[Ding! Host has defeated Zombie Ryuma. Gained 535,489 EXP and 89,000 Gold.]
[Ding! Congratulations! EXP maxed out, beginning level-up.]
[Ding! Level up successful. Current Level: 27.]
"Whew…"
Luffy let out a long sigh. With that breath, the intense aura around him seemed to disperse, and his tousled hair settled back down.
Compared to the ruthless force he had projected during the battle, he now looked like a completely different person.
He assigned his newly earned stat points evenly across Strength, Agility, Intelligence, and Endurance, in a balanced 2-3-2-3 pattern.
Still, being someone who favored brute force, he did give a little more love to damage-oriented stats.
"Luffy~!" Robin dispelled her Devil Fruit powers with a wave, and the towering giant hands crumbled into a flurry of petals that danced in the air before quietly fading away.
Seeing Luffy emerge from the rubble covered in dirt and dust, Robin rushed to his side. Her concern was plain as day, she examined him from head to toe, looking for any injuries as though even a scratch would be unacceptable.
Brook, meanwhile, was slumped quietly against a large piece of debris.
He had forced himself to his feet earlier despite a serious blow, but ended up reinjuring his spine in the aftershocks of the fight. With only bones left to his name, his spine was all he had.
He wanted to stand up and greet his savior, but now clearly wasn't the time. The overwhelming sense of awe from earlier still lingered deep within his soul, and his jawbone trembled as he involuntarily shivered.
"I should just… rest for now," Brook decided wisely.
"All right, all right, Robin, I'm fine," Luffy said helplessly as Robin kept brushing dirt off his clothes and wiping his face. At this rate, she might start polishing his boots too.
Although… looking down at his bulky black boots, maybe they could use a cleaning.
Escaping Robin's overly doting care, Luffy looked over at Ryuma's frozen corpse encased in ice, and the sword he had wielded.
He couldn't help but shake his head.
He had to admit, without Ryuma's guidance, he wouldn't have unlocked the breakthrough to Zero Point.
It wasn't that he couldn't have ever learned it, but had he tried to figure it out on his own, it might've taken him six months or more.
Shaking his head in admiration once again, Luffy found it strange, it was the first time he'd accepted help from an enemy. The feeling was… oddly complicated.
"Hm?" Just as he was lost in thought, Luffy turned toward the rear of the castle.
Tap, tap, tap, tap,
Suddenly, hurried footsteps echoed from the passage leading deeper into the castle.
The sound grew louder and louder. Robin and Brook immediately stood on guard, staring toward the hallway's darkened depths.
Moments later, bizarre shapes began emerging from the tunnel. Zombies, some grotesque, some unidentifiable even by Luffy's standards, poured out of the corridor.
Strangely, the zombies all lined up neatly along the hallway, standing straight like guards awaiting their king. Chests puffed out, unmoving.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
A slower, heavier set of footsteps followed. The zombies stood even straighter, clearly trying to make a good impression.
Luffy lifted his gaze slowly.
Three figures were emerging from the passage.
Moria's expression had darkened. A vein throbbed on his temple, his lips curled in a snarling grimace, the muscles on his face twitching in rage.
When he spotted Luffy standing there calmly, the fury in his chest erupted like a volcano. His anger surged to his head, boiling over.
His once-grand castle was now a ruin. His recently revived subordinate had been purified. Absalom's fate was unknown.
If not for Luffy's overwhelming strength, Moria wouldn't have hesitated to retaliate on the spot.
But this wasn't the same cowardly Moria from ten years in the future, the one too scared to even fight.
No, this Moria had only just retreated from the New World, blood still boiling with frustration and vengeance.
"You're the one who's been causing trouble on my turf?" Moria towered over Luffy at more than seven meters tall, glaring down at him. The ground beneath him rippled with shadow, stretching outward from his feet and disappearing into the rubble.
"Moria-samah! We found Absalom!"
Ghost Princess Perona, who had arrived with Moria, immediately deployed her Horo Horo no Mi (Ghost-Ghost Fruit) powers, summoning a swarm of ghosts to scan the ruins.
Finally, in a collapsed corner of the castle, they found the surprisingly still-alive Absalom, trapped in a triangular wedge of debris.
Moria turned his gaze to Perona. With a single look, four zombies rushed over and began helping her dig Absalom out from the rubble.
Learning that Absalom had survived gave Moria a sense of relief he didn't even realize he was holding. His rage began to subside.
Above, the full moon hung high, bathing the ruined battlefield in its quiet light.
Under the moonlight, Moria and Luffy, one massive, one small, locked eyes.
Moria's aura thickened, trying to suppress Luffy with raw pressure.
"Surrender your shadow, brat," he said in a low, menacing voice. "Do that, and maybe I'll let you off with less pain. Keh keh keh…"
Luffy glanced dismissively at a nearby stone slab, then scoffed.
"Gecko Moria, once a fearsome pirate who rampaged through the New World. Now hiding in this pitiful corner of the sea."
He looked up, studying Moria's demonic face. His sharp features, twisted in fury, made his dark presence even more unnerving.
But Luffy remained completely unfazed. With a pitying tone, he added:
"I heard that during your fight with Kaido… you lost all your comrades. After that, you never dared set foot in the New World again? Some 'Great Pirate' you turned out to be! Hahaha!"
Luffy's casual mockery struck Moria right in the gut, his face contorting with fury. He wanted nothing more than to punch Luffy square in the jaw.
But before Moria could react, Luffy suddenly raised his right arm. A gem embedded in his gauntlet flared to life, shooting flames up his arm and forming a blazing fireball in his palm.
"What do you think you're doing!?" Moria's eyes bulged, his expression twisting into a grotesque snarl.
He had never expected someone to stare him down under his own aura, and then make the first move.
"Doppelman!!"
A black shadow burst from a crack in the ground and zipped toward Perona. Moria had swapped places with his shadow in an instant.
Luffy unleashed the fireball, an orange blaze cutting through the night like lightning.
BOOM!
The fireball struck Moria's shadow directly. The shadow shattered into fragments and dripped to the ground like liquid.
==========
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