A hand gripped the edge of the crack, its broken fingernails embedded in the stone slab.
A second hand followed.
A third.
A fourth.
Not four human hands. Four limbs of the same "thing."
A grayish-white torso squeezed halfway out of the crack, its head devoid of features, only a writhing mass of purplish-black flesh. Its four arms braced themselves on the ground, dragging its body outwards.
Ron's right palm slammed down.
"Inu-chan Crimson Lotus." The lava projectile struck the center of the mass of flesh, the 1200-degree Celsius heat burning a hole through the grayish-white torso.
Useless.
New tissue regenerated from the edge of the hole within two seconds, purplish-black fibers coiling, weaving, and filling the gaps.
The crack widened by three inches.
More arms emerged from the crack. Not one, but seven, eight—grassish-white limbs of varying shapes clung to the edge of the stone slab, crawling outwards.
The Venomous Devourer spread its arms.
Purple-black tentacles erupted from the cracks, no longer the slowly seeping energy—they were thick, living entities, each as thick as an adult's thigh. The tentacles lashed wildly through the air, shearing chunks of stone from the wall and blasting two holes in the ceiling.
The tentacles lunged at the Venomous Devourer.
Not an attack. Feeding.
Seventeen purple-black tentacles simultaneously plunged into the Venomous Devourer's torso. His kimono was torn from collar to hem, fragments of fabric scattering to the ground. His bare upper body muscles doubled in size within three seconds—not in a human way; the muscle fibers changed from horizontal stripes to spirals, his skin turned grayish-black, every blood vessel bulging, purple-black liquid surging within.
His white blind eye enlarged.
Not a normal eyeball enlargement. The white of his entire right eye spread beyond its socket, engulfing a third of his right cheek. A gigantic, half-faced white "yin-yang eye," its iris swirling with the complete structural diagram of Impel Down.
His left eye—the normal black iris—lost all color in the purplish-black light.
It turned white.
Two white eyes.
The system continuously displayed red data in Ron's vision—
[Venom's combat power has increased dramatically. Current assessment: Akainu template synchronization rate 35%...38%...40%...42%...45%.]
[Host's current synchronization rate is 30%. Combat power gap 15%. Immediate retreat recommended.] Ron didn't retreat.
Venom disappeared.
It wasn't a teleportation using "Shave." It was pure speed—the explosive power after doubling muscle density directly accelerated the body beyond the normal detection range of Observation Haki.
A gust of wind pressure hit the back of his head.
Ron's body veered fifteen centimeters to the left, thanks to the extreme prediction of Observation Haki. Venom's palm blade grazed past his right ear, less than two fingers' width away.
The palm wind swept across his right shoulder.
A piece of Armament Haki cracked at the moment of contact—a gap the size of a fist. The skin on his shoulder below the gap changed in half a second.
It wasn't a burn. It wasn't frostbite.
The skin was aging.
The epidermis at the center of the wound rapidly dried, wrinkled, and peeled off; the elastic fibers in the dermis broke and contracted; and moisture was drawn from the muscle tissue. Within two seconds, a fist-sized patch of skin aged from twenty to sixty years old.
Life force absorption.
Ron dodged four meters back, his right hand covering his shoulder. The aging wound was still slowly spreading, extending outwards by half a centimeter per second.
He concentrated his Armament Haki at the edge of the wound, forcefully halting its spread.
Venom stood five meters away, its gray-black body clearly outlined in the purple light of the altar. Both white eyes stared at Ron.
"Your magma is hot," Venom's vocal cords were compressed by swollen muscles, its voice becoming low and hoarse, "but 'Dark Power' is not afraid of heat. It only eats one thing—the time of the living."
Switch.
Ron stopped charging forward. He raised his right hand, fingers spread.
"Inu-gaze Crimson Lotus." Five magma projectiles shot out, their fan-shaped trajectories covering the path of the Venomous Devourer.
The Venomous Devourer crossed his arms. Twelve purplish-black tentacles surged from his back—not tentacles from the crack, but those that grew from his own body—weaving into a hemispherical shield.
The magma slammed into the tentacle shield.
The 1500-degree Celsius heat collided head-on with the dark power. No flames or steam appeared at the point of contact; instead, dimensional tremors occurred—space itself warped under the clash of these two opposing forces, the ground shattered, and stone slabs warped upwards.
The tentacle shield wasn't burned through. The magma flowed, cooled, and was eroded into ash by the purplish-black energy.
The energy supply was limitless.
The crack behind the Venomous Devourer continued to output energy, the tentacles directly connected to his body, replenishing him with every unit consumed.
Each magma projectile fired by Ron consumed his own stamina.
Each shot from the Venomous Devourer consumed energy from the crack.
A threefold difference in energy consumption.
