this is the master control chip. Every Seraphim in the world is slaved to my command authority. They can only obey my orders."
Sengoku's last lingering doubt vanished.
He had complete faith in Leon's genius, and now, he had complete faith in his loyalty and foresight as well.
....
Far away, on a dark sea littered with the carcasses of giant Sea Kings, the pirate Marshall D. Teach sat slumped on the head of a dead leviathan.
A thick, cloying aura of death clung to him like a shroud, constantly corroding his skin and causing his muscles to atrophy.
His already ferocious face was twisted in a mask of agony.
"No... no more," he gasped. "I can't take this... I have to kill. I have to kill them all."
His eyes, now full of a terrifying madness, glowed in the dark.
With an angry roar, the mass of dead energy around him exploded outwards, and the life force of every living creature in the surrounding sea—fish, crustaceans, even plankton—was violently ripped from them and absorbed into his own body.
An intoxicated, ecstatic look appeared on his face.
He felt the life force flood into him, but it did nothing to stop the decay.
His eyes had turned a milky, dead gray, the sign of rapid cellular failure.
His once-burly body was now as thin as a scarecrow's.
He was a walking corpse, his soul all but gone, leaving only a ravenous spirit behind.
But he enjoyed it.
Oh, how he enjoyed this feeling.
This was his reward from Rocks, his prize for slaughtering hundreds of Sea Kings as tribute.
While Whitebeard and Shanks had resisted this transformation, Blackbeard had embraced it with open arms.
This was the path to true power.
'Fools,' he thought, a silent, mocking laugh echoing in his mind.
'They're all just trash, afraid of this and that. They are nothing but stepping stones on my path to the top. They can't even imagine the terrifying power I now possess!'
"What's that? What's there?"
Suddenly, he frowned, his intoxicated expression sharpening.
He could feel it.
Something was approaching from the sky above, moving at an incredible speed.