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Kuma's stoic face remained entirely impassive. He slowly raised his broad, thick right hand, aiming the palm directly at the wildly twisting and struggling Neferpitou suspended in mid-air.

He had already taken off his glove. Transparent ripples began to distort the surface of the pink paw pad—a visual distortion caused by the extreme compression of air.

Pitou's ruby-red, slitted pupils constricted violently. Even though she was firmly pinned in mid-air by the Shinigami's conceptual ability, her beastly instincts were screaming danger to her brain, warning her of imminent death. It was a terrifying power fully capable of erasing her from existence.

A fractured, blood-curdling shriek was forced out of the depths of her throat, accompanied by large mouthfuls of green blood. The grotesque Nen beast manifested behind her descended into total frenzy. The marionettist of Terpsichora desperately yanked at the strings attached to Pitou's body, attempting to drag its master out of that golden cage of death.

The taut strings sliced deep, bone-exposing grooves into Pitou's flesh. But the "Rejection" law of Soten Kisshun was entirely unreasonable. No matter how hard the Nen beast pulled, Pitou's body remained completely immobile.

"Thrust Pad Cannon."

Kuma's deep, resonant voice rumbled through the scorched woodland. He didn't need any flashy wind-up motions. The highly compressed air bullet erupted directly from the paw pad on his palm.

The oxygen in the surrounding area was instantly sucked dry. Luffy and the others felt their chests tighten, their breath catching for half a beat.

The surrounding air shrieked under the unbearable strain. A materialized, transparent paw print shot forward. This was no ordinary Pad Cannon. After witnessing higher-dimensional powers in Blake's tavern, Kuma had combined his own Haki to redevelop this lethal technique.

The transparent paw print smashed into the golden barrier with unstoppable momentum. The two vastly different forces did not repel each other; instead, they formed a bizarre, eerie harmony.

There was no deafening explosion. There was no blinding flash of light filling the sky. There was only the sickening, teeth-grinding sound of flesh being stripped from bone echoing through the air.

Pitou's proud, resilient Chimera Ant physique was an utter joke before this power.

The golden barrier locked down the space and stripped away all kinetic energy. The hyper-compressed Thrust Pad Cannon delivered the purest form of physical destruction. The dual execution of conceptual power and absolute physical compression officially commenced.

The purplish-black Nen clinging to Pitou's body popped like a punctured, cheap balloon, completely dissipating in less than half a second. Her madness-filled face began to twist and deform. Next was her neck. Her torso. Her limbs.

Under the immense pressure, her flesh and skin disintegrated inch by inch. Her incredibly hard bones were ground into fine powder. She didn't even have time to utter a complete scream.

That terrifying body, which had caused Luffy and his brothers so much suffering, simply exploded into a mist of blood in mid-air. A rain of green blood and minced meat fluttered down onto the scorched earth. The pungent stench of blood filled the air. Not a single intact bone remained.

One of the Chimera Ant King's Royal Guards, Neferpitou, had been completely erased from the face of the earth.

Luffy slumped back onto the ground, his chest heaving violently. He opened his mouth wide, greedily sucking in the fresh air rushing back into the space. A metallic, bloody taste rapidly spread across his palate. He didn't even bother wiping the cold sweat from his face, his eyes wide and unblinking as he stared at the dissipating blood mist in the sky.

He recalled the razor-sharp claws that had been just an inch away from his throat. That thick, foul stench of death. He touched his own neck, breaking out in a dense layer of goosebumps.

The steel pipe in Ace's hands had returned to its normal color, but his hands wouldn't stop shaking. Gritting his teeth, he slammed his fist into the scorched earth beside him, completely oblivious to his bleeding knuckles.

"Dammit! We're still too weak!"

Sabo gasped heavily, gripping his broken blade so tightly it creaked. The three brothers were used to running wild in the East Blue. They had thought that learning a bit of elemental power in Teyvat meant they could do as they pleased.

But here, in the Hunter world, a random Royal Guard popping out could squash them like bugs. This sense of powerlessness was worse than death itself.

Kuma's broad back stood before them, an insurmountable mountain. When would they ever possess this kind of power that dictated life and death?

Luffy clenched his remaining left fist tightly, his nails digging deeply into his flesh. The seed of Conqueror's Haki frantically took root and sprouted in the deepest depths of his heart. He silently swore to himself: he would never let anyone have to stand in front of him to protect him ever again.

Ivankov stood off to the side, wiping away the waterfall of cold sweat from his forehead. Even his iconic, massive afro looked somewhat deflated.

