NOVEL NEXT Chapter 309: Stronger Than Sengoku!?
Hearing that familiar voice, Daren couldn't help but smile.
"Did you really think commanding this fleet was going to be easy?"
He turned around to see Momonga approaching, face pale and steps unsteady. With a grin, he said,
"Still, you really ought to work on your physique. You're supposed to be the strongest Logia-type user with the Goro Goro no Mi, yet you look like you're about to collapse... Tsk, tsk, tsk. People might start thinking you spend all your time in the Pleasure District…"
Momonga rolled his eyes.
"Sounds more like you're talking about yourself."
"If you spent less time hanging around the Pleasure District, maybe you'd have taken out the Five Elders by now and dragged me straight to Mary Geoise, instead of forcing me to sneak this fleet around like a fugitive."
Daren shrugged with an exaggerated sigh.
"Can't help it. Sometimes, being this charming is just a curse."
He winked and handed over a gold-embossed cigar.
"Besides, wasn't it you who pulled off the bold feat of attacking the Holy Land of the Celestial Dragons?"
Momonga took the cigar and locked eyes with Daren.
The next second, both of them broke into laughter.
Only real friends could mock each other so bluntly.
With the cigar clenched between his teeth, Momonga lit it and took a deep drag. He then stepped up beside Daren, the two standing shoulder to shoulder at the prow of the flagship, smoking as they looked out over the open sea and sky.
"So... how did it feel, storming Mary Geoise?" Daren asked with a grin.
"…Honestly? Not bad at all."
Momonga's smile carried a trace of emotion that words couldn't quite capture.
"You know, Daren, even now, when I think back to the moment I gave the order to open fire, I still feel that thrill run through me."
"It was like every pore in my body opened up at once... like I could finally see the world clearly, like the fog lifted and all that was left was an endless stretch of blue sky."
"I finally understand what you felt when you killed Saint Xildes in the North Blue."
Daren exhaled a smoke ring shaped like a coiling dragon and chuckled.
"That was different—way different."
"When I killed Saint Xildes, it was a covert op. I had to wipe out everyone involved just to stay alive... You know how frustrating it is to pull off something huge with no one there to witness it?"
"It's like having an itch on your back that you just can't reach no matter what you do…"
"I remember wishing I had a video Den Den Mushi on hand just to stream it live."
"But you? You were something else."
He clapped Momonga on the shoulder, giving him a playful wink.
"You were the one who, for the first time, slaughtered one of those so-called gods—right in front of the entire world."
"You led the North Blue fleet and fired on the Land of the Gods with everyone watching."
Momonga gave a resigned sigh.
"And now I've got a 2 billion Belly bounty on my head."
"Relax, HQ doesn't have the funds to pay out that kind of bounty."
Daren chuckled and, as if something had just come to mind, asked with a smile,
"So, any progress on that little theory of mine?"
Momonga's expression twisted into something comically bizarre.
He gave Daren a strange look.
Then—
Boom!
A vast, overwhelming aura erupted from his body, so intense it whipped the sky into a storm of hellish winds.
In an instant, the world around them lost all color—black and white swallowing everything in sight.
The wind howled, tugging fiercely at Daren's black suit.
He paused, stunned for just a moment—then burst out laughing.
So his hunch had been right all along!
Still, even amid his excitement, Daren couldn't help but be surprised.
According to his talent-sensing ability, the Conqueror's Haki that Momonga had just released was already clocking in at a staggering 60 points in intensity!
He had only just awakened it, yet his Haki was already on par with some veterans in the New World who had refined theirs for years!
If he had to put it in perspective, Daren couldn't shake the feeling…
That purely in terms of raw presence—disregarding technique, control, or combat power—Momonga's Conqueror's Haki was already comparable to Sengoku's.
Had Daren not seen it with his own eyes, he never would've believed it.
A "rookie" who had just awakened Conqueror's Haki could already rival the spiritual pressure of Sengoku, the famed Admiral and pillar of Marine Headquarters?
Unbelievable?
No—it made perfect sense.
Because the strength of Conqueror's Haki doesn't come from physical strength. It can't be trained up through brute effort.
Its power stems from spirit: the greater the force of will, the broader the vision, the deeper the conviction... the stronger the Haki becomes.
It's a deeply "idealistic" power.
Physical might lays the groundwork—but it doesn't determine the ceiling.
Sengoku, for all his unmatched status as the "World Government's top force," even rivalling legends like Roger and Whitebeard, carried far too many burdens.
As a Marine who treated government orders as absolute, he was bound by countless restrictions.
Under the suffocating pressure of the World Government, his will had no soil in which to grow wild and free.
So even though he championed "Justice that reigns above all," his Conqueror's Haki never quite matched the ferocity of that slogan.
By contrast…
Momonga had only just awakened his Conqueror's Haki, but the spark that triggered it was his defiance of the World Government.
And when someone possesses the courage and will to launch an attack on the World Government, the Celestial Dragons, and even Pangaea Castle itself—no matter how lacking his strength may be—his spirit can't be weak.
"…Didn't think your weird theory would actually work."
Momonga slowly reined in his Conqueror's Haki, sighing as he shook his head.
"The Celestial Dragons… real fine folks."
Daren couldn't help but laugh.
He noticed the slight strain in Momonga's expression—he clearly hadn't mastered control over his Haki yet.
But that was normal. Awakening Haki was just the start. It took time to learn to freely release and restrain it.
To be able to manage this much in just a few days already proved how gifted Momonga truly was.
Daren was sure of it now—Momonga had finally broken through the ceiling that once held his potential back.
And with the overwhelming power of the Goro Goro no Mi behind him...
It was only a matter of time before he reached Admiral-level strength.