Chapter 32

Looking in all four directions,

the deck was cracked and shattered, covered in countless dense, hideous fissures—looking at it, the very core structure of the entire ship seemed already broken beyond repair.

The whole ship could collapse and fall apart at any moment.

Captain Kukali's cold corpse bled madly, staining this stretch of deck; following the cracks left on the deck, the blood stretched off into the distance.

All around.

The fewer than a hundred surviving pirates each used a pair of eyes brimming with terror, horror, and disbelief to stare at these soul-shaking scenes before them.

The atmosphere was deathly still!

Gulp!

A group of pirates couldn't help but swallow a mouthful of saliva, their faces pale, their bodies trembling violently beyond their control, their hands and feet cold, the hair on their backs standing on end.

The sea breeze brushed lightly,

a chill rose from the soles of their feet straight to the crown of their heads, making them shiver uncontrollably.

"D-dead…"

"The boss was killed in one punch!"

"How—how is that possible?!"

"The boss was a great pirate with a bounty as high as over ten million Berries!"

"In a godforsaken place like the East Sea, how could the boss possibly be killed by someone? And killed in a single punch by a little brat only a few years old!"

"Even though the boss activated his Devil Fruit ability and transformed into a massive ostrich, he still couldn't block that little brat's single punch!"

"……"

Nearly a hundred pirates were seized with panic.

Captain Kukali's death had utterly shattered their psychological defenses.

It made their mentality collapse entirely.

In their hearts.

Boss Kukali—a Paramecia—no, an Animal-type Devil Fruit user, and moreover a great pirate with a bounty of eleven million Berries—should have been able to swagger unopposed across the entire East Sea.

Never in their wildest dreams…

Today, strong as their boss Kukali was, he had actually met the fate of being killed in a single punch.

All of this overturned the cognition of every pirate present.

"What on earth is this little brat, some kind of monster?!"

"Killed a great pirate with a bounty of over ten million Berries in a single punch!"

"Are you sure this is just a little brat of a few years old?"

"How could he be this strong?!"

"How could such a monster pop up in the East Sea! Even placed on the Grand Line, a monster like this would be extremely rare!"

Pair after pair of fear-filled gazes, as if by unspoken agreement, all froze on Lu En.

At this moment,

Lu En's hands were stained with blood, his upper body bare, the muscle lines of his torso strikingly defined, a pair of eyes calm and deep, an overwhelming aura of pressure radiating from his entire body.

"A great pirate with a bounty of eleven million Berries?"

"An Animal-type Devil Fruit user?"

"And that's all? This weak?"

Lu En swept a casual glance at the cold corpse lying on the ground.

He truly hadn't expected it.

A great pirate with a bounty as high as over ten million—and his strength was actually this weak!

If he had known earlier,

he shouldn't have gone all out.

After all…

this was still a great pirate with a bounty of over ten million Berries.

Never imagined.

Weak to this extent.

Lu En didn't expend the slightest effort from start to finish, killing him on the spot with just three punches.

From beginning to end, he hadn't suffered so much as a scratch.

He'd only lost a little stamina—nothing more.

"Since your captain is already dead, it's time to send you along to keep him company."

His gaze shifted; Lu En no longer looked at the cold corpse on the ground, his eyes turning toward the nearly hundred pirates shivering all around.

The words fell.

Instantly,

the over a hundred pirates grew even more panicked.

Their entire mind and body had already been completely dominated by thick, suffocating terror.

After all.

Even Boss Kukali was dead.

This was a great pirate with a bounty of over ten million Berries!

And yet he was smashed to pieces on the spot by that monster in three punches!

Pray tell,

How could they possibly resist this overwhelmingly powerful muscle-bound monster before them?!

They couldn't win!

They were no match at all!

Under the driving force of their inner, extreme terror,

a pirate, trembling all over, gripped the spear in his hands tightly, his eyes fixed dead on Lu En's direction, then pulled the trigger toward Lu En.

Bang!

A gunshot rang out.

Under the pressure of the gunpowder's blast, the bullet instantly shot toward the spot where Lu En stood.

Whoosh!

The bullet tore through the long sky,

accompanied by a piercing shriek of splitting air.

Piercing the spatial air currents clean through.

In an instant,

the bullet was already a hair's breadth away from Lu En.

But right under everyone's gaze,

they saw,

Lu En slowly raised his right arm, held up two fingers, and with the greatest of ease, firmly pinched the bullet rushing at him, making it unable to advance even a fraction further.

This scene, falling into the eyes of the many pirates on all sides, amplified the terror in their hearts infinitely.

"He— he caught the bullet barehanded!"

"This kid is simply a monster!"

"Run! Run now!"

"Facing a monster like this, we have no chance of winning at all!"

Panic boiled over.

Nearly a hundred pirates, in terror, tried to leap off the ship and flee the scene.

Seeing this,

Lu En casually flicked the bullet from his hand; wild, majestic force surged from his arm, and he hurled that single bullet back toward the direction it had come from, at a speed far exceeding its original.

In an instant,

Pfft!

a spray of blood mist burst into the air,

and the spear-wielding pirate who had risked his life now had a bloody hole punched through by a bullet right between his brows, piercing clean through his entire skull.