Pirate: I'm an admiral now, what's wrong with taking a little extra money?

The air suddenly trembled.

Visible blue energy surged and compressed wildly in his palm. The surrounding air pressure dropped instantly, giving everyone present a feeling of pressure similar to that of someone experiencing a rapid descent in an airplane.

"This power..."

Kuzan's deadpan eyes widened suddenly, all sleepiness gone. "A Devil Fruit?!"

"I was just in the bathroom contemplating life when I suddenly felt a bit hungry," Kane said, spouting nonsense with a straight face. "I saw a strange-looking fruit on the sink, and thinking I shouldn't waste food, I ate it."

"Who would put a Devil Fruit in the toilet?!" Kuzan couldn't help but shout in disbelief. "Besides, what are the chances of that happening?!"

"That's fate, Kuzan."

Kane spoke earnestly, the cyan vortex in his hand compressed to its limit, emitting a sharp, piercing buzzing sound.

"This fruit is calling to me. It tells me that there are limits to justice based solely on physical strength."

"True justice needs wings, and even more so... the force of a thunderbolt!"

Before he could finish speaking...

He casually tossed the high-pressure cyclone in his palm toward the sea beside him.

call out--

There was no loud explosion the moment the cyclone left my hand.

But everyone present, including the marines passing by on deck, clearly saw—

In that instant, the sea "split" open.

A vacuum slit nearly a kilometer long silently appeared in the azure sea. The seawater on both sides was forcibly pushed apart by an invisible force, even revealing the muddy seabed.

Immediately afterwards, the seawater that had been cut apart reacted and collided violently, creating giant waves hundreds of meters high.

"..."

"Gudu."

The deck was deathly silent, save for the sound of everyone swallowing their saliva in unison.

"Yeah~" Borsalino adjusted his sunglasses, his tone less teasing and more serious, "An invisible slash, this cutting power... even steel would be as fragile as paper in front of it, right?"

"It's not just the wind."

Kane slowly lifted his feet off the ground, defying the laws of gravity, and floated in mid-air like a feather.

His body began to etherealize, disintegrating into countless streams of blue light that merged with the turbulent atmosphere of the world.

"And this too."

The once clear sky suddenly lost all light.

Dark clouds churned wildly a thousand meters overhead, converging at an astonishing speed.

Deep within the clouds, countless purple lightning dragons roared and roamed, releasing a terrifying aura of destruction.

Although I can't yet control lightning transformations as precisely as Enel, the sheer power to manipulate celestial phenomena is far more oppressive!

"Lei Ying!"

Kane's voice came from all directions, carrying a certain divine ethereal quality.

Click!

A thick, purple bolt of lightning, carrying the force of divine punishment, struck precisely at a group of reefs a kilometer to the left of the warship.

Boom!!

The reef instantly vaporized.

The high temperature evaporates the seawater, forming a thick white fog that obscures the sky and the sun.

Immediately afterwards, a fierce wind whipped up huge waves, attempting to engulf the tiny warship.

"Oh no! We've messed things up!"

Kuzan's expression changed, and a chill instantly condensed in his hand as he prepared to defend against the aftershocks.

"Don't panic."

Kane in mid-air simply waved his sleeve casually.

"Cyclone barrier".

call--

A semi-transparent, cyan hurricane wall rose out of thin air, forming a huge cylinder that tightly protected the entire warship within the eye of the storm.

Despite the raging storm and thunder outside, the warship in the eye of the storm remained perfectly still, as stable as a mountain.

The rain began to fall.

The wind is howling.

Thunder roared.

The man hovering in mid-air, wearing a navy coat, was the sole commander of this natural disaster.

"Wind, thunder, rain, clouds, air pressure... I am the weather, I am the storm."

Kane looked down at the three future generals who were still in shock, feeling a secret sense of satisfaction.

This is the effect he wanted!

Sakazuki stared at the sky filled with lightning, his fists clenching and unclenching, a glint of fanaticism flashing in his eyes.

strength!

