On the deck of the Gem Shark, it had already turned into a blood-soaked purgatory.
The tiger-shaped corpse puppet was like a gray whirlwind of death, rampaging through the pirates in total panic. Every time its claws swung out, they carried a shriek that ripped through the air, easily slicing open flesh and snapping bones; every time its steel-like long tail swept across, several pirates were whipped away like rag dolls, smashing into the rail or a mast—tendons torn, bones shattered—never making another sound.
Mad Treasure's two officers, Psycho P and Naomi, had tried to stop this killing machine.
Psycho P fumbled and flailed as he sprayed on paint in every color, trying to use his Devil Fruit power to mess with the corpse puppet's sight and create illusions. But the corpse puppet didn't depend on vision at all—its movement came from Tabito's spiritual sense controlling it directly, plus its own bloodthirsty instinct. Those gaudy colors did absolutely nothing, and instead made it even more irritable. It pounced in a single burst, a massive paw slamming down with a vicious gust!
"Bang!"
Psycho P barely had time to shove a paint can in front of his chest before an irresistible force sent him flying. Like a kite with its string cut, he slammed into a heap of clutter—life or death unknown.
On the other side, Naomi forced down her drunken haze. Her eyes sharpened, bowstring snapping again and again, as arrows wrapped with detonators streaked toward the corpse puppet's vital points like meteors.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Blasts of fire erupted across the corpse puppet's body, smoke billowing. But when the dust cleared, its hide—refined and hardened—was only slightly scorched. Its motion didn't slow by even the slightest bit. Its blood-red eyes locked onto Naomi. With a surge of power in all four limbs, its huge body displayed agility completely at odds with its size, instantly closing the distance—then its gaping jaws snapped down!
"No—!"
Naomi only managed a short, broken scream before she was swallowed whole. Only half of a shattered bow clattered to the deck, proof she had ever existed at all.
Seeing the officers go down so easily, the remaining pirates completely collapsed. Cries, pleas, splashes—one after another. They scattered like headless flies, shoving and trampling each other, desperate to get farther from that nightmare monster—farther, farther—until they started jumping into the freezing sea like dumplings being dropped into a pot. Whether they could survive on the open ocean was no longer something anyone could afford to care about.
"Bastards! My crew!!" Mad Treasure watched it all, eyes splitting with rage, his heart bleeding. These were the people he'd scraped together with real effort—his working backbone, the muscle that let him roam East Blue and hunt treasure. Out on the sea, unless you were some freakish elite squad (like a certain future Straw Hat Pirates), numbers often were the symbol of strength!
With fury rushing to his head, Mad Treasure's attacks lost all structure. The chains still poured out like venomous pythons from every direction toward Tabito, but their paths were chaotic and full of openings.
Facing Mad Treasure's raging assault, Tabito looked completely at ease. One hand held the Human Emperor Banner, transformed into a dark iron greatspear, while his body shifted and moved across the deck as if taking a leisurely walk. In his grip, that black spear seemed alive.
Its tip flickered—cold stars bursting into view; its shadow layered—pear blossoms scattering in a storm. Once the spear started to move, an invisible barrier seemed to wrap around him. Spear-light flashed across his whole body like drifting auspicious snow, sealing him in a defense without a single gap.
"Clink-clink-clang-clang—!"
Dense impacts rang out like rain hammering banana leaves. Every chain Mad Treasure fired in anger—no matter how vicious the angle, no matter how heavy the force—was precisely knocked aside or bounced away by that seemingly light spear-shadow. Not a single chain pierced the "snow" of that defensive circle. Not one even grazed Tabito.
Through this exchange, Tabito gained a clearer understanding of his current strength.
"Qi Refining, third layer… if I convert it to this world's combat power, I'm roughly on the level of pirates with bounties over a hundred million," he calculated silently. "This chain man's foundation isn't actually bad. His attack power and chain control have basically touched the threshold for a hundred million. So why is his bounty only sixty million? Hiding his strength… or did he cut some kind of deal?"
He was fighting so comfortably it felt more like he was using Mad Treasure as practice—getting used to this world's combat rhythm and how its power expressed itself. The fodder pirates he'd met before couldn't even qualify as a warm-up.
Down below, in the bottom of the wrecked cabin, Carina and Nami secretly watched through the crack. They were already staring, dumbstruck.
"Th-that guy… he looks about the same age as us, right? How can he be this… strong?!" Nami covered her mouth, her teal eyes full of disbelief. To her, Mad Treasure's strength was already several times that nightmare called Arlong (captain of the Arlong Pirates)… yet this mysterious young man could handle him so easily, and even… like he was toying with him?
"Maybe… he could…" A thought she couldn't stop rose in Nami's mind—if she asked this boy to deal with Arlong, would Cocoyasi Village finally be freed? But the next second, she bitterly crushed the fantasy. They weren't family, they weren't friends. His methods were vicious. Why would he help her? At this point, she'd be thankful if he didn't decide they were enemies and kill them too.
Unlike Nami's dread, hope lit a fire in Carina's eyes. As long as she could escape Mad Treasure's grasp, anything was fine! Watching Tabito's profile—young, but already sharp around the edges—and that extraordinary strength, a bold idea surfaced in her mind: "If there's no other way… with my looks and my figure, this ojō-sama could maybe… give it a try?"
At the center of the battlefield, Mad Treasure grew more and more frantic as his attacks failed again and again. What little reason he had left was swallowed by rage and fear.
"Damn it! Damn it! You forced this! Finisher—Chain: Strangling Curtain Hell!"
He roared, throwing his arms wide, and the chains all over his body erupted like a breached flood! Countless thick black chains instantly spread across the sky above the deck, blotting everything out. Then, like a gigantic black cage, they surged inward from all directions, shrinking and crushing at the same time! Chains ground against chains with a teeth-aching screech, as if they meant to grind Tabito—and the space around him—into paste, to twist and shred it into meat!
Faced with this terrifying killing blow, Tabito's eyes finally showed a hint of seriousness for the first time. But even more than that was a kind of indifferent calm—like the testing was over.
"Had your fun? Then it's done."
He gave a cold smile and stopped holding back. The Heavenly Demon Soul-Devouring Art spun within him, and a refined gray-black baleful aura poured down his arm into the dark iron greatspear. In the next instant, his waist and core snapped into motion, arm muscles bulging, and he hurled the spear—wrapped in ominous black energy—like a thrown javelin straight at Mad Treasure's real body!
"Wooo—!"
The moment it left his hand, the black aura on the spear flared violently. Within it, countless twisted, wailing ghostly silhouettes seemed to take shape, and a shriek of souls stabbed straight into the spirit. It was an ominous sign manifested from the resentment and baleful energy stored within the Human Emperor Banner!
"RUMBLE—!!!"
The "Strangling Curtain Hell" made of innumerable chains was like paper before this vicious, evil spear-thrust! Wherever the spearhead passed, chains snapped and shattered, bursting into a storm of iron fragments! With unstoppable force, the dark iron greatspear punched through every layer of obstruction, carrying a deathly scream as it appeared in front of Mad Treasure in an instant!
(End of Chapter)
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