"President!"
The headquarters of the World Economy News Paper had descended into chaos.
A News Coo carrying a specially modified Den Den Mushi was transmitting everything happening in Wano directly back to them.
"This is enormous news! Should we publish it immediately?"
The female secretary behind Morgans could barely contain her excitement.
Anyone capable of working at Morgans's side tended to share that same obsession with sensational stories. Otherwise, he never would have recruited them.
"No!"
Morgans wanted to publish it just as badly, but Cyrus had not given him permission beforehand.
He was beginning to regret not asking earlier.
Trying to contact Cyrus now would clearly be too late.
"We wait until I've spoken to him personally."
At Morgans's decision, the noisy newsroom finally quieted a little.
…
High above Wano, the tremendous energy gathered between Cyrus's hands continued spilling through the narrow gap between his palms.
The terrifying spectacle below had been created by nothing more than the energy leaking out.
Feeling the force inside his hands trying to expand, Cyrus abandoned the idea of compressing it any further.
If he continued, the resulting attack would be far more destructive than necessary.
He abruptly pulled his hands apart.
A miniature sun emerged from between his palms and began falling toward Wano.
Cyrus immediately vanished from the spot in a flash of fire.
Below him, the small sun continued its descent.
The demonic creatures still roaming Wano looked up. Terror flickered through their eyes as they watched it fall.
Their minds might have been consumed by demonic power, leaving them ruled by their darkest desires, but they were still capable of fear.
And the sun descending from the sky gave them more than enough reason to be afraid.
The monsters scattered in every direction, desperately trying to escape.
Those close to the coast threw themselves into the sea without hesitation. They immediately sank beneath the surface, leaving behind nothing but a few bubbles.
The creatures deeper inside Wano had no such chance.
There was nowhere near enough time for them to flee.
As the blinding sun reached the center of the country, the entire world seemed to fall silent for a heartbeat.
Then a white-hot sphere erupted from the point of impact.
It expanded at an astonishing speed, growing to half the size of Wano in the blink of an eye.
Boom!
The Marines watching from afar felt the explosion more than they heard it. Every one of them instinctively shut their eyes.
The sphere reached its limit and burst apart.
A horrifying wave of heat spread in every direction, while the vast energy trapped at its core had no time to disperse outward and instead surged high into the sky.
An enormous mushroom cloud rose above Wano.
Everything within it was erased by the combination of extreme heat and crushing force.
The remaining buildings vanished. The demonic creatures vanished. Wano itself began disappearing beneath the attack.
Layer after layer of earth was stripped away.
The mountain walls surrounding the country and keeping it isolated from the sea collapsed under the impact.
Ocean water rushed through the shattered cliffs, only to be blasted backward by the heat and shockwave.
The surrounding sea began to boil.
White steam rose and vanished, only for more to appear immediately afterward.
Countless dead fish floated across the surface, packed so densely that the water was barely visible beneath them.
Bubbles churned everywhere as the sea continued boiling.
The terrifying phenomenon lasted for several minutes before finally beginning to subside.
By then, Wano had disappeared completely.
Scalding seawater poured into the vast hollow where the country had once stood, creating countless bubbles as it rushed inward.
The Marines who had witnessed the destruction from beginning to end were left speechless.
What could human strength possibly accomplish against power like that?
Even Sengoku, Garp, and the others stood with grim expressions, their lips pressed tightly together.
Many of the strongest people in the world could create disasters that resembled moving mountains or overturning seas through their Devil Fruit powers.
Whitebeard's Tremor-Tremor Fruit was said to possess the power to destroy the world. It could summon colossal tsunamis and unleash terrifying earthquakes.
But even then, the fruit was merely manipulating the ocean and the land around it.
What Cyrus had just released was his own accumulated power, expressed through the Flame-Flame Fruit.
Wano was not a small country.
Yet the entire island had vanished before their eyes.
"Could you block that?"
Sengoku suddenly asked Garp beside him.
Garp immediately gave him a hostile look.
"If you want me dead, just say so."
Garp was never one to underestimate himself, but nothing could have stopped the power they had just witnessed.
Once that miniature sun appeared, the only thing anyone could hope for was that it would not fall on them—or that they could stop Cyrus before he created it.
After it had already formed, the only sensible response was to run as far and as fast as possible.
If someone was quick enough, they might escape the affected area before it landed.
"That simply isn't normal."
Tsuru sighed, disbelief still lingering in her voice.
"How can a human body contain that much power?"
As she spoke, she glanced toward Akainu.
Noticing her gaze, Akainu looked back, snorted, and turned away.
For once, he did not even make a threatening remark.
"How frightening," Kizaru said, pursing his lips with his usual unsettling expression. "If that landed above Marine Headquarters, the entire base would disappear."
At least he was fast enough to run.
"The only question now is whether Pluton survived," Sengoku said, concern entering his voice. "That attack may have destroyed it along with everything else."
If they could obtain the Ancient Weapon, it would become an important bargaining chip for the Marines.
"It should still be intact."
Tsuru frowned as she considered it.
"If Cyrus deliberately told us about Pluton, he probably wouldn't destroy it."
"Who knows?" Garp shook his head. "You all saw that attack. Anything caught inside it should've been wiped out."
"Either way, once the water cools, we'll investigate—"
Sengoku stopped mid-sentence.
His eyes fixed on the place where Wano had once stood.
The surface of the sea was rising.
Across an area nearly half the size of Wano, the water bulged upward as though something enormous was surfacing from below.
Everyone present had spent years at sea and knew exactly what they were seeing.
Something unimaginably large was rising too quickly for the surrounding water to move aside.
They did not have to wait long.
A colossal warship burst from beneath the sea.
It emerged like a small island before crashing back onto the water with a thunderous impact.
