Chapter 217: The Maids' Divine Judgment!
"Wha... what the hell is that?!"
"It's a ship! A... a ship floating in the sky!!"
Cries of fear erupted from the crowd in a chaotic, overlapping chorus.
The once arrogant and boisterous pirates of the Azure Wolf and Fire Lion crews now pointed trembling fingers toward the heavens.
The bright, clear sky above Purple Bamboo Island had suddenly been eclipsed by an apocalyptic shadow.
It was a darkness so absolute and profound that it felt as though the sun itself had been devoured by a steel leviathan.
At the very edge of the giant, hovering warship, a massive flag fluttered loudly in the violent high-altitude winds.
The heavy fabric snapped like thunder, demanding the attention of every living soul on the island below.
Against a deep, blood-crimson backdrop, a golden Suzaku was depicted in glorious detail, its magnificent wings spread wide as if preparing to soar through the heavens.
Its overbearing, tyrannical aura spilled down from the sky, pressing heavily upon the chests of the pirates.
It felt as if the sheer weight of that golden emblem would spontaneously combust and burn the entire sea to ashes!
"It's... it's the Suzaku Flag! There's no mistake, it's the flag of the New Emperor, 'Suzaku'!"
A veteran pirate in the back of the crowd spoke, his voice trembling so violently he sounded like a sieve rattling against a wooden table.
His eyes were bloodshot, completely devoid of the bloodthirsty glint they had held just moments before.
His terrified words were like a bucket of absolute zero ice water, poured directly over the heads of 'Fangs' Garo and 'Flame Lion' Leo.
The freezing chill traveled from their scalps straight down to the soles of their feet, freezing the very marrow in their bones.
It really was them!
The enemies they least wanted to see in this world had arrived.
These were the monsters who had just overthrown Kaido of the Beasts, the very people Garo and Leo had convinced themselves were too busy to notice a backwater island like this one.
Yet, they had descended in such a completely unreasonable, logic-defying manner!
Everyone's eyes, wide with sheer disbelief, were forcefully drawn to a petite figure floating gracefully in mid-air.
She hovered effortlessly below the massive steel keel of the ship, dressed in a pristine blue and white maid outfit.
Her sky-blue hair fluttered gently in the wind, and her delicate, doll-like face looked down upon the chaotic town square.
However, there was no warmth in her gem-like eyes.
She looked at the hundreds of vicious pirates as if she were simply observing a colony of insignificant, filthy insects.
"That... that woman... is the 'Flying Maid' Rem!"
A pirate screamed, his vocal cords tearing from the strain.
"Her bounty is seven hundred million Berries! She's an executive officer of the Suzaku Pirates!"
The horrific information flashed through the minds of the two Captains like a streak of fatal lightning.
Seven hundred million Berries.
Normally, in the brutal and unforgiving waters of the New World, this number would be more than enough to make them wary.
It was a bounty that demanded respect, a testament to a person's lethality and threat level to the World Government.
But, under normal circumstances, it would not be enough to drive these hardened outlaws to total, suffocating despair.
After all, 'Fangs' Garo's own bounty was over eight hundred million Berries, a full hundred million higher than this blue-haired maid's.
He had survived decades in these treacherous waters, relying on his ruthless cunning and his brutal Armament Haki.
But at this specific moment, the numbers on their wanted posters felt utterly meaningless.
Looking at that petite figure looking down on all living beings like a transcendent god, and the unimaginably massive floating steel fortress behind her, they finally understood their foolishness.
The real, fatal trouble was not the individual bounty of the girl before them.
It was the incomprehensible, overwhelming power of the newly established empire she represented!
As if to validate their deepest, darkest nightmares, three more figures slowly appeared at the metallic railing of the giant steel ship named 'Pola'.
"There's another one! The pink-haired one is the 'Twin Maid' Ram!"
Another pirate shrieked, his legs giving out as he collapsed to his knees on the dirt.
"Her bounty is five hundred million Berries!"
Another executive officer of the New Emperor's crew!
Garo and Leo's expressions grew even uglier, their facial muscles twitching uncontrollably as a sickly, pale hue overtook their rugged features.
But when their frantic gazes swept past the pink-haired maid and landed on the third figure, the reaction was instantaneous and visceral.
Every single hair on their bodies stood on end, and their survival instincts screamed in a deafening, unified chorus of pure panic!
It was a man.
He was incredibly tall and slender, dressed in a pristine, snow-white uniform that stood in stark contrast to the dark steel of the ship.
His skin was as pale as a fresh corpse, devoid of any human warmth or vitality.
He had short, messy black hair, but his most striking and terrifying feature was his eyes.
They were a pair of completely emotionless, emerald-green irises that seemed to reflect the infinite emptiness of the void.
Two green, tear-like markings extended down his pale cheeks from below his eyes, giving him the appearance of a weeping demon.
He just stood there quietly by the railing, his hands casually tucked into his pockets.
He wasn't releasing any Conqueror's Haki.
