An Oni in God's Valley

[Six Hours Earlier]

As both Koa and Jhin were standing and facing each other, Koa gave Jhin a chance to pull out his gun and pull its trigger. When he did, Jhin capitalized on it by jumping backwards, using a technique that had a similar premise as Geppo but differed in execution. As Jhin jumped backwards, he shot his first shot towards Koa.

It was a normal bullet, but it had a velocity and momentum as if a cannon. Koa then caught the bullet without any hitch, but it was immediately followed by two more bullets, as Jhin had already anticipated it happening, seeing the earlier move of Koa.

The other two bullets hit Koa but did not do any damage. Then Jhin shot his fourth shot. This time, the bullet was similar to the earlier shot of Jhin towards him, which was an incredibly deadly shot, and this time, it was not only a bullet—it was a bomb that would immediately explode the moment it hit something.

And when Koa was hit, the bullet exploded to further deal damage to Koa. As the smoke piled up, nothing was visible to Jhin, who was confident that no one would survive his fourth bullet. He started reloading, but suddenly Koa was already behind him without even making any sound, smiling towards Jhin like a creepy serial killer.

"I'm not wrong with my eyes. You are deserving of joining my crew, so what do you say?" Koa then talked, while Jhin's reaction was an exaggerated look of shock that was looking at Koa, as he could not believe that he was cornered by Koa, who seemed to have done nothing and was a giant compared to his size, but Jhin still failed to detect his movements earlier.

"Are you just going to keep tanking my shots? I won't accept your invitation if you won't even manage to show me something to be impressed with," Jhin said, as he jumped backwards once again. These words made Koa look at him with some curiosity.

When Jhin said it, Koa just became curious and started getting serious. He then moved forward of Jhin, where he aimed towards Koa, but Koa suddenly disappeared in front of Jhin and went towards his back. As Jhin turned, he felt that his death was coming. As Koa swung down his axe, Jhin saw himself being cut in half, but Koa did not want to cut him—he just let out an intent that he would do so. When he swung, only the place in the back of Jhin was cut, as Koa dropped the axes and smiled towards Jhin, who was just stunned.

"Come on, I'll bring you to our ship and let you meet your would-be companions," Koa then said, as he started walking back towards the ship, as he patted the back of Jhin.

"Alright," Jhin said while still in shock, as he looked at his back and saw a deep ravine that Koa made with just a simple swing of his axe, but there's not a scratch on Jhin, making him amazed and disturbed at the same time, as he remembered the words of Koa earlier that there's still a lot of people in the sea that could do what he can do—not knowing that Koa was exaggerating, as there's probably only 10 people that could match the level of destruction Koa could do without his Devil Fruit, and possibly even less with the same precision as him.

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[Current Time]

As Jhin told his story to Kuzan, Greenbull, Joichiro, and Urf, while Koa was just listening and had a proud expression on his face, as he was incredibly proud of what he had just done. It was the level of restraint that he managed to learn in the Little Garden due to his spars against those weaker than him.

As Jhin recounted his fight against Koa, Kuzan, who was also the only one who fought against Koa before getting recruited, was sympathetic towards his experience, as what he experienced was far worse than Jhin's experience, as he was not scared by Koa into dying—he did come close to dying. Kuzan and Jhin then started talking mainly as they shared the same trauma from Koa, while Greenbull and Urf were asking more about the fight and how they would achieve that kind of strength, while Urf was just acting his questions where Greenbull would interpret it for him, showing the bond between the two of them. Joichiro just cooked their would-be dinner.

As the morning came, Koa and the others started to get ready, as the Log Pose had already reset and started pointing in a new direction. But Koa knew that the Log Pose was pointing upward, not North, so he informed his men to set sail, as he was planning on making his ship float upward.

"Get ready, everyone, we'll go to the floating islands," Koa declared to them, which made them confused as they did not know anything about a floating island, while Jhin, who was living on the Jaya Island, had a general idea of what Koa was talking about.

"What? That's just a myth, isn't it?" Jhin said to Koa, while Koa just smiled, and the entire ship started flying, making Joichiro, Jhin, and Urf shocked. This was the first time that they saw Koa use his Rooster Talisman, while both Kuzan and Greenbull had experienced it before when they were still sailing using the floating island that Koa used to bring.

"How is this possible? We are floating," Jhin said, as he looked over the ledge and saw that they were slowly elevating their height, while Joichiro just got excited as flying is one of the wants of a man, making them feel free wherever they were in the sky. Urf, however, was not fond of flying, as he was incredibly scared that they would fall and plummet towards their death.

After a few minutes of floating, Koa reached the elevation where the Sky Island would be and started going straight, making the others look at the clouds. And then, a massive gate was seen in the distance, making the others, except for Koa, excited, as they would see that the myth about the floating island was true, and now, they were among the people who would reach it.