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Uvogin watched the fight ahead with real interest, arms crossed.
"Ox and Tiger have leveled up big time, huh~"
Moria was playing it exactly like Chrollo said he would—using his own shadow to puppet the corpse of the super-giant Oars, slamming into the two Zodiac Knights with raw fury.
But years of laziness had clearly caught up to him. Oars had picked up Moria's sloppy habits, and his hand-to-hand work was straight-up embarrassing. Every punch and kick was off on power and aim.
Meanwhile, Ox and Tiger just kept getting stronger.
Ox's Nen ability was called Closed Room Court (Manipulation-type). Three card types:
- Blue Card: warning shot.
- Yellow Card: physical lockdown.
- Red Card: release.
The whole system ran on vows and restrictions. Blue Card set the rules, Yellow Card trapped the target in a mid-density aura cage that froze them in place for a few seconds, and once the Red Card dropped, Ox could unload.
After dodging a couple of Oars' wild swings, Ox slapped down a Yellow Card and pinned the giant right where he stood.
Tiger used that window to charge.
Tiger was your classic Enhancer—simple-minded, short fuse, all power. His Nen ability was Sensory Enhancement. He could pump aura into any single trait and crank it to insane levels. Vision boost let him track objects at crazy speeds and ranges. Hearing picked up whispers from miles away. Reflexes turned him into a blur against supersonic attacks.
He could run up to three senses at once, but going all-in on one? That was where the real nightmare began.
Right now he'd dumped everything into flooding his body with adrenaline. The surge turned him into a walking war machine.
BOOM!
The punch left a sonic boom hanging in the air. Oars' massive body actually tilted, then flew backward.
Giants were built like tanks, though—especially one called the "Colossal Demon" from five hundred years ago. Tiger's hit barely scratched him. Oars straightened up like nothing happened.
Moria's voice echoed from inside the corpse, still laughing like a maniac.
"Hee hee hee hee! This is my strongest zombie! What now, huh? Out of tricks already?"
Then it happened.
The exact spot Tiger had punched—Oars' jaw—started crumbling like someone hit a delete button. Chunks of flesh and bone disintegrated under the shockwave, turning to dust in the wind.
"!!!"
Moria's face went slack inside the giant's body. He stared in total disbelief.
"How the hell—?!"
Across the battlefield, Phinks, Feitan, and Shizuku all tensed up at once. Their eyes narrowed.
"If I'm not seeing things," Phinks muttered, "that's the same second ability we've got."
Feitan nodded slowly. "Looks like they ate a Devil Fruit too."
But something felt off.
Chrollo had told them Devil Fruits were rare as hell on the Dark Continent and mostly locked down by the World Government. The Troupe only had so many because Chrollo could steal and hand them out. So how did these two randomly score powers?
The answer came a second later.
Ox's body suddenly flared with white light. In the blink of an eye he was gone—replaced by a towering 7-to-8-meter-tall half-man, half-bull figure. Hooves, horns, flowing white mane that looked like clouds, the whole mythical package.
White Ox form.
The transformed Ox kicked out with one massive hoof. The force sent Oars tumbling again like he'd been hit by a freight train.
No way this was random luck. Two Devil Fruits at once? Impossible odds.
The only explanation: these Zodiac Knights had joined some bigger crew with serious resources.
"Damn it, don't underestimate me!" Moria screamed.
Shadow Revolution!
He poured his shadow into Oars' body. The giant suddenly stretched and contracted like rubber, fists raining down in a storm. The momentum swung back in Moria's favor.
Shizuku tilted her head, watching closely.
"So this is one of the ways the Captain said the Shadow-Shadow Fruit could be used…"
Because shadow and body were linked, changing the shadow changed the body. Moria had slipped his shadow into Oars and was reshaping it at will, turning the clumsy giant into something way more flexible.
Still… Oars' technique was trash. Even with rubber-like stretchiness, his attacks were too slow and sloppy to land anything clean.
Ox and Tiger's Nen-and-fruit combo was surgical. They chipped away at the giant piece by piece until, in Moria's horrified eyes, the Colossal Demon Oars finally collapsed with a thunderous crash.
Moria's real body tumbled out onto the ground.
Ox and Tiger walked side by side toward the lone Warlord, expressions cold.
"Corpses don't have the fighting instincts they had in life," Ox said flatly. "How could they ever beat Zodiac Knights?"
"I'll ask one more time. Why the hell are you collecting the bodies of the Rocks Pirates?"
"And… what secrets did you find?"
"You crazy bastards—crazy, crazy, CRAZY!" Moria kicked the broken remains of Oars in a rage. "Don't you dare look down on me! I'm a Warlord of the Sea!"
Shadow Gathering Place!
He opened his mouth wide. Every shadow attached to the zombies ripped free, flying through the air and pouring straight down his throat.
"All these shadows… will become my power! Let me show you my ultimate form!"
One hundred… two hundred… a thousand!
Moria's body swelled bigger and bigger under the flood of shadows until he towered over everything—a hundred-meter nightmare giant even larger than Oars had been.
But instead of going after the annoying Ox and Tiger, the colossal Moria swung his enormous palm straight at Bartholomew Kuma, who was still blasting zombie generals apart with laser beams.
"Die first, you damn machine! Then I'll deal with those two pests!"
The giant hand cut through the air with crushing pressure.
At the last possible second—
"DAD!!!"
A desperate cry ripped out from a nearby Air Door.
Chrollo stepped through with Bonney right behind him, tears already shining in her eyes as she stared at the massive figure of her father.