This is a cataclysmic power capable of destroying all evil and upholding absolute justice!

"If it's him..." Sakazuki's previously wavering thought now became incredibly firm.

"The Lord of Storms...?" Borsalino muttered to himself, his nonchalant expression vanishing. "Looks like I won't be able to slack off anymore from now on."

"Stop daydreaming, comrades!"

Kane dispersed the thunderclouds and landed back on the bow of the ship. His body returned to solid form, and the divine expression on his face vanished instantly, replaced by that smug grin.

He opened his arms and embraced the raging wind.

"Since everyone already knows, I won't pretend anymore."

"Hold on tight! We're about to take off!"

Before anyone could react...

The next second, a gale ten times stronger than before suddenly erupted!

boom!!!

The warship let out a painful groan, as if a rocket booster had been installed on its stern.

The immense force of the push caused the unsuspecting sailors to tumble around on the deck like gourds, and even Sakazuki had to crouch down to regain his balance.

The spray from the stern of the warship even formed a wall of water as high as twenty meters!

"Kane!! You're insane!!"

Kuzan's desperate screams echoed in the wind, along with the eye patch that drifted away with the wind.

"Slow down!! I'm going to throw up!!!"

"Wuhu!!!"

Kane stood at the bow of the ship, his hairstyle perfectly intact under the protection of the storm, enjoying the extreme speed brought by the Storm Fruit.

"Full speed ahead! Destination—Marineford!"

Chapter 31 Shocks Headquarters! Teaching the Marshal to falsify accounts face-to-face? This is too much!

Marineford, the naval headquarters port.

The port was unusually noisy today, with thousands of marines surrounding the shore, pointing and gesturing, even the old shipwrights at the repair shop were astonished.

The barnacles on the hull of the newly docked warship had been washed away, and the paint above the waterline had peeled off, revealing the charred, metallic sheen of the hull after being subjected to extremely high-temperature friction.

The mainmast has a strange backward curve, as if it has endured an unimaginable push.

But more than the ravaged warship, what took everyone's breath away was the ongoing unloading operation.

Gold bricks, jewelry, antiques, bundles of cash... the visual impact was so strong that many young marines who had never seen the world before were instantly weak in the knees.

"Be gentle! That's a solid gold candlestick! Even a tiny scratch on the lacquer would cost you a year's salary!"

Kane stood on the springboard like a miser, commanding a group of elite troops from headquarters who were being used as laborers.

Three escort ships surrounded Kane's flagship like bodyguards, while on the shore, for the first time ever, two lieutenant generals were dispatched to lead a team on guard.

If you didn't know better, you'd think they'd captured some legendary pirate.

Several logistics officers in charge of receiving the goods broke out in a cold sweat as they looked at the mountains of gold bricks, jewelry, and bundles of cash.

"This...this quantity isn't right, is it?"

A brigadier general in charge of registration swallowed hard, his pen trembling. "Warrant Lieutenant Kaine... according to the report, this wasn't a simple deterrence mission, was it? These hundred-plus boxes... they look like the treasury of an entire kingdom has been looted! Is this... is this compliant with regulations?"

"Shh-"

Kane stepped off the diving board, affectionately put his arm around the officer's shoulder, lowered his voice, and gave a smile that was both comforting and unsettling.

"You can eat whatever you want, but you can't say whatever you want, Colonel."

Kane pointed to the boxes, his face radiating righteous indignation: "This is not looting. This is a donation from the Kingdom of Germa, moved by the uprightness of our navy, to the cause of justice. It is a redemption for their souls!"

The colonel looked into Kane's sincere eyes, then glanced at the several boxes in the distance that were frozen into ice sculptures and clearly showed signs of "forced transport," and silently swallowed.

What the hell is this about soul redemption?!

……

Half an hour later.

The Marshal's office, on the top floor of the main fortress.

Unlike the bustling moving scene downstairs, the air here was so thick it was suffocating.