Recruit Luffy at the start and build the strongest navy.

"Phew~"

Luffy exhaled deeply, then his gaze suddenly sharpened as he looked at Red Earl, who was rushing towards him.

A smile crept across his lips.

Upon seeing Luffy's smile, Red Earl felt an uneasy premonition.

But he quickly suppressed this strange feeling and focused all his attention on the attack in front of him.

Luffy suddenly swung his arm, pumping air like a pump, and then a faint white steam rose from his body, turning his skin a light pink.

Second gear!

However, unlike before, Luffy did not attack immediately after entering Gear Second. Instead, he raised his hand again and swung it violently once more.

Gudong! !

The arm inflated as if inflated again.

puff! !

A surge of steam, far more concentrated than when he activated Gear Second, suddenly spread out, enveloping Luffy completely and obscuring his figure.

The steam spread to a diameter of three meters in an extremely short time.

Anyone else might have lost sight of their target by now.

But who is the Red Earl?

His expression remained unchanged, because his Observation Haki had been firmly locked onto Luffy from the beginning. Even if the range of the steam were ten times larger, he could still sense Luffy's location with unparalleled accuracy.

But the next moment, his pupils suddenly contracted.

A strong gust of wind rushed towards me, and what came into view was a fist that kept growing larger in front of me.

Bang! !

A dull thud suddenly rang out, and then a figure flew backward like a meteor.

But the figure was not Luffy; instead, it was Red Earl, who had previously been on a rampage.

The Red Earl's figure flew backward at an incredibly fast speed, even drawing a white streak in the air.

Meanwhile, Luffy was floating in the air.

That's right, Luffy wasn't using Moonwalk at this moment, but his figure was steadily floating in the air. The reason he could do this was the colorless airflow that was almost invisible to the naked eye gushing out from under his feet.

Even more exaggeratedly, Luffy's skin color at this moment was no longer the original light pink, but turned crimson.

He stood in mid-air, like a blazing war god.

"Super Gear Second!!"

A soft voice came from Luffy's mouth.

That's right, as you can tell from the name, his current form is an advanced version of Gear 2, which is also his strongest form at present.

He had only developed this form a short time ago, and he originally wanted to find a good opportunity to surprise others, but now he had no choice but to use it ahead of schedule.

Although I didn't use it in front of everyone, there's no other way now.

If you want to deal with the Red Earl better, then you must activate this form.

However, all of his forms have one major drawback: they all consume a lot of energy.

This has been the case since the initial development of the second gear, and it continued with the later third and fourth gears.

When they were first developed, they consumed a great deal of energy and basically couldn't last long before they became ineffective.

Although as his strength increased and his mastery of Devil Fruit abilities improved, the consumption of Gear Second and Gear Third became less and less for him.

To some extent, it can even be used as a regular mode, but the fourth gear still consumes a lot of energy and cannot be used for a long time.

The newly developed Super Second Gear consumes not just a little bit of energy, but an extremely large amount.

Given his current condition, he can only last for three minutes at most.

This energy consumption is even more extreme than when he first developed Gear 2.

His strength is indeed constantly improving, but the load and consumption of Super Second Gear are far beyond what Second Gear can compare to.

So even though he became stronger, the time he could persist actually became shorter.

Such a massive consumption must naturally be accompanied by immense power, otherwise it wouldn't make sense.

Luffy was fully aware of his current situation, so without the slightest hesitation, he vanished from his spot in a flash.

In the blink of an eye, he appeared in the trajectory of Red Earl's backward flight, his speed so fast that Zoro and Sanji, who were watching the battle from the side, both widened their eyes in surprise.

Sanji's mouth gaped open in disbelief, and he stammered:

"Luffy... that guy Luffy..."

"This speed is a bit too exaggerated!!"

Sanji considers himself to be among the top speedsters even within the Canglan Squad, and he is basically the third fastest after Kyle and Sabo.

There's nothing we can do about it. Kael can't be compared to him, and Sabo is an overpowered character thanks to his Devil Fruit ability, so there's not much to say about him.

Of course, the speed he mentioned here refers to movement speed, not attack speed.

Prior to this, the rest of the Canglan team had never demonstrated a movement speed exceeding his.

but now……

Luffy's movement speed just now was much faster than when he moved at full speed, almost matching that of Sabo.

Moreover, Luffy's strength in this form seems to extend beyond just speed...

Luffy made a punching motion in mid-air, then clenched his fist and swung it out fiercely.

boom--

The terrifying power directly created a huge fist-shaped shockwave.

Wherever it passed, the void seemed to tremble faintly.

!!!

The Red Earl's alarm bells rang immediately; the extreme sense of threat emanating from behind made the hairs on his body stand on end.

Without the slightest hesitation, the dark purple bat wings behind the Red Earl flapped rapidly, making the bat almost vibrate like a bee.

With this action, his speed of flying backwards decreased instantly, and then he stopped immediately.

However, this behavior also put a considerable burden on his body, causing him to feel a surge of blood, which he forcibly suppressed by the Red Earl.

He gripped the umbrella-shaped blade with both hands and slashed it behind him. A blood-red blade light, exuding a sharp aura, shot out and collided with the huge fist-shaped shockwave.

Boom—

A deafening roar resounded, followed by an incredibly powerful shockwave.

The next second, the Red Earl's pupils constricted sharply, and he exclaimed in surprise:

"How is that possible?!"

In his view, his sword strike, which had gathered almost all his strength, shattered in less than three breaths before being met with the shockwave of that enormous fist.

The oppressive force emanating from the shockwave of that fist after shattering his blade's edge was only slightly less.

!!!

To the horrified look of the Red Earl, the shockwave from the fist slammed into him.

boom--

……