"Hello there. Could you let me look after the child in your arms for a while?"
Uta took the initiative to walk up to the God's Knight, Saint Satchels Maffey, her gaze fixed directly on the baby in the woman's arms.
"WHO ARE YOU? WHERE DID YOU COME FROM? YOU… WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?!"
Maffey stared at her own body as it gradually turned transparent, screaming in shock.
As her form completely vanished, the little red-haired baby in her arms fell straight down.
Uta reacted quickly and immediately reached out, catching him steadily.
She carefully held him in the crook of her arm and studied him closely.
Perhaps because he had been badly frightened earlier, the little one was crying loudly at the top of his lungs.
Uta quickly began to coax him in a soft voice.
"There, there~ Don't cry, don't cry. Shanks is the best boy. Uta will sing for you right away…"
"Yaah, yaah—"
The tiny red-haired baby in her arms soon stopped crying. His little arms and hands even waved gently.
"Wow, our Shanks is so well-behaved. You stopped fussing right away~ But why aren't you smiling yet? Shakky-nee clearly said Shanks loved smiling so much when he was little~"
Uta gently patted the baby's back, her eyes full of warmth.
Her fingertips lightly touched his soft little cheek, but she could not help wondering inwardly.
'Why did those Celestial Dragons have to target Shanks?'
Boom!
A thunderous roar suddenly exploded.
Uta abruptly turned her head and looked over, only to see the other side of God Valley's iconic twin mountains split straight across the middle and collapse with a crash.
Broken stones and clouds of dust surged into the sky, making her sigh with emotion.
"Cain seems to be having quite a lot of fun over there."
The moment her words fell, Cain came sprinting toward her in his human-dragon form, carrying Garp and Roger, moving with fierce momentum.
His voice was so loud it shook the air, and he kept shouting as he ran.
"YOU TWO, HURRY UP AND THINK OF A WAY TO MAKE THAT GUY STOP! WHY DID HE HIT EVERYONE ELSE BUT THEN LOCK ONTO ME ALONE?!"
"PUT US DOWN FIRST! HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO ANYTHING WHILE YOU'RE CARRYING US?!" Garp roared furiously.
"Exactly! And where did you even come from? Why do you know everything? What the hell happened to Rocks?" Roger asked one question after another with a frown.
"DON'T WORRY ABOUT ALL THAT! JUST BLAST HIM WITH CONQUEROR'S HAKI FIRST!"
Cain shouted at the top of his lungs.
The moment he caught sight of Uta from the corner of his eye, he even made a flashy sharp turn as if trying to look cool.
Then he directly flung Roger and Garp away.
The instant the two landed, they activated Conqueror's Haki at the same time.
Two powerful attacks smashed into Rocks from both sides, destroying most of his body.
Yet Rocks felt no pain.
The wounds across his body healed visibly at an alarming speed. He ignored everyone else completely, his eyes bloodshot as he continued charging straight at Cain.
Cain tightened his grip on his weapon and spoke in a low voice.
"Looks like I have to face you directly now, Rocks!"
He clearly knew that no one inside this world could hurt Uta, yet Cain was still determined to stop Rocks here.
Not even half a step closer to Uta.
"Come on, look at my Human Path!"
As he spoke, Cain quickly adjusted his breathing, intending to use this move's reverse Observation-killing effect to misdirect Rocks' attack.
But in the next second, he froze.
Rocks' movements did not follow his prediction at all.
A fierce strike came straight down at his head.
"What's going on?"
Cain's heart panicked. In a rush, he crossed both arms in front of himself, quickly coating them in Armament Haki.
Even Conqueror's Haki was hurriedly wrapped over them as he braced himself and took the blow head-on.
With a dull bang, followed by a wet thud, Cain was hammered into the ground like a round radish.
Half his body sank into the earth, leaving only his head and shoulders exposed.
He swayed twice before finally stopping.
Cracks had split across the scales on his head and arms.
Blood mixed with hideous wounds, his face was smeared with mud, and he grimaced in pain while sucking in sharp breaths.
Only then did he belatedly remember something.
Although Rocks had been blackened, his consciousness was still there.
Imu controlled his body, not his mind.
Even if he had lost control now, it was only his physical body going berserk through raw instinct.
That meant Cain's Human Path, a technique meant specifically to counter Observation Haki, was completely useless against the current Rocks.
"Damn it, what is he trying to do?"
"ROCKS!"
Garp and Roger's shouts exploded.
Cain abruptly raised his eyes and saw that Rocks had not even looked at him, the "radish" planted in the ground.
Instead, he rushed straight past him, murderous aura surging around him, his target clearly pointing toward Uta.
"Again?! If this dragon doesn't show his power, do you really think I'm some kind of mudfish?! Hell Path!"
Rocks was already overwhelmingly strong, far beyond Cain.
Now, with Imu's black transformation controlling and strengthening him, Cain would only have a chance to suppress him by using this move.
He forcibly compressed the full power of his pink dragon form into his human-dragon form through Life Return.
His strength, speed, and defense all skyrocketed exponentially.
This was a vicious move that hurt himself nearly as much as it hurt the enemy. In his current state, he could sustain it for three seconds at most.
Under normal circumstances, he would never use it.
But Rocks was attacking Uta.
Even knowing the other party could not hurt her, Cain could not simply watch it happen.
"Bastard, take this! Eighty Gods Vacuum Strike!"
Cain burst out of the earth and charged straight at Rocks.
Blood sprayed from his entire body as he put all his strength into smashing a blow down onto Rocks' head.
This strike really did hammer Rocks into the ground like a planted radish.
"Hah… hah… This move really is risky. Uta, are you okay?!"
"Idiot, the people here can't hurt me at all. You're the one bleeding this much. Are you really okay?" Uta hurried forward and asked anxiously.
"Oh, it's fine. The moment I hit him, I already canceled the state. Look, the bleeding stopped."
That was what Cain said, but the pain throughout his whole body could not be lied away.
It hurt even more than being smashed by his grandfather's Iron Fist.
Then he noticed the red-haired baby in Uta's arms, and his interest was instantly piqued.
"So you already found Shanks. But why does this guy look so…"
"Hey, you young couple, stop chatting at a time like this!"
"Hurry up and take your woman and child away!"
Before Cain could finish, Garp and Roger rushed over and launched a fierce assault on Rocks, who had just stood back up.
Seeing this, Cain hurriedly blocked in front of Uta.
He stood shoulder to shoulder with Roger and Garp, staring fixedly at Rocks before them.
Rocks, whose eyes were red, looked at the people in front of him.
Especially Cain, who was standing in front of Uta.
For a moment, he seemed to see himself, as well as his own wife and child.
Even though his body was out of his control, tears unconsciously flowed from the corners of his eyes.
"Kill me."
That faint voice of the heart entered Cain, Garp, and Roger's ears at the same time.
Rocks' lips had not moved at all from beginning to end, yet Cain was absolutely certain that the voice had come from the depths of his heart.