The battle, which had lasted more than three full hours, finally came to an end.
It was over.
One kilometer away from the battlefield, a massive Navy warship sat motionless on the sea.
On the deck, Zephyr stood at the front with the cadets gathered around him—Smoker, Tina, and the others—all staring toward the battlefield in stunned silence.
The atmosphere was dead quiet.
Not a sound could be heard.
Every shocked gaze was fixed on the sea ahead.
Under their watch, the battlefield had gone still.
No more explosions.
No more impacts.
Even the violent waves that had been rolling nonstop were gradually settling down.
Clearly—
everyone could tell that the fight was over.
"Who won?"
One cadet asked in a trembling voice, throat dry.
The shocking images from Kai and Weevil's duel still lingered vividly in every cadet's mind.
That had been the fiercest clash any of them had ever witnessed in their lives.
It was also the battle that had shaken them the most.
Raw physical combat.
Head-on collision.
Violent.
Terrifying.
That kind of pure, brutal body-to-body fight had given them an overwhelming visual shock.
"Even that pirate ship got sunk."
"Those two reached an absolutely terrifying level of strength."
"They almost turned this entire sea upside down just from clashing with each other."
"They're too strong!"
"That… is what a true top-tier powerhouse of the sea looks like."
"And to think Kai is only five years old…"
If they hadn't seen it with their own eyes, not a single cadet here would have dared believe it.
A five-year-old child fighting a great pirate with combat power comparable to someone worth hundreds of millions of berries—
and fighting him to a standstill.
The shock of it was beyond anything they had ever experienced before.
"It's over…"
"So who was the final winner?"
"Was it Kai? Or was it Whitebeard's 'son'?"
Every cadet was filled with tense anticipation as they stared at that battlefield-turned-stretch of ocean.
In the distance, they could see wreckage floating across the sea.
Broken splinters.
Fragments of the pirate ship.
Unconscious pirates drifting on the surface.
The whole area looked like the aftermath of a shipwreck.
Who would have thought that such a disastrous scene had been caused by nothing more than the aftershocks of two monsters fighting?
"Those two really are monsters at the very top of the sea…"
"Has Kai…"
"really become this strong?"
Smoker inhaled deeply, still unable to calm his violently shaken heart.
He had watched almost the entire fight from start to finish.
This was the first time he had ever seen such a simple, savage style of battle.
Pure flesh against flesh.
A shocking duel of strength against strength.
That battle had shattered everything he thought he knew.
It had shown him, for the first time, what true top-tier monsters of the sea looked like.
"I used to think…"
"that after training for a year, I should at least be strong enough to challenge Kai."
"But now…"
"after seeing that fight, I finally understand."
"I really was just a frog in a well."
Smoker gave a bitter laugh.
A full year of brutal training had made him much stronger.
It had also made his confidence grow.
He had thought that even if he was still weaker than Kai, the gap between them couldn't be that large.
But what he had just witnessed told him the truth.
The difference between him and Kai was enormous.
Like heaven and earth.
An impossible gap.
"I'm convinced."
Smoker was completely won over.
Kai's terrifying strength crushed any remaining urge Smoker had to compare himself to him.
At this point, Smoker was certain—
five-year-old Kai absolutely possessed the combat power of a Vice Admiral.
"But…"
"can Kai actually win?"
"The one he's fighting is a pirate known as the man with Whitebeard's youthful strength."
"Can a five-year-old really defeat someone like that?"
Even while he was still shaken, Smoker couldn't help feeling worried.
Kai was undeniably strong.
But his opponent was no joke either.
The title of Whitebeard's "son" alone was enough to prove how terrifying Weevil was.
"He'll win."
Standing beside Smoker, Tina clenched her fists tightly.
Her beautiful eyes were full of tension and nervous hope as she silently repeated it to herself.
At this point, everyone had already instinctively ignored Miss Bakkin's death.
After all, someone who couldn't survive a single punch from Kai simply wasn't worth remembering.
Only Weevil, who had fought Kai to the bitter end, was worthy of fear.
"Those are two monsters at the very top of the sea…"
"No matter which one wins, I wouldn't be surprised."
Zephyr let out a long breath.
This battle had shaken even him.
The overwhelming strength five-year-old Kai had displayed from beginning to end was something Zephyr had never imagined.
"These two…"
"In terms of strength, physique, speed, Haki—every aspect has been trained to an absurdly high level."
"If you call them top-tier monsters of the sea, that's no exaggeration."
"Compared to those great pirates worth hundreds of millions, neither of them falls behind in the slightest."
That was Zephyr's honest evaluation.
Whitebeard's "son" lived up to the rumors.
And Kai…
truly deserved the title of the greatest genius the Marines had seen in centuries.
"Pass my order."
"Have the helmsman move the warship closer to the battlefield."
"We're going to confirm the result."
After exhaling slowly, Zephyr gave the command.
"Yes, Teacher Zephyr."
The cadets had long since been dying to see the result for themselves.
They immediately began steering the warship toward the battlefield.
That battle had shown them the beauty of raw violence in its purest form.
Fist against fist.
Body against body.
A brutal collision of flesh and will.
To them, that was the very image of what a man's fight should be.
"So Kai really wasn't lying…"
"He truly does have strength on the level of a Vice Admiral. Otherwise, he never could have lasted this long against Whitebeard's 'son' without losing."
"It's terrifying."
"A five-year-old with Vice Admiral-level combat power…"
"Even a pirate worth hundreds of millions of berries couldn't put him down."
"How in the world did Kai train himself to this level?"
The deck erupted in discussion.
Before long, the huge warship arrived at the battlefield.
One after another, the cadets lined up along the railing and eagerly scanned the sea.
Smoker and Tina did the same, their eyes sweeping across the wreckage-strewn surface, trying to spot Kai and Weevil.
But after searching—
they still couldn't find either of them.
It was as if the two of them had vanished into the sea.
"Teacher Zephyr… don't tell me they sank?"
Tina turned anxiously toward him.
"No. Don't panic."
"Just wait."
"They most likely continued fighting underwater."
After hearing Zephyr's explanation, the cadets forced themselves to stay calm.
They clenched their fists, suppressing their anxiety as they waited for the final result.
The sea breeze blew softly.
Splash… splash…
Waves rolled across the surface.
The shipwreck debris floating on the sea gradually sank beneath the water and disappeared.
Only a few unconscious pirates still drifted on scraps of broken timber.
Then—
under Zephyr and the others' watch—
the calm surface suddenly began to bubble.
The sea churned like boiling water, ripples spreading outward in expanding rings.
And then, everyone saw it.
Two dark shapes shot upward from below the surface at astonishing speed.
A moment later, those two figures became clear under the bright sunlight.
Golden light spilled over the sea, making the water shine like molten gold.
There, bare-chested, was Kai.
His body was still covered in terrifying wounds and blade marks from the battle.
And in one hand—
he was holding Weevil by the neck, lifting the unconscious giant up out of the water as casually as if he were carrying a chicken, not even letting him sink.
The moment they saw that—
Zephyr and the others finally let out the breath they had been holding.
Joy spread across their faces.
They knew the answer.
Kai had won.
At just five years old, Monkey D. Kai had defeated Edward Weevil—
and captured him alive.
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