Chapter 46

Carmen, floating in the air with her flames filling the whole sky, held her right hand up towards Kazu, who was rapidly flying straight to her. At her command, the purple flame that filled the whole sky swirled and converged in front of Carmen's extended hand, forming a dense purple-coloured orb of fire, which intensely burned the air around and generated intolerable heat, to an extent where the ocean beneath her began to boil.

At the next moment, reaching right in front of Carmen, Kazu unsheathed his sword in a blinding speed, in an attempt to dispel Carmen's attack. However, right at that moment,

"Helios." Carmen stated as the dense orb of fire blasted right in front of Kazu. Gritting his teeth, Kazu used all his strength to deflect the dense orb of fire upwards.

However, it blasted at a very high temperature, to an extent where Kazu's sword instantly heated up so high that Kazu's hand couldn't help but release the sword, causing it to fall to the sea.

Now standing defenceless against Carmen's attack, Kazu's eyes lost a gleam as he faced the dense orb of fire in front of him, and immediately after, the orb of fire passed through him, completely disintegrating him into dusts in less than a second.

"RETREAT!!! RETREAT IMMEDIATELY!!!!!!!" Witnessing the fire orb, that destroyed Commodore Kazu without a chance to retaliate, the marine officers cried out in panic as it continued to travel towards them. But to no avail, the ships couldn't defeat the blinding speed that the fire orb travelled at.

Sweating profusely, the marine officers jumped up from their ships to block Carmen's attack together as the last resort. In total, twelve of them gathered in the centre of the impact, and took out their swords and held in their fronts. However, the attempt proved to be futile; they couldn't prevent the fire orb from advancing for even a second, but met with a fate as same as Kazu.

*BOOOOOOOM* The whole sea at which the orb impacted on shook and exploded. Thrown between the chaotic mix of boiling water, hot steam, fire, and waves, the nine marine ships nearby sank instantly. Additionally, the surrounding four marine ships suffered major damages, such as losing the sailing masts, the hulls and frames melted and/or broken, the outer layers completely wrecked, and the marine soldiers falling and being burnt in the boiling sea.

Wobbly floating still, the fire and intense heat from Carmen disappeared before minimum intensity of fire remained at the soles of her feet, to keep her afloat.

'Remind me not to anger Carmen, ever.' Dan swore in his mind as he assessed how much casualties the marines suffered. 'That being said, well done Carmen.'

Dan lit up the fuses of cannons once more.

*BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* The cannonballs flew to the damaged marine ships, before completely wrecking the four remaining ships into ruins.

As one marine ship was sinking, one marine soldier was shaking in fear as his gaze didn't leave Carmen. "T-this has to be a dream, right? Yes, a dream. It's got to be." That was his last word before the whole ship sank into the boiling water.

Slowly flying, Carmen eventually reached Prominence, which was situated at some distance away from the chaos.

"Carmen, you did it! To think it was possible for one person to wipe out the whole base..." Dan exclaimed his amazement, but before he could continue, Carmen fell down on the deck with a thud, unconscious.

______________

*Swoosh* *BOOM* *Swoosh* The blurry images of Rowan and Baten appeared in one site after the other as the two continued their extremely fast-paced combat.

*BOOM* *BOOM* Using the bounce force twice consecutively on his feet, Rowan blasted with an exploding speed.

'By continuously bouncing around with the minimal loss of momentum, I can accelerate indefinitely, as long as my body can handle. Issue is," Rowan thought as he and Baten continued to blur around the hall.

"Tekkai."

*BOOM* Rowan and Baten's fists connected in midair before they disappeared from once again. Immediately after, they were seen to have another collision in different location.

'He's keep on interrupting my momentum. His precision is quite insane.' Rowan quickly bounced sideways to dodge Baten's Shigan, before quickly jabbing forward.

"Kami-e: Weightless." Baten called out as Rowan's bounce force collided onto Baten's body. However, Baten flew back without sustaining any damage, before disappearing in a blindly fast Soru once again.

'And that skill, he somehow reduces his weight to such an extent where a slight force can push him back. My bounce cannot injure him without any object behind to prevent him from launching back.'

"Lesser, lesser, lesser." Appearing at the ceiling, Baten swiftly moved through the hall while holding his hands up, which caused the ceiling to wobble and fall onto Rowan as pieces.

*BOOM* Rowan blasted off the pieces away from him before propelling him towards Baten, who instantly dashed away towards the sky. Now on top of the sky, Baten glared at Rowan before falling towards the latter with his finger outstretched.

"Shigan: Kunren (Drill)." Baten rapidly spun around while propelling himself downwards by using Geppo. Rowan simultaneously propelled himself up with his left fist cocked back.

"Bounce... fake!" Rowan's fist suddenly turned into a palm and blasted a bounce force in sideways, causing Rowan's position to shift leftward. Consecutively, Rowan flipped his body and cocked his right fist back, but to his surprise, met Baten who already seemed to be prepared with his leg stretched backwards.

"Exactly what I've been expecting. Rankyaku: Chinmoku (Silence)." Before Rowan could blink, he sighted Baten's leg blur before he found himself flying backwards and crashing on top of the ceiling of the marine base.

*BOOOM* The dust arose as one section of the marine base was crashed into the oblivion.

"Ugh..." Standing up from the ground, Rowan wiped the blood in his mouth as he saw a newly formed gash that cuts across his abdomen diagonally. Thankfully, he managed to save himself from being wounded by crashing, through the use of bounce force.

"Don't let your guard down yet." A voice was suddenly heard from behind him, which caused Rowan's eyes to widen.

"Shigan: Kikan Ju (Machine Gun)."

