Chapter 55: Severing the Senses
Ginrummy had also recovered from the blast of Conqueror's Haki. As long as she wasn't expected to deal with Ian himself, she felt confident handling some ordinary Marines.
Fizz!
Hiss...
Just as Ginrummy was about to move forward to assist Sheepshead, a strange, sizzling sound came from beside her. Nami stepped into the battle circle, her Climate Baton held ready.
"A woman? A Marine?" Ginrummy sneered, looking Nami up and down with contempt. "You look so weak! You want to be my opponent? Do you want me to kick your pretty face in?"
Nami's delicate and pretty features actually stirred a wave of jealousy within her.
"Look weak?" Nami retorted, spinning her Climate Baton expertly. "I'm more than enough to deal with a pirate like you who just follows others around, begging for scraps!"
"Were you just covering the retreat of your men?" Jack's voice boomed, having noticed the arrival of Ian's officers. "Now so many of them appear again. Could it be that these guys are desperate and are running out to get themselves killed?"
He was actually quite confident in his cadre of Gifters. They were all excellent fighters who had survived the brutal crucible of the New World.
"Court death?" Ian shot back, a sharp grin on his face. "Hahaha, let's see who dies first. My subordinates aren't mindless fools like yours. If I, a Major General, had to personally deal with every random underling, wouldn't that be utterly pathetic?"
He paused, his gaze locking onto Jack with renewed intensity. "And... your opponent is right in front of you. Are you really in the mood to be looking elsewhere?"
Ian had no intention of letting this fight drag on. An Ancient Zoan versus an Awakened Zoan—both possessed recovery abilities far beyond ordinary beings. A battle of attrition could last for an impossibly long time.
Shave!
Ian surged forward, not bothering with any tricky angles. He simply flashed directly in front of Jack and drove a fist into the pirate's abdomen.
"Do you look down on me?!" Jack roared, using his Observation Haki to track the movement. "This level of attack is completely useless!" His trunk, thick as a tree, swung around with surprising speed, wrapping tightly around Ian's torso.
Ian's body, standing over two meters tall, seemed almost insignificant in Jack's mammoth grasp. "You little brat, you can't run away now, can you?" Jack tightened his constricting grip, not giving Ian any room to break free. He had been on the losing end of their previous exchanges; he never expected Ian to make such a reckless mistake.
"Hey, sorry," Ian said, his voice calm, a triumphant smile playing on his lips. "I never thought of running away."
Simultaneously, his Awakened skill activated.
[Five Senses Severance]!
As his Devil Fruit power had grown, the effective range of this ability had expanded. However, the further from the epicenter, the weaker the sensory deprivation. The most effective method, the one that maximized its potency, was, of course... direct physical contact!
After his brief exchanges with Jack, Ian had reached a conclusion. Defeating Jack using only Haki and physical combat wasn't impossible. But the duration of such a battle was unpredictable—a day? A night? Several days? There was no telling. To end this quickly, he had to use his Awakened abilities. And the timing had to be perfect.
If he activated the skill from over ten meters away, the effect would be greatly diminished. He had no idea how much impact it would have on an opponent of near-Yonko Commander level. If it failed the first time, Jack would be wary, making it much harder to land a second time.
BZZZZZT...
"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 feeling in his trunk, still wrapped around Ian, severed from his consciousness. His limbs felt like they were floating in seawater, disconnected from his brain's commands.
"This guy... he has a hidden card! And he kept it until now?!" A cold dread, unfamiliar and unsettling, rose in Jack's heart. This was the first time a mere kid had made him feel this way. "So just now... he let himself be caught on purpose!"
Despite the sensory void, Jack's mind remained clear and fiercely tenacious. His willpower was as formidable as his physical resilience.
In the real world, the Jack holding Ian had lost the conscious control needed to maintain his Human-Beast form. Seizing the opportunity, Ian pushed his superhuman vision to its absolute peak. This ability didn't just grant a broad field of view; it allowed him to focus on microscopic details, to see through the very essence of things.
Jack was a Fish-Man. His bone structure and meridian system were completely different from a human's. Even so, with his enhanced vision, Ian could still pinpoint the weakest points in the colossal hybrid's body.
"It's clear as day... the weaknesses of the Fish-Man body!" Ian thought, his focus razor-sharp. "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 pushed off the air, leaping nimbly onto Jack's shoulder.
"Human Fist: Tiger Style!"
Explosive Armament Haki gathered at his knuckles, condensing into a point of devastating power. He aimed directly for the most vulnerable joints in Jack's arms and shoulders and unleashed his attack without mercy. The concentrated Haki exploded within Jack's body like a volley of internal blades, slicing through muscle and sinew.
BOOM!
CRUNCH...!
The hunched shoulder, defenseless without Haki reinforcement, was ravaged from the inside. In an instant, the joint was dislocated and shattered. Jack's powerful arm went completely limp, hanging uselessly.
His body, already reeling from the sensory deprivation, now suffered this catastrophic physical blow. He immediately began to topple backward.
BOOM!
CRUNCH...!
BOOM!
CRUNCH...!
Ian did not let up. He was a relentless storm of motion, his fists becoming blurs of Haki-empowered destruction, each strike aimed with surgical precision at another critical weakness he could now so clearly see.