After satisfying his spending spree, Chrollo walked out of the [Fourth-Dimensional Mansion] with a face full of satisfaction.
He found the Troupe members looking at him with hesitation.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Chrollo asked, confused.
Finally, Nobunaga walked up to him and whispered, "Boss... Boss... if you need to use the restroom, just find a deserted place... you don't have to go into the mansion."
Nobunaga cautiously observed Chrollo's expression, hesitated for a moment, and said:
"That mansion... has no plumbing, you can't flush..."
"...."
"?"
Which bastard spread rumors about me!
Chrollo's gaze swept across the group. Only Bonney subconsciously avoided eye contact.
Stop hiding, it's you, kid!
Finally, after stacking a fifth bump on Bonney's head, Chrollo clapped his hands, feeling refreshed.
"We should go~"
"By the way... where are the others?"
Chrollo looked surprised. They had been wasting time here for a while.
Those two groups were much more reliable than Ah-Jin's combat team. Why hadn't they returned yet?
"Run... Run..."
"They're coming..."
Chrollo turned around upon hearing the voice and looked at Wapol, who was tied up like a dumpling.
Actually, he was curious why Wapol was running away when they arrived, trying to flee his own kingdom.
They flew in from the sky, so theoretically, they shouldn't have been exposed—
He had noticed since just now that Wapol looked terrified and kept muttering something.
He got up and walked to Wapol, slowly squatting down in front of him.
"I've noticed since just now, you keep muttering that they are coming. Who is coming?"
Wapol recovered from his fear and looked at Chrollo with a complex expression.
"It's them..."
"I received news..."
"It's... the Blackbeard Pirates are coming!!!"
"You said you received news that the Blackbeard Pirates are here?" Chrollo looked interested.
We met so soon?!
Wait...
He finally recalled what he had forgotten about Drum Island.
It was that the Blackbeard Pirates had once arrived here searching for something. After failing to find it, they carried out an inhumane destruction of the country.
This led to the paralyzed nation and the survivors' immense hatred for pirates when Luffy and his crew arrived in the original story.
"What is Blackbeard looking for here?"
Chrollo realized the truth almost instantly: the Munch-Munch Fruit!
In the original story, Wapol received wind of Blackbeard's arrival and fled in advance, becoming a pirate.
Unexpectedly, this time he was blocked by Chrollo's group!
The Blackbeard Pirates are good~ Their bounties aren't low.
With their current strength, it's perfect to clash with the current Blackbeard Pirates!
"This is promising!" Joy flashed in Chrollo's eyes.
Seeing these people looking indifferent after hearing Blackbeard's name, Wapol thought they were ignorant fools who had never heard of the Blackbeard Pirates!
So he struggled frantically and roared:
"Do you know who they are?"
"Blackbeard!" Wapol muttered to himself.
"A great pirate with a bounty of 540 million Berries! You will definitely die if you meet him!"
"Ah—" Upon hearing this number, Chrollo's eyes instantly erupted with a scorching light comparable to searchlights.
Wapol continued to speak in fear, his voice choking with sobs:
"That man... is a monster! I heard he doesn't sleep! He looks like an evil spirit! He's an out-and-out dangerous character!"
"If we don't run... we'll all die..."
"I don't want to die yet..."
Chrollo took out the wanted poster printed for him by the government from his pocket and threw it in Wapol's face.
"Run? Why should I run?"
"Do you know who I am?" Chrollo asked back, the corners of his mouth lifting.
Wapol was stunned for a moment, then caught a glimpse of the wanted poster Chrollo threw in his face. His eyes showed incomparable shock!
He first looked at Chrollo to confirm his appearance, then looked at the long string of numbers on the wanted poster, reading it out in shock:
"720 million Berries!!!"
"That's right~" Chrollo narrowed his eyes at him.
"So, as my important collection, you absolutely will not die."
Chrollo looked up towards the coast on the other side of the mountain peak:
"It's not me who should run, it's him..."
Chrollo looked at the Resonance Compass of Fate on his wrist, sensing everyone's emotions to judge the possible location of the Blackbeard Pirates.
The emotions of the Intelligence Squad were very stable. Pakunoda and Shalnark conveyed through their stable emotions that everything was going smoothly on their side.
Obviously, they hadn't encountered the Blackbeard Pirates.
However, the emotions coming from Machi and Nami's side were grave and urgent.
"Looks like the Supply Procurement Squad ran into them..." Chrollo quickly made a judgment.
But he didn't sense panic or chaos in their emotions, indicating the battle hadn't started yet.
"There's still time, but we must hurry."
However, a trace of confusion appeared on Chrollo's brow.
Nami's side was fine; besides urgency, there was only anger... evidently, the Blackbeard Pirates' massacre had begun.
But he couldn't quite understand the emotions of Machi, Shizuku, and Kortopi sensed from the compass markers...
Those emotions included gravity and vigilance, but were also mixed with shock, a trace of disbelief, and faint hostility...
"Strange... would encountering the Blackbeard Pirates evoke so many complex emotions? They shouldn't know who Blackbeard is..."
Chrollo looked puzzled.
---
Meanwhile...
On the observation deck halfway up Drum Mountain, in the direction Chrollo was looking.
Machi and the other three were hiding there, staring at the town engulfed in flames below the observation deck.
Machi covered Nami's mouth tightly to prevent her crying from being heard.
In the town,
An inhumane indiscriminate massacre was underway—
The Blackbeard Pirates were venting their anger on the citizens for failing to capture Wapol, attacking indiscriminately.
Blackbeard stood in the center of the town, an ambitious smile on his lips.
At his feet, a heavy, despairing black darkness spread like a tide, swallowing everything it passed into nothingness.
Burgess stood in a corner of the town, holding a red-nosed man and laughing rampantly.
The red-nosed man was bruised and swollen, wearing heavy clown makeup, looking miserable. It was obviously God Buggy.
In front of the two were houses collapsed into ruins and citizens beaten out of human shape...
Van Augur looked cold as ice, holding his long golden rifle.
Every pull of the trigger precisely took away a life trying to resist or flee.
Doc Q looked as half-dead as ever, slumped on his sick horse.
But in front of him were patches of people turning blue and purple, struggling as they fell, infected by the plague.
Laffitte spread his white wings, hovering in the smoke-filled sky, looking down at this hell on earth with a twisted smile on his face:
"This is fate—"
On the observation deck,
Nami watched the citizens falling like grass below, tears bursting forth, her body trembling violently with anger and sorrow.
But unlike Nami's pure grief and indignation—
The gazes of Machi, Shizuku, and Kortopi were fixed on the only man in the town who wasn't participating in the violence.
That man stood behind the Blackbeard Pirates, quiet as an outsider.
He had striking red hair, wore a white performance outfit covered in poker patterns, a tear mole under the corner of his eye, and a faint, elusive smile on his lips.
The Magician—Hisoka.
Machi's gaze was complicated to the extreme: shock, hatred, vigilance, and an indescribable worry interwoven together.
She stared at that familiar yet strange figure, whispering in a voice only she could hear:
"This is bad..."
"Boss... you have to get here quickly—"
...