Pfft!
Blood soaked deep into Oguro's back.
"Bastard, you're dead!"
Soifon erupted in fury, activating Shunkō. One palm strike smashed down, obliterating the gray energy in front of her and wrecking half the street in the process.
Oguro spun around and slashed, his Zanpakutō cutting straight toward Perov's head.
Yet Perov didn't move at all. Instead, a sinister grin crept across his face.
Flash!
A figure suddenly stepped in front of him.
It was Nami, who practically had no combat ability at all!
Oguro's pupils shrank violently, and he forcibly halted his blade mid-swing.
Pfft!
Perov's long sword pierced straight through Nami's abdomen, then drove mercilessly into Oguro's chest!
"Hahahaha! So this is the so-called Spirit King of the Sacred Holy Spirit Empire? Just a guy who got lucky, that's all!"
Perov laughed wildly.
"As the saying goes, mercy has no place on the battlefield. A king must have a heart of iron. Anyone who stands in your way is an enemy and deserves death!"
Looking at Oguro coughing up blood in front of him, Perov sneered.
"I'm really looking forward to what kind of treasures the World Government will use to exchange for your corpse!"
Even the man who caused havoc at Marineford fell to my hands!
My Dream-Dream Fruit truly is a first-rate Devil Fruit!
Just as Perov was indulging in visions of his glorious future, a teasing voice drifted over.
"The World Government probably won't be interested in that corpse."
Perov's hair stood on end.
He snapped his head around, only to see Oguro standing not far away, together with Soifon and the others, all perfectly fine and quietly watching him.
From their faces, he even saw deep mockery and pity.
"H-how is this possible? Didn't I kill you?!"
Perov hurriedly looked back in front of him.
There were indeed two corpses lying there.
But they weren't Oguro.
Two men dressed like guards, swords in hand, had been skewered straight through by his blade.
"Balenk! Jerita!"
Perov cried out in shock.
Weren't these two the subordinates he had painstakingly brainwashed with his Devil Fruit?
Both of them were swordsmen at the level of a swordmaster!
He had even learned his Haki and swordsmanship from them!
How could it be them?
"Too many restrictions, too much preparation time. Your Devil Fruit ability is absolute trash."
Oguro casually twirled his Zanpakutō, a look of disdain on his refined face.
"So I kindly showed you what real mental control looks like."
"What, already forgotten what just happened?"
As the blade moved, Perov's sealed memories suddenly resurfaced.
Back when Oguro released his spiritual pressure, a flash of white light had passed over the sword.
But since nothing seemed to happen at the time, Perov hadn't paid it any attention.
"So I was already hit back then!"
Perov's expression twisted as he roared.
"Impossible! I ate the Dream-Dream Fruit! My consciousness is immune to all mental control abilities! You can't control me!"
Just like how Kuzan, who ate the Ice-Ice Fruit, couldn't be frozen to death by ice.
By all logic, Perov's mind should've been immune to similar powers.
Oguro merely sneered.
My system can even devour the devil souls inside Devil Fruits. You think this can give you immunity?
You've got to be dreaming.
As for those two unlucky fools, they had followed Perov's orders to lie in ambush and prepare a sneak attack.
Unfortunately for them, they witnessed Kyōka Suigetsu's Shikai and were instantly wiped out.
"My ability is Complete Hypnosis. Sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch. Once you're under it, all five senses are fully under my control!"
"Compared to your half-baked ability that needs time to slowly invade someone's consciousness, we're not even on the same level."
Oguro's words shattered Perov's composure completely.
"That's impossible! This kind of power… only I should have it!"
Eyes bloodshot, Perov charged at Oguro, looking like a man whose very path had collapsed.
He slashed down, but the blade passed straight through Oguro's body.
An afterimage.
Oguro appeared elsewhere.
Perov rushed him again.
Another afterimage.
"How pathetic."
One of Oguro's illusions spoke calmly.
"So, how does it feel? Being controlled and toyed with like this?"
"My subordinates and the civilians outside were played with like this by you for a long time."
Perov sneered.
"They're just lowly trash! Being chosen by me is their honor! I'm the chosen king! It's only natural for them to serve me!"
Oguro shook his head.
Another man lost to power.
Eating a Devil Fruit made him believe he was chosen by fate, treating everyone else like livestock.
Having seen through Perov completely, Oguro lost all interest.
As Perov continued charging at illusion after illusion, Oguro gently planted his Zanpakutō into the ground and murmured,
"Shatter… Kyōka Suigetsu."
Perov froze.
The light in his eyes slowly faded, and his body collapsed limply to the ground.
This was a new application Oguro had recently developed.
If Kyōka Suigetsu could fully hypnotize the five senses, then making those senses believe the person was dead meant that, in theory, the person would truly die.
There had been similar studies in Oguro's previous life.
The mind can influence the body.
A mere piece of paper brushing against someone's wrist, claimed to be a cut, had once nearly caused someone to die.
And this was the One Piece world, a thoroughly idealistic, mind-over-matter world.
Sure enough, once Perov's five senses fell into total silence, his soul was extinguished as well.
At that moment, the people still singing in the plaza shuddered.
Streams of gray energy poured out of their bodies, and clarity gradually returned to their eyes.
"W-why am I here?"
"Didn't I leave? How did I come back?"
As shock spread through the crowd, they quickly realized the truth.
"It was Perov! He controlled us!"
"He made us farm without pay. He treated us like slaves!"
Among the crowd, a man wearing luxurious royal robes looked especially grim.
Adalou Trisk, king of the Adalou Kingdom.
Even he had been controlled.
Every royal decree had been issued by Perov's hand.
And to seize the throne permanently, Perov had already schemed to kill all of his children.
Trisk himself had been poisoned deeply and was already close to death.
"Go! Mobilize the entire army!"
"I'm tearing Perov to pieces today!"
Trisk's eyes burned with hatred.
The destruction of his family, the extinction of his bloodline!
Even if it cost him his old life, he would drag Perov down to hell with him!
But before he could summon anyone, a corpse fell from the sky—
—and landed squarely in the center of the plaza.
***
Read 20 Chapters early on P-atreon.com/Redestro666