The sky over the northern waters was a heavy, slate-gray sheet, weeping a relentless torrent of wind and thick snow across the freezing sea. Icebergs as large as fortresses drifted through the dark water, their jagged edges scraping against the floes as the ocean slowly hardened into ice.
Through this frozen landscape, where standard merchant vessels and Marine warships refused to chart a course, a massive, pure black steel warship moved through the upper air. The vector thrusters lining the ventral hull of the Eclipse let out deep, dark red cyclones, slicing cleanly through the gale like a predatory beast tracking its quarry toward the snow-white peaks rising on the horizon.
"Achoo! This is insane! The great Buggy is turning into an icicle!"
Huddled in a far corner of the main deck, Buggy was wrapped in three thick layers of heavy down quilts, shivering so violently his entire frame twitched like a massive scarlet caterpillar.
"Quiet, Red Nose."
Enel stood near the secondary mast, having condescended to drape a light mantle over his bare shoulders. Faint, blue-white lines of electricity skittered across his dark skin in a continuous, rhythmic pulse. Following Ace's prior guidance, he was using microscopic currents to stimulate his muscle tissue at every second, systematically forging a physical baseline to match his lightning attributes.
Sabo, clad in a dark, high-collared winter coat, exhaled a long plume of white vapor. His eyes scanned the horizon where the distinct silhouette of the winter island was taking shape. The geography was bizarre; the center of the landmass was dominated by several massive, perfectly cylindrical snow mountains that pierced the cloud cover like stone chimneys.
"Drum Island," Sabo murmured, checking the log documents. "The place once known as the Medical Kingdom."
"It was a kingdom of doctors, nothing more," Ace remarked from the bow. His dark red windbreaker snapped in the freezing wind. As a transmigrator, he knew exactly what kind of creature held the scepter on that frozen rock.
"Carina, is the report current?" Ace asked, his eyes remaining fixed on the peaks ahead.
"The cipher is clean, Captain," Carina replied. She was wrapped in a luxurious white fox fur coat, her gloved fingers turning the pages of the intelligence file. "The reigning King, Wapol, recently enacted an edict called the 'Doctor Hunt.' He's systematically executed or exiled every physician on the island, save for his personal medical detail, the 'Isshi-20.' Right now, his royal sled is inspecting the outer perimeter of Big Horn Village. The locals apparently resisted his latest tax levy."
"Using the medicine that keeps people alive as a leash to break their spirits," Leona muttered. Her hand rested on the hilt of White Night, her long red ponytail whipping through the wind and snow. Her vertical pupils had narrowed into the cold, calculated focus of a hunter. "A pathetic display."
Ace let out a sharp scoff, offering no comment on Wapol's crude governance. Instead, he turned his gaze toward the cyborg mechanic standing by the open-air terminal.
"Jeno. The fruit that pig is carrying belongs to you."
Jeno stopped his calibrations on the floating laser array, pushing his heavy goggles up onto his brow. "Oh? Ace, what kind of asset are we looking at? To make you steer this ship into a frozen waste."
"Paramecia: the Munch-Munch Fruit." Ace's mouth curled into a slow, deliberate line. "In the throat of a glutton like Wapol, it's a parlor trick for an oversized stomach. But for a mechanical engineer with your blueprint library? That fruit converts your internal biology into a walking, self-sustaining military factory."
"A military factory?" Jeno's mechanical prosthetic eye whirled, the aperture clicking into a tight focus.
"Exactly. You can consume raw iron, structural steel, or the high-tech wreckage we salvaged. Your digestive tract will fuse them into custom alloys and advanced armaments based entirely on your professional designs. In combat, you can deploy those weapons directly from your skin or fuse the steel into your own flesh, transforming into an armored dreadnought. When the guns are quiet, your stomach serves as a secure armory."
The technical blueprint Ace laid out struck the deepest, most volatile core of Jeno's engineering obsession.
"Furthermore, if you map those systems correctly, you can develop a real-time, automated nanite shell that covers your skin instantly—an iron armor that deploys on command."
Gulp.
