All things returned to stillness.
Renzo's words, fell like a divine command, establishing the supreme rule of this space.
[Kingdom of Sloth].
Within this gray domain, every concept of action or change was forcibly overwritten with the attribute of "laziness."
Their minds were screaming, demanding their bodies to run, but their muscles, bones, even their blood fundamentally refused to move.
Moving even a little… Ugh, what a hassle.
Better to just… not.
This "slothful" will wasn't limited to the port.
On the other end of the city, several blocks away, atop a clock tower, three other figures were frozen by that same invisible law the instant it descended.
Shiryu of the Rain, locked in the motion of wiping his famed blade.
Lafitte, leaning elegantly on his cane, frozen mid–gaze toward the harbor.
Doc Q, slumped weakly on the ground, along with his half-dead horse Stronger, both caught in the very moment before collapsing.
They were supposed to be the perimeter guards, watching and enjoying this "revenge play."
But the moment this domain dropped, so heavy, so lethargic it made even their souls tired, their minds were consumed by a single terrifying realization.
"This feeling… no mistake about it!" Shiryu's pupils shrank in fear.
"It's the one from Marineford…" Cold sweat beaded on Lafitte's brow, too "lazy" to fall.
"Haiiroyo… he's here!" Doc Q's thoughts roared.
Every one of them, the four in the harbor, the three on the clocktower, all recalled with sickening clarity the nightmare from Marineford…
How this man, using this very power, erased their great captain's arms in front of the entire world.
Terror detonated in the hearts of every Blackbeard officer.
In this kingdom where all things were frozen, only two beings were "exceptions."
One, the domain's master, Renzo.
The other, a golden streak that had just sliced through the sky and arrived.
"Oya oya…"
Kizaru materialized behind Renzo.
The moment he landed, he felt the chilling absolute stillness.
He saw the four Blackbeard officers frozen mid-run, like mosquitoes trapped in amber.
He sensed the powerful, familiar auras on the distant clock tower, also frozen.
He saw Ain lying unconscious in a pool of blood, and the heavily injured Rehn and Monet.
Then his gaze fell on Renzo's back.
And he understood instantly, Renzo had deliberately excluded him from the domain.
"What a… terrifying ability."
Kizaru pushed up his sunglasses, speaking without his usual sleazy tone.
Renzo didn't turn around.
His icy blue eyes remained locked on the one who had tried to flee,
the one who had crushed Ain and the others:
Jesus Burgess.
Renzo walked toward him, unhurried.
In this silent world, his relaxed footsteps became the only movement, and to Burgess, each step was a countdown to annihilation.
"U…Uuu…"
Burgess tried to beg, but he couldn't.
He could only watch as the grim reaper approached him.
"You…"
Renzo spoke, softly, yet in this utter quiet it sounded like a voice from the abyss:
"With this hand… you hurt her?"
He extended a single finger toward Burgess' right arm, still frozen mid "Shockwave Elbow."
Burgess's terror peaked.
Renzo hadn't even touched him.
"Being an arm… must be tiring, right?" Renzo murmured. "Always exerting force… such a hassle."
"In that case-"
"You don't need to be one."
With those words-
A grotesque scene unfolded.
Burgess' thick, powerful right arm didn't explode or burn away,
it simply vanished from the shoulder down.
As if it had become "too lazy" to continue existing, and chose oblivion.
"AAAAAHHHH-!!!"
Burgess screamed silently in his soul.
There was no pain, only a primal, mind-breaking terror as a piece of his being was erased by law itself.
"And this hand too."
Renzo's gaze shifted to the left arm.
"Disappear."
It vanished.
"Standing on these legs must be troublesome too, right?"
Renzo looked down.
"Rest."
"No!!!"
Both of Burgess's massive legs vanished cleanly from the thighs.
THUD.
His enormous body collapsed like a sack of meat.
Only then did Renzo "grant" him the ability to scream again.
"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH-!!!"
The shriek, inhuman and ragged, tore through the silent harbor.
Burgess writhed like a severed maggot, staring at the empty spaces where his limbs had been.
After Edward Weevil, the sea now had its second "human swine", crafted by Renzo's own hand.
"Oya oya… quite a cruel method," Kizaru commented lightly.
Ignoring Burgess's screaming, Renzo turned his cold gaze toward the other three frozen captains, Van Augur, Catarina Devon, Avalo Pizarro.
Then he glanced toward the distant clocktower.
"Kizaru," Renzo said.
"Yes, Renzo."
"They're too noisy." Renzo gestured to Burgess, then to the other frozen pirates. "These insects… are an eyesore."
Kizaru understood instantly.
"Understood."
His smile sharpened.
"Cleanup work is my specialty."
In the next instant, he became golden light.
"Light-Speed Kick!"
BOOM!
He appeared before Van Augur first.
Augur was still frozen mid-run.
Kizaru's blazing foot sank into his chest, sending him flying into a shattered wall.
"Second."
Flash.
"Light-Speed Kick!"
Crrrack!
Catarina Devon's ribs shattered as she was launched sideways, fate unknown.
"Third."
"Light-Speed Kick!"
Pizarro's massive jaw took the hit, his huge body thrown into the air before crashing down in a plume of dust.
"Three left…"
A bent line of golden light streaked across rooftops, Kizaru reached the clocktower.
Shiryu, Lafitte, and Doc Q were still mentally frozen in fear of Renzo.
"Admiral Kizaru…!" was their final thought.
"Light-Speed Kick!"
BANG! Shiryu's stomach caved as he dropped his sword.
BANG! Lafitte's chest shattered as his tailored suit ripped apart.
BANG! Doc Q and Stronger were kicked off the tower entirely.
Then, all across the hellish city of Patnia, the one-sided "cleanup" began.
The frozen pirates, still smiling hideously, blades raised mid-slaughter, never even realized how they died.
"Yasakani no Magatama!"
Countless golden bullets pierced every immobilized pirate.
"Light-speed kick!"
"Kicking, kicking, kicking…"
It was a massacre.
A clean, efficient extermination performed by a Marine Admiral.
Under the absolute stillness of the Slothful Kingdom, they couldn't resist.
They couldn't even comprehend their deaths.
In under thirty seconds-
Kizaru reappeared in the harbor, as if he had never left.
"Cleanup complete."
He shrugged. "Not a single one left. So tiring, really."
The port fell into eerie quiet again,
broken only by Burgess's weakening groans of pain and terror.
Renzo nodded.
He didn't spare the Blackbeard officers a single glance.
Instead, he walked straight toward the blood-soaked, unconscious Ain and the others.
.....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
[email protected]/DaoistJinzu