A firm female voice rang out.
All eyes turned to see a girl with gorgeous orange hair—wearing a tank top and shorts, slender and poised—step forward.
"Oh? Isn't this my precious navigator, Nami?"
Arlong sneered, staring at her.
"Take this money. Leave them be."
Nami's face was expressionless as she tossed a heavy sack from her shoulder to Arlong's feet.
One of the fish-men ripped it open. Inside were bundles of banknotes.
"You're rich, Nami!" someone jeered. "All that for these lowly humans?"
Arlong's glare cut through her like a blade.
"They've given you the money," Nami said flatly.
"Good." Arlong grinned. "For the sake of a comrade, I'll spare these two humans today."
"But while I can let their lives go, this house makes me uncomfortable."
Arlong's eyes flashed viciously. He stepped forward, plunged his hands into the earth, and, with a savage heave—
Rumble!
Under everyone's horrified stares, the whole house was uprooted.
It flew some distance and crashed apart into splinters.
"Ha ha ha ha!" Arlong roared. "See? You worthless humans—no right to resist. Pay up or die! Forever under my feet—tremble!"
The fish-men laughed and jeered; their eyes toward humans were cold and merciless. In their view, humans were inferior—trash to be dominated.
A child began to sob nearby.
Arlong's expression darkened; a ruthless gleam appeared in his eyes. Though the child's mother clamped her hand over his mouth, she couldn't stop Arlong's stride.
"You cried, kid?" Arlong snatched the child by the throat and hoisted him up.
The mother fell to her knees begging, but Arlong booted her aside.
"Nami!" Rebecca cried, shocked. Nami tried to move forward but the fish-men's hostile glares held her back.
"I hate hearing trash cry—it ruins my mood," Arlong snarled. "Perfect—today I feel like killing. You'll be my first cut."
He wound up to smash the child—
—when a huge shadow suddenly passed over the sky, blanketing the island and everyone on it.
"Huh?"
In an instant, everyone looked up. Arlong, too.
"A flying island?" someone whispered.
"What on earth is that?"
Arlong frowned. He'd sailed the East Blue for years and never heard of an island that floated—could this be one of those legendary Sky Islands?
"Boss Arlong—look! Someone's coming down!"
"They're humans! Lowly humans! Ha—how dare they appear here so brazenly? We should teach them a lesson!"
"Three women and a man—did they not realize this is our turf? They came here to die!"
The fish-men laughed as the four figures drifted down from the sky. To them, it was like fat sheep walking into a slaughter.
"Fish-men?" Whiteflame landed among the crowd with the three women at his side. He scanned them, finally fixing his gaze on Nami, who was staring him over.
"Nami, huh?" Whiteflame's eyes twinkled. "Looks like I came at the right time."
After nearly a month of sky travel, Whiteflame had at last passed the Knock-Up Stream and reached the East Blue. Flying ships were far faster than sea ships—routes that used to take months suddenly shortened.
Sky navigation had one major drawback: when storms struck, the Float-Float Fruit's power could be greatly weakened. In a severe storm, a floating island might even lose lift entirely. That was why Shiki had feared storms so much—he'd hired meteorologists the world over to guard against them.
Whiteflame had been relying on his own strength to weather storms, but having a genius navigator who could sense weather changes in her body would be ideal.
Now that opportunity had arrived—Nami, the weather-sensing prodigy, stood before him.
"Hey—lowly human, where are you looking? Can't you see your fish-man lord?" one bulky fish-man barked, stomping forward with a pugilistic grin. "Hand over everything valuable or you die—"
SPLAT!
Before he could finish, a jet of blood shot up. His head was blasted from his neck, flying off as if struck by a heavy blow.
Everything fell silent; even the air seemed frozen. The fish-man who had taunted Whiteflame now stood as a headless corpse, and behind him a towering bandage-wrapped humanoid appeared—its long, razor claws still dripping with blood.
Nobody could speak. The villagers stared like ghosts, mouths agape. In their eyes, fish-men had been invincible—hard to topple even by the Marines—yet a single strike had decapitated one.
Nami, who had been worried for Whiteflame and the others, trembled. She swallowed hard, certain she was dreaming. But when the huge bandaged creature opened its maw and began to tear into the headless body, she went white and vomited in terror.
"That monster killed our comrade—kill it!" a fish-man shouted, snapping the others from shock. They charged at the bandaged humanoid screaming.
They barely left the ground before they froze.
Then, more bandage monsters—bigger, hungrier—materialized quietly before their very eyes.
Rip! Slash! Tear!
No hesitation—these creatures used their long, lethal claws to pierce fish-men through the heart, leaving machine-gun-like sprays of holes across bodies. Or they grabbed heads and limbs, ripping them apart. Or they slammed claws down like cleavers, slicing fish-men into pieces in an instant.
It was like hell had arrived—blood and severed limbs everywhere; the island became a slaughterhouse.
The bandaged giants flowed past cowering villagers without a glance; only armed fish-men drew their claws.
The villagers lost their minds, screaming hysterically. Even Nami couldn't hold it together—she threw up and collapsed.
"Stop—stop this!"
"What are you doing—stop!"
The carnage had unfolded in a blink. Arlong, stunned, couldn't react in time. By the moment he did, his subordinates had become food for the bandage monsters.
Arlong flung the child away. Rebecca lunged and caught him safely.
"You did this, didn't you? You summoned those demons! Make them stop—do you hear me? Tell them to stop!"
Arlong's pupils slit, taking on a sea-king like glare—his enraged state that amplified his power. But whatever increase he felt, it amounted to nothing in front of Whiteflame.
"You… have the right to talk to me?" Whiteflame said, looking at Arlong with an icy stare.
That look sent a chill through Arlong. Whiteflame's apathetic, frigid gaze made the fish-man feel—like an insignificant ant beneath a boot.
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