Jeno swallowed hard, his skin flushing with an intense, sudden heat that completely ignored the sub-zero wind. To forge top-tier alloys within his own chest, to merge muscle and titanium seamlessly—it was the ultimate paradox a mechanic dreamed of creating.
"Captain," Jeno rasped, his eyes bloodshot with a sudden, frantic fixity as the thrusters on his back let out a sharp hiss of pressure. "Say no more. Let me go down and slaughter that hog."
"If you want the iron, go carve it out of him." Ace waved his hand toward the viewport. "Little Eclipse. Full output. Descend directly over Big Horn Village."
"Understood, Captain Ace," the automated interface chimed.
Boom!
The ventral thrusters erupted into brilliant, blue-white columns of flame. The massive black hull lunged forward like a bolt from a crossbow, tearing through the outer blizzard of Drum Island and plunging toward the valley floor with a crushing weight.
Drum Island, Big Horn Village.
The quiet of the snowy valley had been completely shattered. Several cottages had been reduced to splintered timber, and over a dozen villagers lay bleeding into the snow drift, their faces tight with a mixture of despair and helpless rage.
In the center of the clearing, perched atop a massive, gilded tin sled pulled by a white furred beast, sat a morbidly obese man whose jaw was encased in an oversized plate of riveted iron—King Wapol.
"This is the price for holding out on the crown's tax!" Wapol opened his jaws wide enough to swallow a calf, his thin lips splitting into a high-pitched, sadistic laugh. "Listen well, you scum! In this territory, my word is the only law that breathes! If you fall ill, you crawl to my throne and beg! Otherwise, you rot in the drifts!"
"His Majesty's wisdom is absolute!" the soldiers shouted in unison.
Dalton, the captain of the royal guard, stood beside the sled. Though his hand gripped his sword hilt until his knuckles turned white, he could only lower his head under the weight of Wapol's authority.
Wapol snorted, his hand reaching for a rusted iron bucket on the sled. He stuffed the metal into his mouth, crunching through the iron plates with a sequence of wet, metallic snaps, swallowing it down like dry biscuits.
"Munch-Munch... Factory!"
His torso rippled with a sickening, muscular distortion. Within seconds, his right arm reconfigured, the flesh and bone hardening into the dark, hollow muzzle of a heavy field cannon, aimed directly at a young child weeping over her mother's prone form.
"Since this village loves resistance so much, I'll clear the valley entirely!" Wapol's eyes narrowed into slits of small, cruel malice. "Die!"
"Wapol! Stop!" Dalton snapped his head up, his spirit breaking through his restraint as he lunged to draw his blade.
But before the cannon could fire, a sound like a falling star split the air above Big Horn Village.
Boom—!
The shockwave hit the valley floor with the force of an eight-magnitude tremor. The falling snow was instantly vaporized by an invisible ring of concussive force, clearing the sky until the leaden clouds were visible.
"What?! What is that?!" Wapol was thrown from his velvet cushion, tumbling face-first into a drift of freezing slush.
"Your Majesty! The sky! Look at the sky!" the guards screamed, their weapons slipping from their hands as their knees buckled against the packed snow.
Wapol scrambled up, wiping the ice from his iron jaw, and looked toward the clouds. His breath caught, his small eyes bulging so far they seemed ready to pop from his skull.
Less than a hundred meters above the village square, a pitch-black warship hovered, its massive frame blotting out the winter sun. At the tip of the dark red Vermilion Bird ram, a tall figure stood with his hands in his pockets, his trench coat billowing against the wind.
"The... The Outlier?! 1.57 billion?!" Wapol's fat body began to shake with a base, primitive terror. He had seen the headlines only days ago—the monster who had traded blows with an Admiral in the streets of Sabaody. Why was that creature looking down at his valley?
Ace didn't deign to glance at the sweating king below. He merely turned his head toward the cyborg mechanic whose engines were already screaming with pressure.
"Jeno. Ten minutes," Ace said flatly. His voice wasn't loud, yet it cut through the wind like cold steel, registering in the ear of every soldier below. "The asset is yours. Go collect it."
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