Dragging her across half the island, Bellamy gave full vent to the brutality in his heart. When he reached the very center of the Boin Archipelago—the location of the Stomach Baron's gaping maw—Bellamy leaped into the air and hurled the woman down into the bottomless pit below.
"Six Powers Ultimate Secret Art - Modified: Three Hundred Strikes in One Breath!"
A torrent of power surged into his arms. Bellamy took a deep breath, tensing every muscle in his body to the absolute limit. This technique, Three Hundred Strikes in One Breath, was the result of him deconstructing the Six Powers, analyzing them, and then extensively modifying and supplementing them. A single execution was like unleashing three hundred attacks at the same instant. Its destructive power was simply unimaginable. It was a move designed purely for overwhelming force, specifically developed for his energy-storing form.
Of course, for now, it was still a technique under development. Just gathering the energy to launch it took a considerable amount of time, making it difficult to hit an agile opponent. He had dragged this woman all the way to the center of the island precisely to leave her with no escape, forcing her to take the full brunt of his new move.
Just as Stussy's body was about to fall into the bottomless pit, Bellamy's punch was finally charged. In an instant, countless fist afterimages rained down on her like a meteor shower.
"Nngh! Not fast enough! It can be faster!" Like a man possessed, Bellamy frantically swung his fists downward. The air was so thick with afterimages that his own figure was obscured. The immense power stored in his body flowed out from his arms like a flood. The move was exhilarating, but the cost was truly immense.
After ten seconds, Bellamy was forced to stop. "Damn, the consumption is too high!"
The technique wasn't refined enough. The moment he used it in a real battle, all its flaws were exposed. First, the activation was too slow, taking ages to gather power. Second, the force of the punches was too dispersed and lacked focus. Finally, and most critically, the energy consumption was far too great. This kind of relentless, all-out barrage consumed many times more energy than he had imagined. Without modifications, it was completely impractical for actual combat.
Bellamy hovered in the air, contemplating his technique. As for the woman, he figured she had already been pulverized by the storm of fists.
But he was wrong.
Bellamy had still underestimated a formal member of CP0. Or rather, even now, he had no idea who this woman truly was.
Silently, a mass of murky foam suddenly floated up from the bottomless pit. The foam quickly coalesced. In the blink of an eye, an old woman with the face of a human and the body of a bird appeared where the foam had been.
Bellamy wasn't blind; he saw the entire scene unfold. "What kind of ability is that?"
Even he had never seen such a strange power. The Bubble-Bubble Fruit? No, he had a general idea of what that fruit could do, and it was definitely not this. So, what was with that foam, and this old woman?
"What the hell are you?"
Bellamy couldn't help but frown as he asked. When the woman transformed from her foam state, all of her clothes had vanished. The sight of an old woman's wrinkled body was turning his stomach.
"Ah! Why are you looking at me like that?!"
What Bellamy never expected was that a single glance from him would provoke such an extreme reaction from Stussy. The old woman went berserk, pulling up handfuls of grass from the ground and desperately trying to cover herself, as if her grotesque body held some unspeakable secret.
But how could grass possibly cover a body? After a futile effort, Stussy finally came to her senses. She raised her head and looked at Bellamy in the sky.
"You saw everything just now, didn't you?"
"Old woman, I have no interest in your body," Bellamy said, simply stating a fact.
But to Stussy, his words were more painful than death itself.
"AAAAAHHH!!!"
An ear-piercing shriek erupted from her mouth. At first, Bellamy didn't notice anything, but then he immediately felt something was wrong. The scream grew louder and more shrill. Then, ripples of concussion appeared in the air. A sharp pain shot through his eardrums, and a trickle of blood flowed out. They were hundreds of meters apart; the lethality of that scream was plain to see.
"What in the world are you?"
This ability was definitely not a physical technique; Bellamy was sure of that. Furthermore, this woman was absolutely a Devil Fruit user. Most likely a Zoan, with a high chance of being an Ancient Zoan, or perhaps even a Mythical Zoan.
"Just die!"
Having her true form seen had driven Stussy to the brink of madness. After her scream, she didn't pause for a moment before opening her mouth again. But unexpectedly, what came out this time was not another piercing shriek.
A heavenly melody began to flow from Stussy's lips. The song was so enchanting that upon hearing it, Bellamy's mind began to grow hazy. Then, as if he had lost control, his body began to slowly walk toward her.
"Be buried completely beneath my Underworld Burial Song!"
Watching Bellamy's approaching form, Stussy's expression slowly twisted into a vicious snarl. Any man who saw her true form, no matter who he was, should not be allowed to exist in this world. The Underworld Burial Song had actually managed to penetrate Bellamy's Armament Haki and directly affect his mind. This suggested that the ability might be a forbidden power, on par with the Immortality Operation.
Stussy was already very old. Using this power took a heavy toll on her. If Bellamy hadn't seen her true face, she would have been unwilling to use it.
"How dare you call me an old woman!"
Remembering the look in Bellamy's eyes and that unforgivable name, Stussy's expression grew even more malevolent.
"Bellamy, being a pirate, constantly hunted, you must be so tired of living, aren't you?"
"Why live such a hard life?"
"Come now, come now. Just jump from here."
They were standing near the bottomless pit. A few more steps and he would fall in. The moment she had him under her control, she immediately gave the command. Stussy clearly knew a great deal about this chasm.
But if she hadn't given that order, things might have been different. The moment she commanded him to commit suicide, the haze in Bellamy's eyes instantly cleared. "Huh? Why would I think of killing myself?"
What a joke. How could a man like him ever commit suicide? His dream had always been to die a glorious death in battle without regrets. Suicide was a pathetic way to die, the greatest insult to him imaginable!