Chapter 395: Large Scale Bully

"Smoker!"

Smoker swung his jitte with all his might, smashing it against Barrett's arm.

Boom!

A shockwave burst through the air; invisible force penetrated his body, causing the submarine deck beneath Barrett's feet to dent slightly.

Yet the hand gripping Smoker did not loosen in the slightest.

Clearly, Smoker's full-power strike could not even shake this man before him.

The gap in strength between them had reached a despairing level.

And yet.

In the eyes Barrett fixed on Smoker, there appeared a trace of appreciation:

"Impressive!"

The essential difference between the strong and the weak lies in this: the strong raise their swords against those stronger, while the weak raise their blades against those weaker.

At this very moment, Smoker was naturally, in his eyes, one of the strong.

"Then let you truly feel the gap between us!"

As his voice landed,

Barrett grabbed Smoker's body and flung him toward the port.

In an instant, the latter shot across the sea surface, crashing into the port's building cluster; after smashing through several structures in succession, he fell silent.

Dust and smoke billowed.

Yet from within the port, no familiar sounds of panic arose.

Barrett lifted his gaze to look.

Within the perception transmitted by his Observation Haki, the civilians in this port had long since evacuated several kilometers away.

"They received intelligence about me in advance, predicted my trajectory, and thus transferred the civilians here before I even made landfall?!"

Barrett murmured in a low voice, momentarily lost in thought.

Such a thing was once done by another naive man.

Only now, that man has been publicly executed before the entire world, yet he also single-handedly created the Great Pirate Era!

"Barrett!"

Buena Festa poked his head out from the submarine's hatch and called out a reminder:

"It's time to move!"

"However reluctant we may be, we are currently no match for Knight Gao Wen."

"This transaction is, in essence, a gamble."

"One step slower,"

"and the entire board is lost."

"I understand."

Barrett nodded, his expression returning to normal.

One month ago.

After he and Buena Festa formulated their plan to seize the World's Greatest Martial Arts Tournament, they tracked down the mastermind behind the event, eventually tracing it to Gao Wen.

This result left the two somewhat surprised, yet it also felt entirely reasonable.

After all, back in the East Blue, the first Martial Arts Tournament had also relied on the endorsement of Gao Wen, then one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea.

And only a powerhouse at the level of an Emperor of the Sea possessed the qualification to layout plans across the entire ocean without fearing the deterrence of the World Government.

However, asking Barrett to retreat in the face of difficulty was an impossible task; he simply fought his way straight to Britannias.

To truly meet face-to-face the man who stepped upon Whitebeard's shoulders to reach the pinnacle of the world's strongest, and see just how far he had come!

"You control the submarine and dive to the outer sea first; once things go wrong, immediately withdraw from Britannias."

"This submarine's maximum diving depth exceeds three hundred meters."

"At such a depth, it is sufficient to evade the vast majority of tracking devices."

Buena Festa froze for a moment:

"What about you?!"

"Have you ever seen a gambler leave the gambling table?!"

Barely had Barrett's rhetorical question finished when the submarine sank, and immediately his body shot like a cannonball toward the distant port!

Boom!

Gravel flew everywhere, the earth cracked, and dust filled the sky!

Barrett landed steadily in the port, and at this moment, a ferocious grin surfaced on his face.

Thinking of the opponent soon to arrive, his body began to burn with heat.

Imprisoned by the World Government for over twenty years yet having grown even stronger, truly reaching a level capable of matching Rayleigh in his prime, Barrett now released his beast-like fighting spirit without any restraint!

Extreme madness! Extreme frenzy!

Invisible fighting spirit surged upward; wild Conqueror's Haki pressed down across the wilds, and a gale swept through, blowing away the surrounding dust and smoke!

Only Barrett's towering figure stood within the port.

Though alone, the sense of oppression he brought far surpassed that of an entire massive fleet!

This was a monster who had truly stepped into the ranks of the supreme strong, approaching the very peak!

Standing atop the city tower, Sabo reined in his own Haki, gazing at Barrett from afar, his palms already soaked in cold sweat:

"A formidable fellow has arrived!"

"The Demon Heir—Douglas—Barrett?!"

"Such frenzied Conqueror's Haki; it seems the rumors are true. This fellow truly possesses the qualification to fight Dark King Lei Li at his peak and to challenge a Buster Call alone!"

"With my current strength alone... I am absolutely no match for this guy!"

Sabo's expression turned Solemn; he pressed down his hat with a hand, then turned to leave.

He still had a mission; unless it was a matter of utmost urgency, he could not expose his identity.

Moreover, since Barrett had invaded Britannias, naturally strong figures from Gao Wen's group would step forward to deal with it.

It also offered a chance to see for himself.

Whether the Knights of the Round Table under Knight Gao Wen truly possessed combat power at the Seven Warlords level, just as the rumors claimed, with every single member.

Clack—!

Sabo took a step, but his body instantly froze, for he felt the vibration transmitting from the earth beneath his feet.

An extremely uneasy feeling arose in Sabo's heart, so much so that he now felt his scalp going numb.

"Something... is coming!"

Sabo whipped his head around and witnessed a scene he would never forget for the rest of his life.

A special energy radiating black-purple light spread from Barrett as the center to the entire port.

Every building, street, and even ship and rock that came into contact with the purple-black light was instantly assimilated, surging toward Barrett like a tide.

Under the effect of the Merge-Merge Fruit, these miscellaneous substances fused and coalesced with one another.

Very quickly.

A pitch-black giant, thousands of meters tall and entirely dark in color, took form under the effect of the Merge-Merge Fruit.

Sabo felt his vision suddenly darken; he instinctively looked up, only to see that the upper body of that pitch-black giant had already pierced into the cloud layer.

Merely by standing, it completely blocked the sunlight, casting a shadow that shrouded the entire port!

At such height, even the Giant Tribe, or even the massive country-sized Demon People known for their enormous forms, would appear as insignificant as ants in comparison!

"What exactly is this..."

"What the hell is this thing!"

Sabo's tone even trembled somewhat.

If the Haki Barrett displayed earlier had made him realize that Barrett truly possessed combat power capable of contending with the Dark King,

then the scene before him now made him unable to help but begin doubting how the World Government's Buster Call launched back then had ever defeated this monster before his eyes.

"Is this really something a human being can achieve?"

"Even for a Devil Fruit user, even for an Awakened one, such scale and size are simply too exaggerated!"

On the sea surface in the distance.

Buena Festa stood on the deck, equally shocked by the scene before him.

Yet unlike Sabo's fright and fear, Buena Festa felt mostly excitement—excitement over the powerful combat strength of his partner!

"So this is..."

"The Devil's Offspring, Barrett?!"