Frank's roar and the muffled thud of shattering metal echoed overhead. From the main corridor, Jack's gunfire rang out rapidly—the intervals were shortening, indicating the enemy was getting closer.
As Ron fired his eighth magma bullet, his stamina jumped in the corner of his vision—34%.
He couldn't afford to waste any more time.
He stared at the altar beneath the Venomous Devourer's feet.
The dark red light of the runes continued to flow from the grooves, maintaining the purplish-black crack. The altar was cast—some kind of dark alloy, extremely dense, impervious to magma in a short time.
But the Flowing Sakura could.
Shatter it from the inside.
The problem was, the Venomous Devourer wouldn't stand by and watch him perform.
Ron's right hand drooped. The old wound on his left shoulder throbbed faintly.
He was risking his life.
His left foot took half a step forward, and three inches of Armament Haki faded from his forearm. Deliberately. His bare forearm was exposed to the purple light of the altar, the opening in his defense clearly visible.
The Venomous Devourer's two white eyes contracted simultaneously.
He moved.
The twelve tentacles disintegrated from their shield shape, transforming into twelve spears, all thrusting towards Ron. The tip of the foremost spear was aimed directly at the exposed opening in his left arm.
Ron didn't dodge with his left arm.
The purplish-black tentacle spear pierced through his left shoulder.
Life force absorption exploded from the wound—ten times more intense than the fist-sized area of aging on his shoulder. Within two seconds, the muscles from his left shoulder to his left elbow lost thirty percent of their cellular activity, and his left arm was forcibly reverted from its normal magma-covered form back to its fleshy state.
Ron groaned. Blood seeped from the corner of his mouth.
The withdrawal from magma meant his left arm was temporarily useless.
The Venomous Devourer thought he had succeeded.
A dark gray body lunged forward, its eleven remaining tentacles closing in from all sides, attempting to engulf Ron—draining all his life force in one fell swoop.
Ron's right hand slammed down the moment the Devourer was within a meter of him.
Not towards the Devourer.
It struck the altar beneath his feet.
His right palm pressed against the altar's stone surface. Flowing Sakura was at full power.
The internal vibrations of Armament Haki seeped from the base of his palm into the stone surface, penetrating the first layer of rune inscriptions and drilling into the internal crystalline structure of the dark alloy.
A vibration.
The alloy's lattice was disintegrating piece by piece at the microscopic level—not melting, not cutting, but the collapse of the structure itself. The vibrations spread outwards from the point of contact, and with each inch it passed, the dark red light in the rune grooves dimmed by an inch.
The Devourer's body stiffened abruptly.
He turned his head, his two white eyes fixed on the shattering altar beneath his feet.
"You're destroying—" Ron's left hand—a left hand no longer capable of magma transformation—grabbed a piece of altar rubble from the ground and hurled it at Devourer's face.
Devourer dodged, tilting his head.
Ron had needed that half-second.
His right hand didn't leave the altar's surface. In that half-second, Flowing Sakura's output crossed the critical point—the core structure of the Dark Alloy completely collapsed.
The cracks began to shrink.
The purplish-black light retreated inch by inch. The grayish-white limbs that had emerged from the cracks were sucked back in; the tentacles convulsed, withered, and broke in mid-air.
Devourer's energy supply was cut off.
His body began to shrink—the swollen muscles collapsed, the grayish-black skin faded, and the purplish-black veins receded from his skin. The light in his two white eyes peeled away layer by layer.
The enormous yin-yang eye on his right cheek shrank back into its socket, returning to its normal eyeball size.
Three seconds.
Devourer shrank back from his distorted two-and-a-half-meter form to a normal human size. Fragments of his kimono clung to his body, revealing thin, cracked skin beneath.
"No…three hundred years…" His hand pressed against the shattered altar, his nails digging into alloy shards.
"This altar has existed for three hundred years—" Ron's right fist slammed down.
Armament Haki hardened to its limit. Flowing Sakura seeped into his fist. Magma seeped from the surface of his fist.
Triple enhancement.
The fist slammed into Devourer's face.
His cheekbone shattered. His nose shattered. His jawbone dislocated at the joint.
Devourer's body flew fifteen meters, his back smashing through the stone wall on the east side of the altar area. Debris and dust sprayed from the hole in the wall.
Ron walked over.
Devourer lay slumped in the rubble, his left hand fingers still twitching. His entire face was caved in by three centimeters, blood seeping from the cracks in his bones, staining the dust a dark red.
He smiled.
Four teeth were missing, a smile forced from his broken lips, blood bubbles trickling between them.
"You won." His white, blind eye spun halfway, focusing on Ron's direction.
"But you think destroying one altar is all it takes?"
He coughed, blood clots spurting from his throat.
"The Hand has seventeen altars worldwide. This one in New York is the smallest. The one at the Japanese headquarters—"
His finger traced the gravel.
