Lightning burst from Creed's body, weaving into a thunder dragon whose claw lashed out at the drifting specter. He knew physical attacks couldn't harm an incorporeal ghost, but he wanted to test whether thunder's righteous charge would.
No luck.
The Negative Hollow slipped through the thunder dragon with ease, arrowing straight for him. In another heartbeat it would pass through his chest.
Zzla—
A flash of lightning—and Creed slid aside, letting the ghost whiff by. He still couldn't touch the thing, but in front of him its speed was snail-slow. Hitting him was out of the question.
"Annoying… he's that fast?" Perona hadn't expected him to dodge with a mere flicker.
"Fine—what about this many?" White light glimmered at both her palms. In an instant over a dozen Negative Hollows fanned out, hemming Creed in from every side.
"The moment my ghosts touch you, you'll sink into despair!"
She didn't stop, either. The hall flooded with Negative Hollows until a tight net sealed off every avenue of escape.
Ching—
At last, Creed drew his sword.
"Shizen no Ittō (One Sword of Supreme Goodness)!"
A snow-white blade-light rippled out, quaking the air around them. Physical cuts were useless—so he tried a strike aimed at the mind.
If he wished, he could end this by knocking Perona out on the spot. With her S-class strength, one laser burst or a casual slash would do it. But curiosity tugged at him. He wanted to crack the power that had even floored Redfield—these Negative Hollows—using a different ability.
Besides, Big Mom's Devil Fruit was the Soru Soru no Mi (Soul-Soul Fruit). He needed experience in this domain for the day he faced her.
"It's useless! Slashes can't hurt my ghosts!" Perona backpedaled fast. The ghosts didn't fear sword auras, but she still dreaded Creed himself; his strength utterly crushed hers. In her mind, though, he was a cornered beast—one more second and he'd be drawing circles in the corner like the others.
Except—
Every ghost the blade-light swept past froze mid-float, blank and glassy-eyed—like they'd gone dumb.
"Y-you—!" Perona pointed, trembling. She could no longer feel her link to those ghosts. She'd never seen anything like it and stood there stunned.
"Dai Yūrei: Kamikaze Bakudan (Great Ghost: Kamikaze Bomb)!"
She flung out her trump card—a white specter over ten times her size that ballooned from her hands and hurtled at Creed. Its self-destruct could level a building with ease.
"An (Dark)!"
Creed loosed another sweep. Snowy sword-rain cascaded, brushing the giant ghost, the remaining Negative Hollows—and Perona herself. The blade carried almost no physical lethality; neither ghosts nor Perona showed wounds.
Then—
"Uuuuu—"
Boom!
The giant ghost clapped its hands together, tearfully fled out the doors, and detonated in the garden.
The other Negative Hollows beamed bright smiles, some even linking hands as they twirled in happy circles midair. When they drifted past the slumped crew, Redfield and Robin's gloom snapped into sunlight; they jolted, realizing they'd been hit.
Perona, smiling now, floated forward and took Creed by the hand. "There must be some misunderstanding. I'll take you to Lord Moria, and we can talk this out."
Redfield and Robin exchanged a look. They'd been crossing blades a breath ago—and now it was handshakes and "no hard feelings"?
A heartbeat later Perona seemed to wake from a dream. She snatched her hand back and darted away with a shriek. "What are you?! What Devil Fruit did you eat? How do you have an ability like mine?!"
Creed's sword-light worked like her ghosts—but in reverse: malice dissolved, goodwill rose, and the will to fight faded beneath a gentle sun.
A blade-intent that turned hearts toward the good?
"So the effect fades that fast… Without pushing 'Shizen no Ittō' to one hundred percent, it's hard to match the rule-like power of a Devil Fruit," Creed mused. Another pale arc flashed. Perona cried out and tried to dodge, but there was no escaping his slash; it brushed her again.
He used the opening to ask where Moria was.
Then he cuffed her wrists in seastone. Her ability was a headache—best to secure her first.
Deep in the castle—
Boom!
A blood-red slash split a hidden door. Freezing air surged out—it was a massive cold room.
"Heh-shishishishi! You're late."
As the dust cleared, a hulking silhouette stepped into view.
Moria.
"Oars—go! Crush them!"
Behind him, a shadow loomed far larger than Moria—eight or nine stories tall. Bull-curved horns crowned a demon's head; cords of muscle knotted like roots, coiling with terrible power. Twin scarlet eyes raked the intruders, chilling the blood.
The legendary demon berserker said to move nations—Oars!
"Raaagh!"
At Moria's order, Oars punched through the ceiling, hauling his massive upper body into the open. From on high he glared down, killing intent billowing. The shadow animating him belonged to a mass-murdering pirate—perfectly aligned with Moria's commands.
Perona, bound, still found breath to laugh. "Horohorohoro! Too slow! Just accept defeat!"
"Heh-shishishishishi! The shadow inside Oars is a 350-million-berry pirate! Even I don't dare test his edge—this time you're finished! To storm my lair—did you think the title of Warlord means—eh?"
Moria grinned, assuming their silence was fear.
The next instant his laughter cut off like a hand had clamped his throat.
Redfield had moved.
A clean, oblique stroke of blood-crimson steel swept across Oars's torso.
Crash—
The demon giant's upper body slid away and thudded groundward—cleaved clean through.
Rumble—
The slash carried on, bisecting buildings behind him. Stone collapsed, dust geysered—the castle lost half its mass in a heartbeat.
"That was Oars's demon berserker body—how did it not even block a single strike?!" Moria and Perona's eyes bulged. Moria lunged forward as if to hold Oars together—useless, of course.
"Don't look down on me—Moria!" Veins bulged at his temple as he roared at the intruders.
"Kage Asgard (Shadow Asgard)!"
He unleashed the Kage Kage no Mi's (Shadow-Shadow Fruit's) mightiest technique.
(End of Chapter)
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