'S***!!'

*BOOM* Without thinking further, Rowan immediately generated a large magnitude of bounce forces all around his body at once.

However, the attack seemed to be a feint, as Baten dashed away from Rowan. Consecutively, the constructions around Rowan crumbled due to the bounce force he exerted.

'He weakened them using his ability!' Rowan's eyes widened as another section of marine base crashed down onto him.

*BOOOOM* In order to deflect the heavy masses of those heavy objects, Rowan blasted off with his hands outstretched, blasting those objects away.

"*Huff* *Huff* Not good." Rowan muttered to himself as he felt himself getting exhausted from the over-exertion of his ability. Immediately getting back into a stance, Rowan looked around his surroundings in a caution. 'His tempo is becoming faster and faster. Is he testing my limits? Why?!'

Suddenly, the swords at a size of a toothpick flew towards Rowan at an incredible speed, which Rowan managed to sight before it was too late, and dodged with a fast reaction speed.

'There must be a limit as to how much he can reduce.' Briefly thinking, Rowan took out his revolver once more.

In the next moment, Baten made a sudden appearance as he dashed in front of Rowan. Gritting his teeth, Rowan held out his palm that expelled bounce force as he anticipated for an attack from Baten. However, Baten simply smiled as he raised his finger up and flicked towards the revolver Rowan was holding.

"Lesser." The revolver instantly shrunk to a very minuscule size, causing Rowan to growl in frustration as he jumped backwards to gain some distance between him and Baten.

In spite of that, Baten appeared behind him once more. Holding out his fists out together towards Rowan, Rowan couldn't help but feel the dread as he saw Baten getting into a stance he hasn't witnessed previously.

The time seemed to slow down as Rowan stared at Baten with panicked eyes, and used his bounce forces at a maximum efficiency to turn his body and counter Baten's attack. Yet, his reaction speed simply wasn't fast enough.

"Rokushiki Ogi: Rokuogan." Baten stated as the powerful shockwave was released from Baten's fists.

"BOUNCE!!" Rowan shouted in urgency as he released the highest magnitude of bounce force he could muster from his back.

*BOOM* There seemed to be a struggle of power as the shockwave and bounce force collided. Rowan quickly used the momentum generated from the collision to propel himself forward, away from the shockwave. However, at the next moment, the shockwave completely dominated the bounce force and penetrated Rowan's body, causing him to vomit large amount of blood and land on the ground with a thud.

"Kek... hu... ke...k..." Rowan couldn't breathe properly as his body felt the tremendous blow. He was bleeding profusely around the stomach area, and his rib bones were broken or cracked. He was only able to keep himself conscious, due to the fact that the bounce force reduced the force of Baten's attack.

'A force... that was so strong that my bounce force failed to deflect for the first time.' Thought Rowan as he struggled from the pain.

"*Huff* *Cough* *Huff*," finally managing to breathe, Rowan saw Baten standing in the front with his hazy eyes.

*Tap* *Tap* Baten walked over Rowan while jotting down the notes. "Versatility of the Bounce Bounce fruit. Noteworthy physical prowess. The pirate that is more intelligent than many. Cannot be left uncontrolled. Recommend an immediate imprisonment to the level 5 of Impel Down." Baten muttered as he stood in front of Rowan and placed his note back into his inner pocket.

"This marine base is quite a mess... hope they lay me off the hook by capturing you." Baten scratched his back lazily while staring at Rowan, who was still down. "Now, if only I can get someone to cuff you with the Seastone cuff..."

Before Baten could continue,

*BOOOOOOOOM* A violent noise shook from the outside, causing his eyes to narrow. Subsequently, the floor that they were standing on shook momentarily.

"What's going on? The matter should've been handled swiftly. Fifteen marine ships against just one or couple of pirate ships who just entered the Grand Line. This shouldn't be a hard task at all, especially with Commodore Kazu in command." Baten said to himself while placing his hand on his chin.

"*Cough* Haha... *Cough* I may have an idea as to what happened *Cough*," Rowan weakly grinned as he struggled to stand up from his spot. 'It's got to be Carmen. Definitely possible, based on what I saw from Sixis. Logia is insanely powerful indeed.

And what kind of captain will I be, if I let my subordinates outdo me?' Rowan blazed up in a determination as his muscles worked beyond their limits to lift him back up.

Baten sighed in annoyance.

"No matter. One more will do its job." Baten placed his two fists in front once more.

Rowan clenched his fists as he took a deep breath and cocked his right fist back. 'Focus. Just like Bounce Crash, generate consecutive bounce forces rapidly. Differentiate the duration of the each generated bounce, so that the earlier bounce has longer duration than the later bounce. Summation. All the bounce forces consecutively produced sum up into one huge force. Focus Rowan!'

"Rokuogan." A huge shockwave blasted towards Rowan, who glared at it ferociously, before wildly slamming his right fist forward.

With his eyes closed, Rowan felt the very familiar ability to generate bounce respond to his will. 'Longest, longer, long, semi-long, average, semi-short, short, shorter, shortest. Synchronize.'

"Blast." Rowan muttered weakly.

*BOOOOOOOOOOM*

In the next moment, the whole place shook and vibrated intensely as Rowan's punch managed to shatter the shockwave in one go! Baten's eyes widened as he witnessed Rowan's absurdly powerful attack.

Although wobbling from his spot and breathing heavily, Rowan continued to glare at Baten with all his will.

"You..." Baten frowned and took his note back out, before ripping it apart. "To think one can grow this strong near the entrance of the Grand Line. Is it the devil fruit? Is it Youchiha? Or just you? No matter... you will die here."