Smoker collapsing seemed to trigger a chain reaction. One after another, the tavern's customers, servers, and bartender all dropped to the floor, foaming at the mouth and losing consciousness.
No—not just the tavern.
In fact, the streets outside, the square, city hall, the harbor…
Every corner of Loguetown was swept by that violent, overwhelming, terrifying, astonishing invisible pressure.
Pedestrians, Marines, merchants, pirates—every last one of them was struck by that force and knocked unconscious, dropping to the ground one after another.
It was as if the entire town of Loguetown had been slammed with a pause button, plunging into total silence.
The only three people still awake were Rowan, Hashirama Senju, and Nico Robin.
Looking at the carnage around them, Robin's eyes flickered. Not quite certain, she said, "Did you just awaken Conqueror's Haki, Rowan?"
As far as she knew, only Conqueror's Haki could do something like this—overwhelm people and make them pass out.
But the strange part was that when Rowan released it just now, she had been sitting right beside him and felt no oppressive force at all.
Normally, Conqueror's Haki wasn't supposed to distinguish friend from foe.
But Rowan's hadn't affected her in the slightest, so for a moment even Robin couldn't be sure whether what he had awakened was really Conqueror's Haki.
To be honest, Rowan himself was just as stunned.
I awakened Conqueror's Haki?
I'm not even from the One Piece world. How the hell could I awaken Haki?
This made no sense.
People in the One Piece world were human, sure, but just like humans in the ninja world had several times the number of cells as humans on Earth, the humans here were also subtly different from Earth humans.
Take the three Admirals, for example.
Kizaru was 3.02 meters tall. Akainu was 3.06 meters. Aokiji was 2.98 meters.
What normal human on Earth could ever grow that tall? Even steroids wouldn't do that.
That simply didn't fit how a human body was supposed to develop.
And if the Admirals weren't ridiculous enough, the Four Emperors were even worse.
Among the Four Emperors, aside from Kaido being from the Oni race, Shanks, Big Mom, and Whitebeard were all supposed to be genuine humans.
And out of those three, only Shanks had anything close to a normal height at 1.99 meters.
Whitebeard was 6.66 meters tall.
Big Mom, Charlotte Linlin, was 8.8 meters tall.
And those were supposed to be humans?
If that counted as human, then what were the humans on Earth? Goblins? Gnomes?
So in Rowan's mind, there was a very obvious difference between Earth humans and the humans of the One Piece world. Since Haki was something everyone in the One Piece world had the potential to awaken, there should basically have been no chance at all for an Earth human to awaken it.
And yet Rowan had.
Not only that, he had awakened the rarest of the three forms of Haki—Conqueror's Haki.
That was absurd.
After that brief moment of confusion, the group walked out of the tavern and looked at the streets littered with unconscious people. At that point, they could basically confirm it.
Rowan really had awakened Conqueror's Haki.
Only that kind of power could produce an effect like this.
Carefully stepping around the people sprawled across the ground, Robin said, "This is the first time I've ever seen Conqueror's Haki that can distinguish friend from foe. You really are unusual, Rowan."
Even a top-tier Haki master like Shanks couldn't do something like that.
Rowan waved a hand. "Don't ask me. I'm confused too. How the hell can I awaken Haki? This makes zero sense."
Robin said, "Do you want to go back and let Tsunade and the others examine you? Maybe they can come up with a reasonable explanation."
Rowan thought about it. "That's not a bad idea."
So the three of them returned to the cabin, found a random door, and went back to the Naruto world.
They arrived at Orochimaru's secret base.
The others had been in the middle of their experiments, so Rowan called them out of the lab.
At first, nobody was too pleased, since their work had finally started getting somewhere.
But the moment they heard that Rowan had awakened Conqueror's Haki, every single one of them became interested.
"You really awakened Conqueror's Haki?" Tsunade circled around Rowan once, looking him up and down. No matter how she looked at him, he still seemed like a completely ordinary person. Could someone like that really awaken Haki?
"I think so." Rowan nodded.
"What do you mean, 'think so'?"
"Because I'm not actually sure that's what it is. I'm from Earth. Logically speaking, I shouldn't be able to awaken Haki at all."
Orochimaru said with interest, "If you don't mind, Lord Rowan, why not release this Conqueror's Haki and let us experience it for ourselves?"
"Sure."
Rowan nodded. His eyes sharpened, and black-red lightning instantly burst out around him. The invisible pressure that followed was savage, terrifying, and overwhelming, like a collapsing mountain and a raging tsunami crashing forward.
Everyone immediately felt an immense pressure slam down on them like a mountain.
It didn't just press against their minds—it even placed unimaginable pressure on their bodies.
The ground beneath their feet shattered instantly, and cracks spread across the walls.
That only made Robin, who was standing nearby, even more astonished.
Conqueror's Haki was terrifying, yes, but most people's Conqueror's Haki didn't directly affect the physical world.
Only extremely powerful Conqueror's Haki could actually damage objects.
That fact alone was enough to show that Rowan's Conqueror's Haki was no weaker than Shanks's—possibly even stronger.
Which was completely outrageous.
"That's enough, that's enough!"
Orochimaru hurriedly spoke up. Under that ridiculously overwhelming Conqueror's Haki, his mind had gone blank for a split second.
He recovered quickly, but if this had been a real fight, that single instant of mental blankness would have been enough to get him killed several times over.
Tsunade had felt the same thing.
Tobirama had it even worse. The moment that Conqueror's Haki erupted, he felt an unprecedented pressure bearing down directly on his soul. Even his Edo Tensei body almost failed to hold together.
If he hadn't stabilized his soul immediately, he might have been sent straight back to the Pure Land.
There was no question about it—this power was practically the natural enemy of Edo Tensei.
Once Rowan stopped releasing his Haki, everyone let out a breath of relief.
"That pressure was insane. My clothes are soaked through," Tsunade muttered irritably, tugging at the damp fabric clinging to her body.
To her, those few seconds had felt as long as days. Cold sweat had been pouring off her the whole time.
"Based on the way it behaved, it really was Conqueror's Haki," Tobirama said, eyes flickering. "And not just ordinary Conqueror's Haki either—the kind strong enough to physically damage matter."
"As for why you were able to awaken it, I have two guesses."
Rowan asked curiously, "What are they?"
~~~
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