That mountain-like figure slowly turned around.
Time itself seemed to freeze in that instant.
A wild mane of black hair—like a lion's.
A face etched with countless thin scars.
Yet those scars didn't diminish his fierce charisma.
If anything, they only made him look more brutal… more arrogant… more terrifyingly alive.
His eyes burned like fire, as if the entire sea itself were beneath his notice.
The moment the remnants of the God's Knights saw that face, their already-fractured mental defenses shattered completely.
"R… Rocks…"
Reason?
The last sliver of courage?
Gone.
Just a second ago, they'd been driven by the threat of divine punishment, charging forward in the most tragic suicide assault of their lives.
They thought their enemy was only a masked man—mysterious and impossibly powerful.
But now?
The man they had been pursuing…
The legend who once shook the world and made even the Celestial Dragons wary—
The man known as the "Overlord of the Sea"—
Had returned.
And he stood like a mountain, shielding that masked man.
Fear.
Despair.
It drowned what remained of their will in an instant.
Their swords trembled.
Their legs weakened.
"R… Rocks…"
It was Rocks. He was back.
That forced, reckless momentum—born from desperation—evaporated the moment they recognized him.
It was over.
Everything was over.
"Heh… hngh…"
"Impossible… impossible…"
Figarland Garling Saint—limping forward on what little courage remained—felt his pupils shrink into deadly pinpoints.
He stared at that figure.
At that arrogant, feral face.
The last ember of hope inside him was extinguished by an ocean.
Rocks.
How could he be back?!
Didn't he run off with his wife and child?!
Why…?!
That bastard—
He actually came back!
Garling Saint couldn't understand it. In his mind, pirates who fled would never return.
His thoughts became a boiling mess.
A single masked man had already crippled the God's Knights, crushed his pride beneath his heel…
And now Rocks was here too.
Two…
Two monsters.
What kind of cursed luck did Figarland Garling Saint have?!
He almost suspected someone had set him up.
To face two monsters of this caliber in one single day—
Endless regret and hatred finally collapsed into a dead, hollow pallor.
Garling Saint knew it.
Today, he might truly die on this cursed island.
And Rocks didn't even spare those lambs awaiting slaughter a glance.
He didn't even give the battered Celestial Dragon a second look.
His gaze swept the battlefield—then settled on the man behind him wearing the pure white mask.
Rocks bared his teeth in a grin.
That smile was wild, tyrannical, and full of the kind of confidence that treated heaven and earth like toys in his palm.
"Brother."
Rocks' voice wasn't loud, yet it rang clearly in every ear on the battlefield.
"Looks like I came back a little late."
"You already cleaned the battlefield up real nice."
Lucian still held his arms open, golden threads continuously streaming from his palms, purifying the human demons without pause.
Hearing Rocks, he replied casually—his masked voice carrying a hint of teasing.
"Not too late. I even left you some trash, didn't I?"
"Besides… I left Garling Saint for you. That self-healing freak."
"Then watch closely—I'll show you what I, Rocks, can do!"
"Brother"?
"Trash"?
Those two words were like hammers smashing into the hearts of the God's Knights.
One monster called them ants.
Now another monster called them trash.
So in the eyes of true rulers standing atop the world, the God's Knights—so proud, so revered—weren't even worth a proper glance.
That realization broke what was left of their spirits all over again.
Rocks hadn't released even a hint of Conqueror's Haki.
And yet simply standing there created an overwhelming aura unique to the king of the seas.
Under that suppressive presence, the God's Knights' ridiculous suicide charge disintegrated completely.
They froze.
Unable to move.
Not because they didn't want to—
Because they didn't dare.
In front of a being like this, any action would only make their deaths uglier.
After greeting Lucian, Rocks turned forward again.
Once more, he faced the enemies who had already lost the will to fight.
If the look he gave Lucian had held a faint warmth—respect, admiration… even the slightest trace of longing—
Then the gaze he cast upon the God's Knights now contained only one thing:
Cold, naked killing intent.
That look was like a primordial beast, finishing its patrol of its territory, finally turning its attention toward the foolish prey that had wandered into its domain.
He said nothing.
Silence itself became the greatest pressure.
Tap.
Rocks took his first step.
Tap.
Then his second.
The Knights retreated half a step without even realizing it. Their hands shook harder around their sword hilts. Their teeth chattered violently, clicking like brittle stone.
Rocks simply walked forward.
Step by step.
Unhurried.
Almost lazy.
Yet with every step, the terror in the Knights' eyes deepened.
Soundless pressure was the most horrifying kind.
Heavy.
Suffocating.
Every Knight felt as if an invisible hand had closed around their throat, making them afraid to even breathe.
Finally, when he was less than three meters from the front line—
Rocks stopped.
At his level, that distance might as well have been zero.
The battlefield fell silent.
Under the gaze of a dozen pupils consumed by fear—
Under Garling Saint's eyes filled with both hatred and despair—
Rocks lifted his hand.
With casual ease, he placed his right hand on the hilt of the blade at his waist.
A simple motion.
A pre-draw stance.
And yet the instant his palm closed around the hilt—
Hum!
The air across the battlefield felt as if it had been drained clean.
A formless presence—razor-sharp to its absolute limit—erupted outward from Rocks like an explosion.
The blade hadn't even left its sheath—
And the edge of its killing intent had already severed everything.
Every Knight felt their skin prickle with sharp, needle-like pain, as though invisible blades were slicing them apart.
Their eyes couldn't even stay open under that sharpness.
Their breathing stopped entirely.
Time stretched endlessly.
The world was reduced to a single towering figure—
And the posture of his hand gripping the sword hilt.
And in the eyes of his enemies—
The fear that continued to expand…
Until it swallowed everything.
A fear with only one name:
Death.
The king of the seas had returned.
And he was about to clear the field.