"Alright, the show's almost over."
"I've had my fun."
"It's time to end this."
Renzo's lazy voice should have been insignificant amidst the thunder of cannons and the roaring clash of lightning and fire, yet in this moment, it carried a strange, undeniable power.
It pierced through all noise, all chaos, engraving itself clearly onto everyone's eardrums.
He slowly raised his hand, pointing lightly toward the battlefield, a chaotic tapestry worthy of being etched into history, where a Yonko and a Marine Admiral clashed head-on.
[Sloth's Decree]
Silence.
No earth-shaking shockwave.
No blinding light tearing the sky apart.
Just a single concept.
A single will.
A single, absolute rule, like a divine edict from the dawn of creation, descending instantaneously over the entire G-5 sea.
Time itself seemed to have its throat brutally seized.
"Mama~~MAMA!!!"
Charlotte Linlin's thunderous roar, powerful enough to overturn the world, was cut off mid-sound.
Her crazed expression froze on her face.
Napoleon, fused with lightning and fire and raised high for a killing strike, stopped completely, as if someone had pressed pause on an enraged giant goddess.
Prometheus and Zeus, swirling beside her, stopped mid-movement.
Their blazing flames and crackling lightning halted in place, turning into vivid, unmoving, glass-like colors.
On the other side, Kizaru had also frozen in midair.
He had just begun to shift into his elemental form, his body caught between human shape and pure golden photons.
Half flesh, half brilliant light.
Countless particles were suspended weirdly around him, no longer flickering or moving, both absurd and terrifying to behold.
Katakuri's expression was frozen at the exact moment of shock and disbelief.
He had foreseen danger and was just about to dodge Kizaru's laser.
But his body, along with his foresight, was frozen within that same second, forever locked in time.
The sea, whose waves had risen like towers from the intense battle, now floated impossibly in the air.
The white foam at the crest of each wave was perfectly clear.
It looked like a massive surrealist sculpture carved into the world.
Explosions continued burning, but without sound, without flicker, without movement.
The arcs of cannonballs, the brilliant trails of lasers, the sparks of clashing weapons.
Everything had become a grand, eerie silent tableau.
The entire world fell into a full thirty seconds of absolute, suffocating stillness.
And within this deathly quiet…
Only two people retained their thoughts.
"…Here we go again…"
Kizaru sighed helplessly in his mind.
He knew this sensation all too well.
The last time he experienced it was during the Marineford War, Renzo's technique, Heaven of Sloth, which slowed the entire battlefield to a crawl.
But this time… it was completely different.
Heaven of Sloth was "slow", a suffocating lethargy, making every movement feel troublesome, discouraging action.
But this was "still."
An unreasonable, absolute command.
He could even feel the photons making up his body, "too lazy" to move, as if even the laws of physics had been forcibly told to take a day off.
"This… he's getting more and more ridiculous…"
Kizaru grumbled in his heart.
"And holding this pose for so long… ugh, my back hurts… I'll need Sanjin to make me medicine when we get back…"
Nearby, Sanji, also frozen, was mentally screaming.
He was stuck mid-pose, about to dash forward and kick a few small fry with his Diable Jambe.
Yet now he looked like a wax figure.
"That damn lazy bastard… always pulling stunts like this…"
He cursed internally.
"Can't he solve problems quietly? Does he really have to freeze the whole world just to make a point?"
Unlike these two, who were "used to it," the members of the Big Mom Pirates were drowning in pure terror.
Katakuri's mind was blank.
He could only watch, helplessly, unable to move a single muscle.
The sensation was worse than death.
Perospero, Smoothie, Cracker…
These mighty warriors of the New World were reduced to helpless insects caught in a web, stripped even of the right to twitch a finger.
Only then did they finally understand what the G-5 officer Tibeard meant when he bragged:
"Our Admiral's morning temper is a strategic-level weapon."
'Maybe… it hadn't been a joke.'
Thirty seconds, long enough to feel like a century.
When the invisible rule suppressing everything finally receded like a withdrawing tide-
BOOOOOOM!!!!
Sound returned to the world in explosive retaliation!
The suspended mega-waves crashed down.
Frozen flames resumed their violent bloom.
Stalled lasers and cannonballs completed their deadly paths.
Big Mom's lightning-fire sword attack, having lost its target the instant the world resumed, as Kizaru had blinked away immediately, crashed down onto the empty sea with terrifying force, splitting open a gouge in the ocean!
Plop!Ow!Aaaah!
Countless pirates and Marines regained movement all at once, failed to adapt, and collapsed into a chaotic heap.
The battlefield was even more chaotic than before, but now held a dazed numbness of survivors returned from the brink.
Every gaze unconsciously turned toward the man responsible for all this.
Renzo still stood at the bow of the Endless Sheep, holding another cup of tea, in the exact same position as before.
He lightly blew nonexistent dust off the cup and, under the stunned stares of everyone, said the sentence that almost made the Big Mom Pirates cough blood on the spot:
"Mm. Much quieter now."
He nodded in satisfaction, then turned to Monet and Sanji.
"The tea's a little cold. Bring me a fresh cup. Sanji, I want seafood gratin tonight, extra cheese."
Ignored.
Completely, utterly ignored.
As if the massive fleet led by a Yonko, powerful enough to topple nations, were nothing more than noisy neighbors interrupting his afternoon tea.
"You… you bastard…!!!"
Big Mom's whole body trembled with murderous rage, her blood-red eyes locked on Renzo's back, wishing nothing more than to devour him alive.
But she didn't move.
Those thirty seconds of absolute stillness had carved themselves into her soul.
In her decades ruling the sea, she had never experienced such total helplessness.
She knew, if that man wished, he could turn her and her fleet back into lifeless statues at any moment.
Katakuri appeared beside her, shaking his head, gentle but heavy with meaning.
The rest of the Big Mom Pirates didn't even dare breathe too loudly.
They looked upon Renzo as one might look upon a colossal, unknowable mountain, one they could never hope to overcome.
Moments ago, they had been full of pride.
Now, nothing remained of it.
They had no doubt that if they made even a hint of unnecessary noise, that man would silence them forever.
"Yaaa~"
Kizaru drifted lazily over, rubbing his stiff shoulder.
"Admiral Renzo, next time you plan to use that move… could you give me a warning first~? I can't handle much more of that~"
Sanji lit a new cigarette and inhaled deeply, the smoke ring trembling slightly.
"That bastard…" he muttered. "He's getting way too good at ordering people around…"
At the G-5 docks, Tibeard and his subordinates, after a few seconds of stunned silence, erupted in another wave of hysterical cheers.
"You saw that?! THAT is our admiral's power!"
"Told you not to make noise! Told you not to jump around! Now you know!"
"Our admiral just wanted to quietly enjoy a cup of tea! You pirates really don't know when to shut up!"
In this bizarre atmosphere, woven from fear and fanatic admiration, Renzo's lazy voice rose once more, drawing a final line under this entire farce:
"So… shall we continue?"
.....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
[email protected]/DaoistJinzu