The pinnacle of pirates! Beginning as a trainee in Roger's crew

It was like a mouse meeting a cat.

The once fearsome, terrifying, awakened Zoan-class weapon, the hellhound Cerberus, the so-called meta-defining solution, had just now met the meta rule itself.

"What… impossible!!!"

Shamrock's once-confident expression instantly froze.

Ozz recognized that look all too well. After all, he'd seen it before, on Shanks' face.

The clash of two weapons, each wrapped in Conqueror's Haki, collided mid-air. But the storm brewing around Ozz was clearly stronger.

It tore through the opposing pressure, driving straight toward Shamrock's blade.

Clang!

With a sharp metallic ring, the monstrous Cerberus let out a strangled whimper. It was like watching a vicious beast suddenly deflate in front of its natural predator.

The blade went limp. It lost all strength and function.

"Zoan weapons might be powerful… but you think they can overpower a weapon forged from high-purity seastone?"

Thankfully, Shamrock hadn't eaten a Devil Fruit himself. If he had, a seastone-forged black rifle like Ozz's pressed against his face would've pinned him to the floor for half a day.

Meanwhile, his weapon, overwhelmed by the sheer purity of seastone, was slowly reverting to its original, mundane form.

"Ozz, you… urgh—"

Ozz didn't give him the chance to finish. Capitalizing on the advantage, he drove his black rifle forward with brutal strength. After pinning down the Cerberus blade, he suddenly tilted upward with a devastating uppercut.

Zero windup. No chance to guard.

The rifle, dense and brutal in construction, combined with the internal destruction of Advanced Armament Haki, exploded upward like a battering ram.

Whatever Shamrock had meant to say was lost to a mouthful of bile and stomach acid. He nearly passed out from the sheer force of the impact.

"You…"

Clutching his blade, Shamrock scrambled to parry, managing to coat it in Armament Haki just in time as he swung.

Whoosh!

Ozz side-stepped with ease, then drove a heavy kick straight into his ribs.

"You bastard…"

Boom!

The kinetic force surged through Shamrock's frame. His swings were growing sluggish. The last exchange had already pushed him past his limit.

Ozz, meanwhile, needed only Armament Haki and raw monstrous strength. Each attack pushed Shamrock further back, the gap growing with every blow.

With his superior height and legs reinforced by flowing Haki, Ozz rained down kicks like a grown man disciplining a child.

Shamrock was coughing up blood by the liter.

"That's enough, Ozz. This match is over."

...

Elsewhere, deep within the ethereal gardens of the Holy Land, a few of the World Government's pillars walked calmly through the flower-strewn paths.

In this idyllic, near-mythical scene, a tall and slender figure stood in silence. A butterfly rested gently on their finger as they pondered. Only after a long while did they turn.

"Lord Imu, the match has concluded. Ozz is the victor."

"To be honest, the strength and intellect Ozz displayed in this fight took even us by surprise."

"In eight hundred years, among all the geniuses we've encountered... none shine brighter."

The Five Elders' faces were marked by a rare gravity. And faint unease.

If Garling hadn't stepped in to halt the match, they wouldn't have been surprised if Ozz had accidentally kicked Shamrock to death.

Reports had already detailed it. Monstrous physique aside, Ozz's real terror lay in his explosive growth, an intuition that absorbed and evolved in real time.

It left the elders wondering — what if, one day, even Imu couldn't stop him?

But that was not a question to voice. Not aloud.

The bad news: Ozz's "uniqueness" might truly be beyond control.

The good news: He's on our side now. Probably.

At the very least, they had managed to quietly neutralize a threat that, compared to Roger and Rocks, might prove even greater.

Imu narrowed their eyes, contemplative.

They had seen the whole match unfold via Observation Haki. Every detail.

Every era had its own "strongest monster." Imu wasn't easily shaken. In their time, there had once been twenty such figures, each worthy of ruling their own kingdom.

In truth, had Ozz been born eight hundred years earlier, at the height of his power he could've founded his own nation and stood as an equal to the "Gods" themselves.

"Give him the title of Celestial Dragon," Imu said flatly. "Call it a favor owed."

No hesitation. The decision was final.

The Five Elders bowed in unison.

They had no objections. Whether it was recommending Warlords, carving up underworld profits, or delicate international dealings, Ozz had always given them face.

He was the ideal middleman.

Whether using him to liaise with powerful pirates and stabilize the seas via the Seven Warlords system, or leveraging his control of the underworld for their own profit, Ozz was a figure they had to keep close.

As they stepped out of the flower gardens,

"Revealing to the world that Ozz is a Celestial Dragon…" murmured Saint Topman Warcury. "Might be just what this frenzied era needs to cool down."

"Hm?"

The others turned, intrigued. Their eyes gleamed.

Was this man a genius?

"We'd have to tell Ozz first," Saturn advised. "Otherwise it looks like we're trying to ride his coattails."

Because let's be honest,

With Ozz being a member of the Pirate King's crew, an emperor of the underworld, and — let's not forget — a major financier of the Revolutionary Army, plus with that damned bird Morgans ready to blow up every headline...

Any revelation like that would rock the seas harder than the creation of the Warlords or the execution of Gol D. Roger.

They were getting excited now.

The Five Elders turned and made their way toward the training ground where Ozz and the others had been,

Only to stop dead in their tracks.

"What... what happened here?!"

Before them, what used to be flat terrain had been reduced to a shattered, cratered ruin. A full section of the Red Line had been carved downward by dozens of meters into a massive sinkhole.

And from the center of that crater… two figures slowly emerged.

"What the hell?"

"We were only gone a moment."

"Don't tell me…"

The members of the Holy Knights, who had long retreated to a safe distance, only now dared to cautiously approach again.

And at the center of it all, standing tall as he calmly sheathed his blade, was Ozz, alongside a slightly disheveled but standing Garling.

"Ozz? Garling? Were you two… sparring?"

They could hardly believe their eyes.

Especially when they saw the state of Garling's clothes… and Ozz?

Not even out of breath.

Not even flushed.

This guy was something else.