This is a world that constantly reveals its brutal reality—not just a fragment of a picture drawn on paper.
Little Oars Jr.'s massive body crashed onto the plaza, instantly claiming the lives of hundreds of Marines.
Compared to the gruesome sight of battleships crushing through the ice earlier, leaving behind a road paved with mangled bodies, the Marines now buried beneath Oars Jr.'s corpse at least found a quiet death in darkness.
Maude swiftly glanced back at the plaza.
Whitebeard's devastating attack had, ironically, created an opening at the plaza's edge by using Oars Jr.'s fallen body as a battering ram.
However, in terms of sheer numbers, the Marines still held the advantage.
But...
Their strategic positioning was no longer an asset.
The real battle was about to begin.
"This is my chance!"
Delacuaji, a captain within Whitebeard's fleet, was the very same pirate whose ship had been obliterated by Maude's first gunshot at the start of the war.
Seizing the instant Maude turned away, he closed in rapidly, his blade—hardened with Armament Haki—swinging towards Maude's vital points.
Stealth Walk!
As the sword slashed downward, Maude's eyes gleamed red. With a twist of his toe against the ground, his figure vanished into thin air.
In the next second, he reappeared mid-air more than ten meters away, his free left hand now gripping Bailey, his flintlock pistol.
Several of the Grand Fleet captains, who had anticipated cutting off Maude's escape routes, were caught off guard by his unexpected retreat into the air.
This completely unforeseen move caused them to miss a crucial opportunity for a coordinated attack.
"Even if you can use Moonwalk..."
Delacuaji, still bearing a grudge against Maude, wasn't about to let the assault end there.
A chilling glint flashed in his eyes as he raised his blade, preparing to unleash a flying slash.
However—
Maude's gunfire was faster.
Bang! Bang...!
The first shot was fired toward the plaza, followed by several quick successive shots aimed downward at Delacuaji's face.
The lead bullets hurtled toward him with lethal precision.
Delacuaji's eyes sharpened, his Observation Haki allowing him to clearly track the bullets' trajectories.
With precise movements, he tilted his head left and right, narrowly dodging three of the incoming bullets in an almost effortless display of agility.
"Too slow."
Having evaded the gunfire, Delacuaji smirked with disdain, his muscles tensing as he prepared to strike—
"Huh?"
A sudden realization struck him.
He couldn't move.
Completely focused on the gunfire, he had failed to notice the three bullets he had so stylishly dodged had embedded themselves as Shadow Pins into the ground behind him—piercing his own shadow.
"The bullets from before...!!!"
As a seasoned pirate of the New World, Delacuaji quickly grasped what had happened despite being unable to turn his head to confirm it.
But—
It was already too late.
By choosing the minimal movement necessary to evade Maude's bullets, he had sealed his fate.
In an instant, Maude vanished once again.
He had swapped places with one of the Shadow Pins holding Delacuaji in place, teleporting directly behind him.
Delacuaji's expression twisted in horror as an overwhelming sense of impending death enveloped him, sending an icy chill through his entire body.
"Maybe I was slow... but it doesn't matter."
Maude's voice, devoid of emotion, came from behind him.
Delacuaji's lips trembled as he felt a chilling sensation in his chest.
Looking down, he saw a bloodstained blade piercing straight through him.
"You... bastard..."
He struggled to speak, but Maude abruptly withdrew the sword, cutting his words short.
Blood gushed from the wound as Delacuaji's upper body arched backward, his eyes filled with unwillingness.
But as his strength drained away, no amount of resentment could keep him standing.
He collapsed lifelessly onto the ground.
"Dodging bullets doesn't mean dodging death."
Maude flicked his wrist, shaking the blood off Shusui's blade before retrieving his Shadow Pins.
This was the third one.
Without pausing to relish the bounty of taking down a pirate with a bounty exceeding five hundred million berries, Maude scanned his surroundings, locking onto the enraged pirates from Whitebeard's fleet closing in from all directions.
"Delacuaji!!!"
The Grand Fleet captains who had attempted to corner Maude roared in fury upon witnessing Drax's swift execution.
"You bastard!"
Several captains, each no weaker than Delacuaji, charged at Maude in a blind rage.
Surrounded by enemies on all sides, Maude remained calm.
This was the inevitable consequence of diving headfirst into enemy lines.
But—
He was a Shadow-Shadow Fruit user.
As the pirates' attacks closed in, Maude's expression remained indifferent.
Shadow Flow – Shadow Blink.
Once again, he vanished into thin air.
This time, he had swapped places with the Shadow Bullet he had fired toward the plaza earlier.
With Maude suddenly disappearing, the captains' coordinated strikes landed on empty air.
Delacuaji's lifeless body lay on the ground as if mocking their futile efforts to land a single blow on Maude.
"He vanished again..."
"Damn it! This ability is beyond troublesome."
"Curse him!!!"
"How the hell do we counter his powers?"
Gritting their teeth in frustration, the pirates seethed with anger, their fury finding no outlet.
Bang—!
At that moment, a gunshot rang out from their own ranks.
The shooter was none other than Izou, the 16th Division Commander.
Through the lingering gunsmoke, a Haki-infused lead bullet tore through the air, grazing past Delacuaji's corpse and hurtling toward a fast-moving shadow on the ground—a shadow no bigger than a baby's fist.
The Armament Haki-enhanced bullet struck at a perfect angle, piercing directly through the moving shadow.
At that exact moment—
Over on the plaza, Maude's right side suddenly suffered an inexplicable wound.
His clothes were torn, his skin split open, and blood splattered outward.
"Oh?"
Maude's brow arched as he looked down at his freshly inflicted gunshot wound.
He murmured to himself, "So they figured it out."
Despite the injury, Maude remained remarkably composed.
No ability in this world was truly invincible.
Having his weakness discovered was an inevitable part of battle.
And overcoming such vulnerabilities was the mark of a true master.
Back at Delacuaji's corpse—
As the gunshot faded, the pirates watched as Maude, despite having retreated to the plaza, suddenly sustained an injury.
A realization dawned upon them.
Izou, gripping his pistols, stepped forward and solemnly gazed at Maude in the distance.
"I've been studying his ability. And now, I'm certain. No matter what tricks he can pull off with his shadow—if we attack his shadow with Haki, we can wound him directly!"
"!!!"
The surrounding pirates' eyes lit up in realization.
If we can strike that bastard's shadow...
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