Chapter 1639 Elder Battle with the Centipede
Bonnie's heart sank. She and her father had never encountered such a terrifying, illogical monster.
She was certain that this was the first time in her life she had ever seen such a huge centipede, exuding a cold, metallic, and malevolent aura.
This is by no means a creation of nature, but more like a weapon meticulously crafted for destruction. Even for a Zoan-type Devil Fruit user without ability power, its size is far too large.
The Sky Island natives' desperate ranged attacks landed on the centipede's carapace like raindrops hitting steel, producing only negligible sparks and having no other effect.
The monster didn't even bother with the attacks; its entire attention seemed to be focused on the direction of the Merry and on the pink-haired girl.
“Father…” Bo
Ni's voice was soft, with a slight, almost imperceptible tremor, but more than anything, it held a resolute quality. She turned her head.
Looking at Bartholomew Kuma, who sat there like a silent mountain behind him, his father's eyes were lifeless, and his modified face showed no emotion.
But Bonnie knew that her father's deep love for her had long transcended the constraints of mechanical modification and was engraved in the deepest part of her soul.
Even though he could not speak or express himself, he could understand his daughter's wishes and commands most accurately.
“Father, can you make that giant centipede stop?” Bonnie looked at her father, her voice pleading.
"It would be best to send it flying off the sky island. I don't want these kind-hearted indigenous people to be injured or even lose their homes because of us."
She reached out and gently stroked her father's broad, yet cold and hard belly—the father who had raised her from childhood and given her a warm embrace.
She couldn't bear to see the Sky Islanders who had shown her kindness and taken them in suffer loss of life and weep in despair because of her arrival.
"Go, Father..."
At the daughter's calm yet weighty command, the bear, which had been sitting as still as a mountain, moved without warning.
He slowly raised his signature fleshy hand and casually touched the air behind him.
With a barely audible sound, the bear's massive body vanished from the deck of the Merry in an instant.
Only a blurry afterimage remained in the air, followed by a sharp whistling sound as the air was suddenly released after being compressed to its extreme.
He compressed air and propelled himself forward at a speed beyond the limits of visual perception, crashing violently into the distant, pitch-black giant shadow that was twisting wildly among the sea of clouds.
"Back off! Everyone back off! Get away from that area!" Gan Fall immediately warned from the air.
He had heard of the infamous Bartholomew Bear and knew all too well how terrifying the aftershocks of a battle of this magnitude could be.
Upon hearing this, the Sky Island warriors hurriedly piloted their Wavera or Jetpacks to retreat to a more distant location.
At the same time, Gan Fall did not hesitate for a moment and ordered the elite soldiers beside him: "You guys, go to the Going Merry immediately and protect that girl named Bonnie. No matter what the enemy wants to do to her, make sure she's safe first!"
What is truly touching is that even as their homes were being destroyed by those terrifying centipedes, and even as their hearts were filled with fear, these Sky Island warriors did not show any resentment towards Bonnie upon hearing the order. Instead, they quickly took action and moved closer to the Merry.
Through their brief time together and the bits and pieces of information they had heard from the heavens, they knew more or less that the father and daughter were people with tragic fates.
On this cruel sea, kind people are rarely treated gently.
Just as the bear, accompanied by a sonic boom cloud, crashed heavily in front of the area ravaged by the centipede, the giant centipede that had been churning in the sea of clouds seemed to sense the arrival of a powerful enemy that could threaten its existence, and suddenly raised its head from the churning clouds.
What a bizarre and terrifying head it was.
It was even several times larger than the Tyrant Bear, but instead of ferocious mouthparts or compound eyes, it had a human face covered with deep wrinkles, aged and withered.
A face belonging to an old man in his twilight years has been grafted onto the head of such a huge and evil centipede.
On this face, a pair of cloudy eyes indifferently looked down at the large bear that had suddenly appeared below.
Elder Centipede stopped writhing and destroying, its massive body momentarily frozen as it stared at the former Shichibukai who dared to stand alone in its way.
On the old man's face, his lips slowly parted, "Tyrant Bear, join us and let's make this world a better place."
The only response it received was silence.
Big Bear, like the most sophisticated machine, remained completely unmoved by these tempting words.
He simply raised his hands calmly and slowly brought them together in front of his chest.
Between the two fleshy balls facing each other, the air began to twist and compress wildly, and a transparent bear paw-shaped air bubble, visible to the naked eye and constantly fusing inward, was forming at an astonishing speed.
"I forgot that you can't speak right now..."
The centipede elder's face was expressionless, but a hint of understanding, or perhaps pity, seemed to flash in his cloudy eyes.
"boom--!!!"
Before he could finish speaking, the bear suddenly pushed forward with both paws!
The compressed, bear-paw-shaped air bubble, like an air cannon fired from its barrel, silently and swiftly tore through the line of sight, precisely imprinting itself on the center of Elder Centipede's enormous old face.
The moment they made contact, the heavens and the earth shattered.
All the energy that had been compressed to its limit was released without reservation at this moment.
The shockwave, terrifying beyond description, expanded wildly in all directions in a spherical shape and exploded!
That wasn't flame, it wasn't an explosion, but the purest, most violent air impact and pressure release.
The centipede elder's enormous old face was instantly contorted by the shockwave that distorted space, his features squashed together, his expression twisted to an extreme degree, and he let out a muffled groan of pain that was not human.
Its massive body, stretching for several kilometers, was forcibly lifted from the sea of clouds by the terrifying force of this single burst, as if it had been slapped hard by the palm of an invisible giant god, and was irresistibly tumbled and thrown backward.
The shockwave's aftershocks instantly vaporized the surrounding sea of clouds, the shattered building remains, and even the solid island cloud ground below, creating a huge, bowl-shaped crater.
"hiss--!"
All the Sky Islanders watching from afar, including Gan Fall, couldn't help but gasp, their hair standing on end.
What kind of monstrous power is this?!
The power of that single strike was so immense that the steel centipede that had driven them to despair was actually blasted away with a single blow!
Gan Fall rode Pierre, circling in the air, his gaze fixed on the direction where Elder Centipede had been blasted away, and the area that had been completely cleared.
His face was filled with shock and disbelief: "It was over in one move?"
"Yay, that's great, Dad!"
When Bonnie saw this on the Going Merry, she couldn't help but jump up, waving her little fists and beaming with a bright smile, feeling incredibly proud of her powerful father.
"We'll definitely blow that ugly freak to smithereens!"
It's unclear which force wants to capture them; most established pirate crews probably have no interest in the father and daughter.
The Navy is currently engaged in the Marineford War and is preoccupied with its own affairs, making it unlikely that it would be able to spare such a strange and powerful force to the Sky Island.
The Knights of God, directly under the World Government, have appeared before. Given their modus operandi, it's highly unlikely they will conduct a second targeted capture operation anytime soon.
Where did that giant centipede that could speak come from?