He wasn't brandishing a weapon or adopting a combat stance.
Yet, his mere existence gave off a suffocating, crushing feeling, as if the pirates below were standing at the very edge of an endless, bottomless abyss that was waiting to swallow their souls.
Gulp.
'Flame Lion' Leo swallowed hard, the sound echoing unnaturally loud in his own ears.
His throat felt as dry as if it had been rigorously rubbed with coarse sandpaper, making every breath a painful ordeal.
When he finally managed to speak, his voice was a pathetic, broken wheeze that completely lacked his usual arrogant bravado.
"'Wings of Calamity'... Ulquiorra Cifer..."
Leo's eyes widened so far they threatened to tear at the corners.
"Bounty: 1.82 Billion Berries!"
That name and that absurd, astronomical number were like a massive, invisible hammer.
They slammed ruthlessly into the fragile hearts of all the pirates present, shattering whatever tiny remnants of fighting spirit they had left!
1.82 billion Berries!
This was already beyond their fucking comprehension!
For pirates like Garo and Leo, reaching the eight-hundred-million mark was the absolute pinnacle of their lifelong struggles.
They had sacrificed everything, betrayed countless allies, and crawled through mountains of corpses just to earn their current status.
But the man standing quietly on that ship possessed a bounty that more than doubled their own!
That was a terrifying existence comparable to, or perhaps even surpassing, the top-tier executives and first commanders of the old Yonko era!
Not to mention the sensational, horrifying reports that had dominated the front pages of the World Economic Journal recently.
The newspapers stated that this pale, slender man had once single-handedly invaded Enies Lobby, the World Government's impenetrable judicial island.
He had caused a catastrophic scene, slaughtered thousands, and even when faced with the relentless pursuit of a Marine Admiral, he had simply left.
He had departed calmly, elegantly, and completely unscathed, treating the pinnacle of Marine military might like a minor inconvenience.
How could such a legendary, apocalyptic monster appear in a remote, insignificant place like Purple Bamboo Island?
As for the beautiful Ship Girl Pola standing quietly beside Ulquiorra, dressed in her alluring dark uniform...
Because she was an existence who didn't even have a publicized bounty poster, she was naturally and grandly ignored.
These ignorant pirates firmly believed in the shallow logic that 'bounty perfectly equals absolute strength,' completely oblivious to the fact that the ship floating above them was technically her true body.
In a single, agonizing instant, all of Garo and Leo's fierce fighting spirit leaked away completely.
They looked like two punctured balloons, rapidly deflating as their grand ambitions turned to dust.
What should they do?
The two Captains' minds spun frantically, their brains operating at maximum capacity as they desperately thought of countermeasures to survive this nightmare!
However, just as they fell into the deepest pits of endless despair, a tiny, fragile turning point seemed to appear in the narrative of their impending doom.
The most terrifying man, the 1.82-billion-Berry monster Ulquiorra, remained perfectly still.
He just stood indifferently by the ship's metal railing, his hollow eyes gazing out toward the distant horizon.
He seemingly had absolutely no intention of taking action, acting as if the hundreds of pirates below weren't even qualified to make him lift a single finger.
Instead, it was the Twin Maids, with bounties of seven hundred million and five hundred million respectively, who slowly floated down from mid-air.
They descended with the grace of falling petals, stopping a few dozen meters above the heads of the trembling pirate crews.
"Sister, Lord Suzaku's order is to bring back all the islands belonging to the Beasts Pirates in their entirety."
Rem said softly.
Her crisp, pleasant voice echoed clearly across the silent square, carrying an unquestionable devotion whenever she spoke her Captain's name.
"Yes, Rem. So, before moving them, we must first clean up the trash on top."
Ram's voice was equally flat and devoid of emotional fluctuation.
Yet, beneath her calm exterior, her words carried a trace of subtle, sharp-tongued venom that completely disregarded the dignity of the pirates below.
Hearing this brief exchange, a brilliant glimmer of what could only be called 'delusional luck' flashed in the eyes of Garo and Leo at the exact same time!
The strongest one isn't moving!
The monster that fought an Admiral is just watching!
The ones actually taking action are just two young women with bounties significantly lower than their own!
In the cutthroat world of pirates, opportunism was the greatest survival skill, and these two captains were masters of it.
The two of them exchanged a rapid, knowing glance across the dirt-packed square.
In that fraction of a second, without speaking a single word, they instantly understood each other's despicable thoughts...
Run!
Run as fast as their legs could carry them!
As long as they could momentarily tie up these two maids, or simply distract them for a few crucial seconds, they could escape from this cursed island!
They just needed to get to their ships and set sail before that pale, 1.8-billion-Berry monster decided to join the fray!
As for their loyal underlings? The men who had sworn to follow them to the ends of the sea?
To hell with them all!
In the brutal reality of the New World, crew members were nothing more than expendable tools.
As long as the Captain was still alive and breathing, a brand-new crew of naive cannon fodder could be assembled at any port tavern!
