Tibeard's nonstop trash talk stabbed straight into the usually calm Katakuri like a venom-coated knife.
The muscles around Katakuri's long-covered mouth suddenly tensed, and the cold composure in his eyes shattered, replaced instantly by a chilling rage.
"Your mouth…"
Katakuri spoke in a low, dangerous voice, like a warning from the depths of hell.
"Is too loud."
Before the final syllable even fell, he had vanished.
"Dodge!"
A G-5 officer skilled in Observation Haki shouted from behind Tibeard.
His warning was already too late.
Katakuri's figure crossed the hundred-meter gap like a ghost, appearing instantly on G-5's dock, right in front of Tibeard!
He moved so fast that even the air screamed under the pressure.
"Mochi Spear!"
His right arm transformed into mochi, stretching into a spiraling drill coated in pitch-black Armament Haki, thrusting straight toward Tibeard's face!
This strike held nothing back.
It wasn't just meant to shut that obnoxious mouth; it was meant to run his head clean through.
Death's shadow swallowed Tibeard instantly.
The arrogant color drained from his face in a heartbeat.
His pupils shrank to pinpoints.
Every hair on his body stood on end.
His mind went blank.
His Tekkai and Armament Haki, against this strike, were nothing but paper.
"Admiral, save me!!!"
In the final instant between life and death, Tibeard's survival instincts completely overwhelmed everything else.
He exploded with desperate adrenaline, scrambling away.
He practically rolled, crawled, and collapsed forward toward the lone figure standing calmly ahead.
Renzo still stood exactly where he was, unchanged, unmoved.
He looked at the pitch-black spear of death coming toward him and sighed, impatient and annoyed.
"…Sigh. You really had to make me move."
He lifted a single finger.
And lightly tapped upward at the empty air.
Just that.
A simple gesture.
The next moment,
Everything changed.
The stretch of sea between the G-5 base and the BIG MOM fleet suddenly fell completely still.
Windless.
Wave-less.
A stillness so unnatural it was suffocating.
Then, before everyone's horrified eyes, the center of that sea began to bulge upward.
Not like a tsunami.
Not like a geyser.
But like something enormous rising with reluctance… dragging itself upward from beneath the ocean.
"Th-that… what is THAT?!"
A BIG MOM pirate pointed toward the sea, trembling.
A gigantic shape, easily a hundred meters tall, formed out of pure seawater.
Its "muscles" rippled with deep currents.
Its "skin" shimmered with drifting waves.
Its eyes were two swirling abysses glowing faint blue.
A colossal giant of the sea itself… and yet its movements were sluggish, lazy,
Like an ancient god dragged unwillingly from an eternal slumber.
Renzo eyed his "creation" and lazily named the skill:
"Avatar of the Lazy Sea: Abyssal Slumber."
The moment he spoke, the watery titan, Abyssal Slumber, seemed to receive the command.
It raised one mountainous arm with extreme slowness… and even greater annoyance.
Meanwhile, Katakuri's killing strike was already inches away from Tibeard's skull.
And then-
"Hoo!!!"
A colossal fist made entirely of seawater descended from above, carrying a crushing wind pressure that blanketed the entire dock.
It wasn't fast.
In fact, it was almost slow.
But it carried the weight of the entire sea.
Katakuri's Observation Haki screamed in warning.
His expression changed sharply.
He immediately abandoned his attack, crossing his arms, Armament Haki flaring to its limit.
BOOM!!!!!!
A colossal detonation shook the entire G-5 base.
The sea giant's fist crashed into Katakuri, smashing against his hardened defense with overwhelming mass and force.
With no adhesion tricks, no mochi cushioning, just pure, unreasonably absolute power.
Katakuri's body shot backward like a hammer-struck nail.
Whoosh!
He became a dark streak over the waves, slamming straight into the hull of the Queen Mama Chanter with a deafening crack, denting the armored steel inward.
One punch.
Just one punch, and the BIG MOM Pirates Strongest Sweet Commander, Charlotte Katakuri, was sent flying.
The battlefield fell silent.
Everyone stared at the towering giant of seawater, radiating endless pressure, and their minds simply froze.
G-5 marines forgot to cheer.
Perospero dropped his candy cane.
Even BIG MOM herself froze mid-rage, her expression twisting into shock, fear, and desire.
A Devil Fruit user… controlling the sea itself?
It shattered everything they believed about how the world worked.
On the dock, Tibeard peeked out from behind Renzo, tears of survival and admiration streaming from his eyes.
Renzo took a sip of the tea Monet handed him, sounding utterly done with all of this.
"So loud…"
"Can't you all just be quiet already?"
His voice was soft.
But it exploded like thunder in everyone's hearts.
Quiet?
How could anyone possibly be quiet?!
On the Queen Mama Chanter, Katakuri staggered upright, wiping blood from his lips.
A look of bewildered fear, one he had never shown, filled his eyes.
He stared at his numbed arms… then at the man standing on the docks.
'This man… was a monster.'
'A monster equal to Mama, to Kaido, to Whitebeard, perhaps even more bizarre and more impossible in some ways.'
"Haiiroyo… Renzo…"
BIG MOM spoke the name slowly, every syllable heavy.
Her eyes no longer held only hunger and fury, but dread, greed, and a dangerous flicker of excitement.
"An ability that can control the sea… mama mama~~~ If someone like that joined my collection-"
Before she could finish, Renzo's frown deepened.
The thing he hated most was people babbling nonsense he didn't care about.
More annoying than noise.
"I told you," Renzo said coldly, voice carrying a command like law.
"Be quiet. Didn't you hear me?"
At that moment, the Abyssal Slumber moved again.
Its swirling vortex eyes turned toward BIG MOM's flagship.
It lifted its massive hand, but this time, not a fist.
A palm.
And in that palm, seawater surged and compressed violently, forming a gigantic, rapidly spinning sphere of water over a hundred meters wide.
Inside it, deep blue lightning flickered.
Renzo lazily named the next move:
"Oversized Lazy Rice Dumpling."
He snapped his fingers.
The sea titan thrust its palm forward.
The condensed wrath of the ocean hurtled toward the Queen Mama Chanter,
slow in appearance, yet impossibly fast to evade.
.....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
[email protected]/DaoistJinzu