"It can't even fit in your Impel Down." Ron crouched down, his right hand retrieving conceptual seastone handcuffs from his system space.
Click.
The locks snapped shut on Venom's wrist.
"You can tell me all that in Impel Down." A dark red vortex swirled from the cracks in the stone slabs. Venom's body sank, gravel sliding past him into the vortex.
He didn't struggle. The white, blind eye remained fixed on Ron until the vortex had submerged his chin, lips, and nose.
The vortex closed.
[Poisonous Bite successfully imprisoned. Number of prisoners in Impel Down's second level: 3/50.]
[Sin Value +3200. Justice Value +2000. Total Justice Value: 12200.]
[The extraordinary source "Dark Power - Yin-Yang Eye" has been extracted. It can be put into the Devil Fruit Furnace.] Ron knelt on one knee beside the shattered altar, his left arm hanging at his side. The skin from his shoulder to his elbow was dry, wrinkled, and had lost all elasticity.
Magma transformation failed. His left arm is temporarily useless.
The system popped up an injury assessment—
[Host's life force is reduced by approximately 8%. Magma transformation of the left arm is temporarily interrupted. Natural recovery will take 72 hours, or 2000 Justice Value can be consumed to accelerate repair.]
The sounds of battle above stopped.
Frank jumped down from the entrance of the main corridor, his half-beast body bearing seven knife wounds, his gray fur matted with blood. Behind him, Jack, supporting himself against the wall, descended the slope, a patch of healed pink new skin on his left shoulder and right rib.
Frank glanced at the shattered altar and the dissipating purplish-black light.
"All done?"
"All done." Frank's vertical pupils stared at Ron's left arm for two seconds.
He didn't ask.
Matthew's breathing came through the encrypted channel. Rapid.
"Forty-three people, all transported out through the underground river passage. There's a church on the surface—Claire has arrived and is handling the emergency."
"Casualties?"
"Two people's hearts stopped during the transfer. The other forty-one are alive, but at least fifteen need hospitalization." The channel was silent for a second.
Matthew spoke again.
"Ron. There's someone you need to see in person." Ron stood up, his left arm secured to his chest with a piece of ninja belt Frank had torn off.
The underground river passage led three hundred meters east. The exit was at an abandoned drain on the eastern bank of the river.
The church was two hundred meters above the drain.
Claire Temple knelt between the church pews, four first-aid kits spread out beside her. Forty-one hostages were scattered throughout the church, some lying, some sitting against the walls. The air was thick with the mixed smell of disinfectant and blood.
Matthew stood beside the innermost row of pews.
His mask was off, revealing a face covered in dust and blood. His white cane rested on the ground, the tip pointing towards someone lying on a pew.
Ron walked over.
A girl lay on the pew.
Fifteen or sixteen years old. Asian face. Short hair disheveled and spread across the pew, her cheeks thin, her cheekbones prominent. She wore the same gray prison uniform as the other hostages, the cuffs and collar worn through.
There were black veins on her arms—the same marks of dark power as the other hostages.
But the intensity was wrong.
The black veins on the other hostages were sparse and faint, distributed on the surface veins. The girl's entire arm was covered in black veins, penetrating deep into the muscle layer, more than ten times denser than others.
She was still unconscious.
But a very faint light floated around her body.
White.
Not a reflection of light. Not the color of her clothes. It was a continuous, faint white light seeping from the surface of her skin.
The white light crawled across the black veins on her arm, fading the black with each inch it passed.
Her body was autonomously purifying its dark power.
The system frantically popped up notifications in Ron's right-hand field of vision—
[Abnormal individual detected!]
[The "dark power" within this human is being autonomously purified by unknown factors!]
[Purification efficiency far exceeds the passive suppression of conceptual Seastone. Mechanism unknown.]
[Willpower strength assessment—SSS level.]
[Suitable potential: Navy Admiral candidate.] Ron's right hand froze in mid-air.
Matthew stood beside him, his head tilted half an angle.
"Her heartbeat is different from others," Matthew said in a low voice. "The other hostages' heartbeats were weak, erratic, and rapid. Hers—sixty beats per minute, abnormally steady. After being infused with so much dark power and imprisoned for who knows how many days, her heartbeat was still sixty."
He paused for a moment.
"This isn't an ordinary victim." On the bench, the girl's eyelashes trembled.
A white light seeped from her fingertips, lingered in the air for half a second, and then dissipated.
Ron crouched beside the bench, his left arm strapped to his chest, his right hand resting on the back of the chair.
He stared at the fading white light.
—SSS-level willpower.
In his three years in the American comic book world, the system had never given this rating.
Frank was A-level. Jack was B+-level. Jessica was A-level.
Even Bullseye and Purple Man were only S-level.
The girl's right hand twitched on the chair surface.
The black veins faded another inch.