Cannon fodder was cheap, and they could recruit as much as they wanted!
"Now!"
"Move!"
The two seasoned pirates burst into action almost simultaneously, their powerful legs kicking up massive clouds of dust and shattered cobblestone.
But their intended targets weren't the floating figures of Rem and Ram.
Instead, they turned their backs on the enemy completely and headed in two totally opposite directions, abandoning their stunned crews without a second thought!
However, while their survival plan was logically sound in theory, they were dead wrong in their fundamental assessment of the situation.
Their fatal mistake was using something as shallow, flawed, and politically manipulated as a Marine 'bounty' to measure the true combat strength of the two otherworldly maids hovering before them.
"Honestly, they don't have even a bit of self-awareness."
Ram looked at the two burly captains fleeing in different directions like frightened rats.
She sighed softly, a sound filled with genuine boredom and pity for their supreme ignorance.
Then, with an elegant, unhurried motion, she raised her slender right hand toward the heavens.
In an instant, the very weather itself violently changed!
The atmosphere above Purple Bamboo Island warped and twisted.
The originally clear, sunlit sky was unexpectedly and instantaneously engulfed by massive, unnaturally thick dark clouds.
These pitch-black cumulonimbus formations gathered with terrifying speed, plunging the entire town into a premature, ominous twilight.
Within the rolling depths of those dark clouds, blindingly bright electric snakes danced wildly.
They coiled and struck against each other, making terrifying, ear-piercing 'sizzle, sizzle' sounds that vibrated through the teeth of everyone below.
Simultaneously, a sharp, pungent smell of ozone violently filled the air, suffocating the pirates' lungs.
"What? The weather... is being controlled?!"
The rest of the pirate underlings, who had just realized they had been completely abandoned by their captains, were now scared out of their wits.
Their eyes bulged in absolute horror, staring up at the churning sky; they had never seen such a bizarre, god-like ability.
"It's a Logia type! The Rumble-Rumble Fruit?"
Garo roared in a panic as he sprinted toward the coastline, his muscular legs pumping furiously.
"Humph, a mere Logia type! As long as I use my Armament..."
Refusing to be intimidated by flashy environmental effects, Garo instantly mobilized the dormant energy within his body.
He forcefully covered his entire upper body and legs in a thick, dense layer of pitch-black Armament Haki as he ran wildly, turning his skin into an impenetrable iron shell.
He was confident that a single elemental strike couldn't break through his decades of honed defense.
The next second, Ram's raised finger flicked downward with a movement as gentle as a maestro directing a symphony.
"Thunder Punishment."
BOOM!!!
A sound louder than a hundred cannons firing simultaneously shattered the eardrums of everyone on the island!
Hundreds of incredibly thick, blindingly white bolts of lightning descended from the heavens!
They rained down like judgment spears of divine wrath, illuminating the terrified faces of the pirates in stark, monochrome horror.
It wasn't just a focused strike of one or two bolts targeting the leaders.
It was a chaotic, dense forest of indiscriminate, high-voltage lightning that completely and utterly covered the hundreds of pirates gathered at the entrance of the town!
"Aaaaaah...!"
Screams of unbearable agony rose and fell one after another, forming a symphony of pure torment!
Those ordinary, low-bounty pirate underlings didn't even possess the reaction time or the Haki to defend themselves.
Before they could even take a single step to flee, they were instantly roasted into blackened charcoal by the unimaginably violent lightning strikes.
Their flesh sizzled and popped as they collapsed heavily to the stone-paved ground.
Their scorched bodies twitched uncontrollably, thick white foam bubbling from their mouths as they completely lost all consciousness, their dreams of New World glory extinguished in a flash of light.
While Garo and Leo, relying entirely on their powerful, hardened Armament Haki, managed to forcefully withstand the direct physical damage of the lightning pillars, they were not spared from the consequences.
The pervasive, terrifyingly high-voltage electric current did not simply dissipate upon hitting their blackened skin.
Instead, it violently swirled around them, forcefully invading their nervous systems and overriding their motor functions!
The sheer intensity of the electricity caused their entire bodies to lock up, instantly going into a state of intense, agonizing paralysis!
"D... damn it! My body... can't move!"
Garo tried to force his leg forward, but his muscles violently spasmed and refused to obey his brain's frantic commands.
The expressions on the faces of both captains were frozen in a grotesque mask of horror and excruciating pain, their momentum completely halted.
In this brief, fatal moment of total paralysis, the other twin maid finally decided to take action.
Rem simply flew quietly and serenely into mid-air, her blue dress fluttering perfectly without a single crease.
Facing the trembling, smoking ground below her, she slowly raised her arm.
She gracefully extended her small, pristine white-gloved hand toward the paralyzed pirates.
And then, looking at the hardened New World captains with absolute apathy, she gave a gentle, seemingly harmless wave.
It was a motion so light and casual, it looked exactly as if she were merely dusting off an invisible speck of dirt from her skirt.
"Rumble... rumble... rumble..."
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