The mountain-sized vessel left the watching Marines stunned.
It was absurdly large.
The cannon at its bow alone looked wide enough to swallow a small warship whole.
Judging by the size of its barrel, its destructive power had to be monstrous.
One shot might not merely destroy an island. It could probably blast a hole straight through the Red Line.
"So this is the Ancient Weapon Pluton?"
Even Sengoku inhaled sharply at the sight.
"It's enormous," Tsuru said with a frown.
"Far too enormous," Garp agreed.
A ship of that size would be unable to enter shallower waters, severely limiting where it could sail.
"That hardly matters," Kuzan said, eyes wide. "Look at the cannon. Its range must be unbelievable."
The others nodded.
With a barrel of that size, Pluton might be able to fire from here all the way to the Red Line.
Even if its actual range was only half that distance, the waters it could navigate would still allow it to threaten nearly the entire world.
"That really is one hell of a gift."
And it was far too valuable for the Marines to give up.
"Prepare to board and inspect Pluton," Sengoku ordered.
Cyrus still had not appeared, and Sengoku had no idea where he had gone.
For now, securing the Ancient Weapon mattered more.
…
Cyrus had watched his attack from beginning to end.
Once the mushroom cloud rose, he turned and stepped through a doorway that appeared in midair.
He had already seen everything he needed to see.
The destructive power was roughly what he had expected.
Still, an attack like that could never become something he used casually.
It took too long to prepare, and there were very few opponents worth spending so much time accumulating energy against.
But the result was undeniably impressive.
The attack resembled a fusion reaction and could serve as an excellent deterrent in the future.
Some people might fail to understand his other attacks, but everyone could understand what it meant to erase an island and an entire country in a single strike.
As Cyrus expected, someone understood the message perfectly.
Imu had watched nearly everything after their unexpected encounter in Impel Down.
She had not particularly cared about the Marines destroying the demons that escaped Wano.
Unless those creatures existed in overwhelming numbers, they were of little value to her.
If she wanted, she could repeat the same process somewhere else.
But the moment the miniature sun fell from the sky, Imu immediately withdrew from the vessel she had been using.
Even after escaping, the memory of that descending sun made her tremble.
Then came rage.
It was the helpless rage of someone who could do nothing in return.
Just as Cyrus found her abilities troublesome, Imu had no real way to deal with him.
His individual strength had exceeded every reasonable limit.
She had considered many possible ways to eliminate him, but the more she learned about Cyrus, the more useless those plans became.
Knowing that someone like him had chosen her as his target left Imu unable to rest.
"Did he truly come from another world?" Imu murmured to herself.
When every direct solution had failed, another possibility came to mind.
She could flee.
Or perhaps she could reach the world Cyrus had come from and find something there capable of defeating him.
Imu still suspected that the Hunter Guild had deliberately spread the story.
Yet the Guild really had been searching for islands that appeared and vanished without explanation.
Combined with the complete absence of any record of Cyrus's life before East Blue, the claim was beginning to sound increasingly believable.
Should she abandon this world and escape to one where that bastard did not exist?
The thought took root in Imu's mind.
Cyrus would never have expected that his display of power might accidentally push her toward exactly the outcome he wanted.
…
Hunter Guild Headquarters, Sabaody Archipelago.
Morgans had called so many times that Crocodile's head was beginning to throb.
"I've already told you, I can't reach the chairman either!"
Anger filled Crocodile's voice.
"Can you stop calling me, you damned bird? I'm busy!"
"Don't get angry, Vice-Chairman. This is urgent. Please think of something."
Morgans was completely unfazed by Crocodile's temper.
Compared with obtaining Cyrus's permission, Crocodile's anger meant nothing. Morgans would have been willing to kneel and beg if that was what it took.
"You bastard!" Crocodile's arm trembled.
For a moment, he seriously considered crushing the Den Den Mushi in his hand.
"Ahem."
A sudden cough sounded behind him.
Crocodile tensed and immediately released a swirl of sand around his body.
When he saw who had appeared, he relaxed.
"Chairman!"
He pulled the sand back and rose instinctively to attention.
"What does that bird want?"
Cyrus had arrived shortly after Crocodile answered the call.
He had remained silent and watched the entire argument, finding Crocodile's irritation rather entertaining.
At Cyrus's question, Crocodile hurried forward and handed him the Den Den Mushi.
"Morgans. What do you want?"
The snail jolted violently in Cyrus's hand.
"CYRUS!"
Morgans's scream blasted from the receiver.
Cyrus calmly held the Den Den Mushi farther away and stared at it.
"It's about what you did in Wano! I want to publish it, but I couldn't reach your Den Den Mushi!"
"You couldn't?"
Cyrus felt around inside his clothes and pulled out his own snail.
He immediately understood the problem.
Although it had remained protected beside him, the power of his attack had been so overwhelming that even with his flames shielding it, the Den Den Mushi was barely alive.
It looked completely dehydrated.
Cyrus tossed the shrivelled snail to Crocodile.
Crocodile caught it and quickly left, clearly understanding that Cyrus wanted it treated.
"You recorded everything in Wano?"
"Every second of it! I didn't miss a thing. It's a shame I couldn't get closer. I would've sent a News Coo straight into that enormous mushroom cloud to film the inside!"
Morgans answered without hesitation.
Cyrus's mouth twitched.
The bird really was insane.
The interior of that mushroom cloud had been the deadliest part of the attack. A News Coo would have been incinerated instantly.
The same would have been true for nearly any living creature in the world.
"We're already promoting the Hunter Exam," Morgans continued eagerly. "This is the perfect chance to shock the entire world again. Once people see this, even more of them will want to join the Hunter Guild. This is wonderful news for us!"