Crack!
Following Lorne's airy question, a crisp cracking sound exploded in Mr.5's ears.
Immediately, a bone-chilling cold rushed wildly from the palm in contact with the back of his neck, traveling down his spinal nerves. Wherever it passed, his blood instantly congealed, his muscles stiffened, and his thoughts suffered a momentary lapse.
"Urgh... Ah..."
Indecipherable gargling sounds came from Mr.5's throat. He wanted to struggle, wanted to detonate his own body to blow this reckless man behind him into smithereens.
This was his most prideful technique as a user of the Bomb-Bomb devil fruit—Full-Body Explosion—and as a fruit user, he was perfectly immune to explosion attacks.
However, the invading frost had almost completely eroded his nerves and thoughts, forcibly blocking his intentions, making it impossible for him to trigger even the slightest explosive reaction.
"What... is... happening? Why... is... there... no... reaction?"
Fear instantly overwhelmed his reason. His prideful power...
Lorne's heart was without ripples; he even felt like yawning.
"He doesn't even know Haki, yet thinks he's invincible just because he ate a devil fruit. How utterly ridiculous!"
"If he had eaten a Logia-type devil fruit, there might have been a slim chance for him to escape!"
"Idiot!"
Lorne gave a disgusted evaluation, then gently pushed with the palm covering Mr.5's neck.
He couldn't even be bothered to take another look, merely dusting off his hands with distaste, as if he had touched something filthy.
Just then, the cold that had been lurking within his body completely erupted.
"Crack! Crack, crack, crack!"
Crystal-clear ice spread wildly from the back of his neck across his entire body—first his neck, then his shoulders, chest, waist, abdomen, and legs... all covered by thick, solid ice within a second.
He was completely sealed inside a crystal-clear ice coffin. Even the hideous, terrified expression on his face was perfectly replicated, turning him into a lifelike ice sculpture.
Boom!
The heavy block of ice slammed onto the street in the distance, emitting a loud crash. The ice coffin cracked with spiderweb-like fissures, and then, along with the Mr.5 inside, it shattered into a pile of debris.
The entire Whiskey Peak fell into a state of stillness at that moment. All the bounty hunters who were fleeing, hiding, or spying stood frozen in place.
They gaped, their eyes nearly popping out of their sockets, staring fixedly at the pile of ice shards, feeling as if their hearts were being gripped by someone.
One move...
Just one move!
The Baroque Works High-Rank Agent, Mr.5, was just... gone?
"Gulp."
Someone swallowed hard; the sound was exceptionally jarring in the deathly silence.
"I... I told you... that's a monster..."
The Billionaire Elder who had issued the warning at the beginning collapsed on the ground, his face ashen, lips trembling, unable to even utter a complete sentence.
Fear spread rapidly like a plague, as if it had transformed into a tangible beast, swallowing everyone's courage and hope in one gulp.
On the second-floor platform of the cactus building, the atmosphere was frozen to the extreme.
The smile on Miss Valentine's pretty face completely froze. The delicate yellow and blue striped parasol in her hand hit the ground with a "clatter," rolled a few times, and stopped at her feet.
Her small mouth was slightly agape, her light green pupils contracting violently, reflecting the excessively calm man below, as well as that pile of shards radiating a bone-chilling cold in the distance.
"How... is it possible?"
"That's Mr.5! A powerful ability user who ate the Bomb-Bomb devil fruit, her partner! He couldn't even last a single encounter?"
She didn't even see how the opponent attacked!
The man just vanished for a moment, then appeared behind Mr.5, and then... everything was over.
A shudder originating from the depths of her soul made her limbs go cold. The confidence she had always held in her own strength and the pride in her status as a High-Rank Agent were shattered at this moment.
She finally understood that the fear felt by the Billionaire Elder and those guys downstairs was not cowardice, but the most genuine survival instinct.
The guy they were facing was simply not a creature of the same dimension as them!
Lorne then gently dusted off the non-existent dust on his sleeves.
"Good grief, forcing me to take action."
He was quite annoyed; he could have quietly waited for the log pose to store magnetic power, but now it seemed trouble wouldn't just disappear on its own.
It would even come knocking on his door.
He looked up, his calm gaze passing over the chaotic crowd, landing precisely on the blonde girl on the second-floor platform, whose face had gone pale with fright.
Being stared at by those calm, unruffled eyes, Miss Valentine shuddered, a chill rushing from the soles of her feet straight to her crown.
She felt as if she had been targeted by an ancient beast, though there was no murderous intent in the other party's eyes, only pure indifference.
Run! Must run immediately!
This thought screamed wildly in her mind.
Whatever dignity of a High-Rank Agent, whatever revenge for her partner, she cast them all to the back of her mind for the time being.
In the face of an absolute death threat, surviving was the only choice!
"Ya-ha-ha-ha..."
Miss Valentine let out a laugh that sounded worse than crying. She snatched up the parasol from the ground, her body instantly becoming light, and she prepared to fly off with the wind.
However, just as she left the ground by half a meter, that indifferent voice drifted up from below.
"Did I let you leave?"
Before the words fell, Miss Valentine discovered in terror that the air temperature around her had suddenly plummeted. Countless fine ice crystals condensed out of thin air, forming a gorgeous yet deadly storm of ice dust.
Those ice crystals looked beautiful but were incredibly sharp, circling and dancing around her light body, cutting through the air with a "swishing" sound.
She did not doubt for a second that if she dared to move even a fraction more, these ice crystals would instantly slice her into a pile of minced meat.
Her body froze in mid-air, unable to go up or come down, her face deathly pale without a trace of blood.
"What... what exactly do you want?"
Her voice carried uncontrollable trembling.
Lorne did not answer immediately; he strode forward, walking unhurriedly toward the cactus building.
Seeing him approach, the surrounding bounty hunters exploded into chaos, letting out terrified screams, scrambling to retreat to both sides, and voluntarily clearing a path for him.
Lorne ignored these small fries and walked straight to the base of the building. Only then did he look up again, watching the woman in mid-air who was caught in a dilemma.
"I was just passing through; I intended to wait for the log pose to store magnetic power and then leave."
"It was you who insisted on jumping out and disturbing my peace, right?!"
Lorne's tone was very calm, yet it made Miss Valentine feel pressure like a collapsing mountain or a tsunami.
"I... we were wrong! Please, sir, have mercy... have mercy and let me go!"
She completely abandoned all dignity and began to beg bitterly. At this moment, she truly regretted it so much that her guts were turning green!
"Let you go?" Lorne tilted his head. "That's not impossible."
A glimmer of hope instantly burst forth in Miss Valentine's eyes.
"However, I hate trouble." Lorne changed the subject. "To avoid having other blind fools come bother me in the future, I think it's better to cut weeds at the roots."
Lorne looked at Miss Valentine in mid-air and spoke with a smile.
"Do you know where Crocodile is?"
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