"Kuma! Your abilities are seriously getting more and more ridiculous!" he yelled theatrically at the top of his lungs. "That move just now gave even me the creeps! Pinning someone in mid-air just to beat on them... what the hell kind of technique is that?! Just what kind of monster-tier power did Store Manager Blake sell you?!"

As Ivankov rambled, he cast a lingering look of dread at the spot where Pitou had vanished. He knew full well that if it had been him facing that catgirl, even if he managed to win, he would have definitely lost a layer of skin in the process. He could never effortlessly instant-kill her like Kuma just did.

Kuma ignored Ivankov's hollering. He bent down, silently picking up the heavy Bible he had dropped on the ground. He carefully dusted off the cover with his large hands, then tucked it securely back under his arm.

He raised a hand and adjusted the small round sunglasses on the bridge of his nose, the lenses reflecting a faint glint of light. His gaze didn't linger on Luffy's group; instead, it bypassed the scorched woodland entirely, focusing on the central battlefield several kilometers away, where shockwaves tumbled and explosions roared endlessly.

That was where the true core of this dungeon lay. That massive, suffocating aura of pure evil was continuing to climb at an incredibly exaggerated rate.

───── 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

Meanwhile, in Foosha Village in the East Blue.

Inside Partys Bar, Blake leaned lazily against the counter, a glass of freshly mixed juice in his hand. The virtual light screen hovering in mid-air was broadcasting the battle in the Hunter world in real-time.

Seeing Kuma instant-kill Pitou with Soten Kisshun, Blake snapped his fingers in satisfaction. "Money well spent, isn't it?" he muttered to himself with a smile.

A conceptual-level skill from the Bleach universe. Against Nen users who only knew how to fight in hand-to-hand combat or shoot energy blasts, it was simply a dimensional suppression.

As Blake shifted his gaze toward Dragon and the Ant King's battlefield, he raised an eyebrow slightly. On the screen, the red dot representing the Ant King had actually broken past its brightness threshold once again.

"Oh? So the death of a subordinate triggered an emotional evolution?" Blake took a sip of juice, a playful smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. "Now this is getting interesting. Mr. Dragon... facing a completely berserk, mutated Ant King, just what kind of performance will you give?"

He wasn't worried about the safety of Dragon and the others in the slightest. Right now, he just wanted to see exactly how much potential could be squeezed out of an apex combatant from the One Piece world. This was top-tier entertainment; he absolutely couldn't miss it.

Back in the massive crater in the distance, the terrain had long been deformed beyond recognition. Groundwater gushed wildly from deep fissures, only to be instantly vaporized into a dense mist by the terrifying heat radiating from the two combatants.

Dragon had pushed his Advanced Armament Haki, fused with Six Paths power, to the absolute limit. Pitch-black Ryuo formed a materialized armor over his fists. Every punch he threw carried a dull sonic boom that tore at the fabric of space.

Across from him, Meruem was retaliating with unparalleled ferocity. Green Nen burned across his body like materialized flames.

Just as the two were locked in a desperate clash of fists, crushing the bedrock around them inch by inch, Meruem's movements suddenly hitched. For top-tier powerhouses, this was an unforgivable opening. But he completely ignored it.

He forcibly tanked a heavy knee strike from Dragon, using the recoil to gain some distance.

Meruem turned his head. His cold, violently cruel eyes stared fixedly in the direction where Pitou had fallen. The highly active Nen fluctuations from moments ago had completely vanished following a bizarre distortion in space.

Green blood dripped steadily from his cracked knuckles, splattering onto the scalding rocks with a sharp hiss and sending up plumes of white smoke. This was the first time he had bled since his birth. But he had no mind to care about the wounds on his hands.

He tilted his arrogant head up slightly, his tail thrashing irritably behind him, effortlessly shattering a half-ton boulder.

He felt it. The presence of a Royal Guard. One of them had been completely, thoroughly erased. It wasn't a severe injury. It wasn't unconsciousness. They had been wiped out on a biological level.

Meruem's face darkened so much it looked ready to drip ink. He had only just been born. He hadn't even had the chance to establish his kingdom, yet his most loyal subordinate had actually been killed by a few humans.

This anger from being violated was like throwing a basin of cold water into a pot of boiling oil. It instantly ignited every single tyrannical factor within his body.

He turned his head back, locking his gaze back onto Dragon. The green Nen around him began to surge wildly. Even the surrounding space groaned under the crushing weight of this materialized killing intent.

"You... are unforgivable."

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