Marine Calendar 1521, June 1st.
The border between the Grand Line and the South Blue, the Calm Belt.
“Crack—boom!”
Half a mast wrapped in canvas suddenly snapped in the middle, the sharp break tearing a large hole in the sail, slamming heavily onto the deck and shaking the entire ship three times.
Baccarat, standing 2.5 meters tall, stood there holding the broken mast, at a loss; she had originally just wanted to lift her hand to adjust the sail rope, who knew she wouldn’t control her strength and just snapped it off.
“Don’t worry about it.”
Lucas leaned against the cockpit door frame, the corner of his mouth twitching, “A steamship doesn’t rely on sails to move.
Instead of tearing the ship apart here, you might as well go to the side and lift your barbell.”
Today was the thirty-seventh day since they left the resort island.
This ship had been “procured at a high price of zero” from a group of human traffickers before they set off, and Lucas had already learned the ropes of operating a steamship during their journey.
Their destination for this trip was the South Blue.
The last Devil Fruit Lucas was targeting was hidden on an island in the South Blue.
Ordinary sailboats couldn’t enter the Calm Belt, so this steamship was just right.
The transformation of the human body by life energy was even more brutal and overbearing than he had expected.
After staying together for just over a month, Baccarat’s height had shot up to 2.5 meters, while Lucas himself was only three meters tall.
Even more outrageous than her height was her strength.
This act of snapping a mast with her bare hands was at least at the level of Luffy from the East Blue.
Baccarat had no talent for combat and had extremely poor control over her skyrocketing strength, so tearing things apart in daily life was a common occurrence.
But this wasn’t really a problem.
When the value of strength reaches a certain level, technique becomes an optional embellishment.
Even if she closed her eyes and threw punches blindly, she could still beat most pirates wandering in the Four Blues to death.
Fortunately, the growth momentum had finally slowed down.
Starting three days ago, the strengthening effect of the life energy had entered a plateau, and there was no longer the exaggerated momentum of growing several centimeters a day as in the beginning.
Lucas breathed a sigh of relief at this.
This was normal.
If it kept growing at this speed, in another half a year he would have to harvest an acquired mutant female giant, and that scene would be a bit horrifying.
By the ship’s rail, Baccarat was doing presses with a barbell as tall as a person, without even blushing or panting.
On the calm, mirror-like sea surface, a huge shadow suddenly rose silently.
She just glanced at it, then withdrew her gaze and continued her presses.
They hadn’t just entered the Calm Belt yesterday or today; she had long since become accustomed to such scenes.
“[10 Million Volts · Discharge]”
A mass of blood-red plasma erupted from Lucas’s palm, the electric light spreading instantly along the seawater and precisely drilling into the body of the shadow.
The lightning, infused with externalized Armament Haki, easily pierced the Sea King’s rough and thick skin, rampaging along its nerves and roasting its internal organs to a crisp.
“Splash!”
The sea surface exploded.
A 100-meter-long Sea King that looked like a giant eagle floated up, belly up, with wisps of black smoke rising from its body; it was dead as could be.
In the seas of this world, marine mammals like sea dogs and whales are called Sea Beasts; only non-mammals are called Sea Kings.
Lucas raised his hand, and the churning sea of blood spread from under his feet, instantly covering a small part of the deck.
A giant arm made of solidified blood stretched out from the sea of blood, spanned dozens of meters of sea surface, grabbed the Sea King’s corpse, and lifted it into the air.
At the same time, dozens of blood blades wrapped in Armament Haki popped out from the sea of blood, crisscrossing in the air.
The sea of blood quickly receded, seeping into the gaps in the deck and disappearing.
The Sea King meat, neatly cut into dozens of pieces, slammed onto the deck like dumplings being dropped, each piece uniform in size.
Baccarat walked over with a frown, looking at the bloody meat with disdain: “Dear, you cut it so small, it’s hard for me to process.”
“It’s better than me having to carry it up.”
Lucas spread his hands.
He could actually use Moonwalk to go down and carry it, but he didn’t want to do that.
The Vampire Fruit allowed him to survive by sucking blood and life energy, but he still retained the habit of three meals a day.
He didn’t want to make himself look more and more like a real monster; at least when it came to eating, he still wanted to be a person.
The sunset slanted west, and the sky was dyed a cold, pale orange.
In the ship’s cabin restaurant, the lights were warm yellow.
On the table were two sets of tableware, one side with golden pan-fried Sea King meat, and the other with stir-fried vegetables.
The two sat opposite each other, eating dinner quietly like the most ordinary couple.
Lucas put a chopstick of greens into her bowl and asked casually: “Speaking of which, I haven’t asked you yet, how did you happen to be in the casino that day?”
Baccarat took a mouthful of rice, chewed, and then spoke: “That day I had just barely managed to control the Lucky Lucky Fruit and originally wanted to go to the casino to make some starting capital.”
“As a result, as soon as I arrived, I heard the locals say that several people who had won big money before had disappeared for no reason.”
“I was hesitating whether to leave, and you came over to talk to me.”
She raised her head, her eyes filled with a bit of amusement: “If I hadn’t met you, I might have been blinded by greed and fallen in one day, not to mention being caught, I don’t know what kind of suffering I would have had to endure.”
“You say, since you appeared exactly at that time, could it be that you were also favored by my luck?”
Lucas was stunned for a moment, then laughed dumbly.
The two looked at each other and smiled, tender affection filling the whole room.