"As expected, it was fake. No, I should say it was a spirit body!" Sphinx raised her brow.
As someone who also wanted to become the Gun King, Sphinx naturally paid close attention to Gill Bastar. She knew very well that this guy was a Paramecia-type Hollow-Hollow Fruit user.
According to rumors, his marksmanship was extremely sharp, but he himself was like a ghost, impossible to kill no matter what. Only by finding where his real body was hiding could one finish him off.
That was also why Sphinx had not fired at the start.
With a boom, the ghost bomb exploded, swallowing both Bullet and the clock tower.
At the same time, Spencer said, "Be careful. That guy's ghosts can make people lose their fighting spirit. They're very troublesome..."
As his words fell, a large number of ghosts began to emerge from every corner of the chaotic streets. These ghosts passed through the panicked crowds, and wherever they went, the people who had been trying to flee quickly wilted. Anyone who touched a ghost curled up on the ground, mumbling all sorts of dispirited words.
Valthior's gaze was not on those ghosts. He let those things charge toward him as they pleased.
At this moment, he had already opened his Observation Haki, covering the whole town and the island, carefully searching for Gill Bastar's hiding place.
In the next instant, three ghosts swiftly attacked Valthior's body. Immediately after, as if someone had been waiting for this very moment, another gunshot rang out.
However, in the instant before the gunshot sounded, just as the three ghosts were about to touch Valthior's body, a powerful burst of Conqueror's Haki rose from Valthior.
"My will has been tempered a thousand times. Mere ghosts think they can seize my mind!?" Valthior laughed wildly, and at the same time, he raised his hand and grabbed the bullet that had been one step away from striking the center of his brow.
At this moment, his eyes fixed on a civilian house in the distance. The corner of his mouth curled up, revealing an evil and savage smile. "Found you, little rat in the gutter..."
The moment his words fell, Valthior suddenly stepped forward. The ground was instantly crushed open by his brute force, and freezing air flowed like a flood dragon along the rapidly spreading cracks in the earth, rushing straight toward that distant house.
Almost in the blink of an eye, that house was wrapped in ice and turned into an ice sculpture.
At the same time, Gill Bastar, holding a sniper rifle in his arms, burst out from the ice and laughed. "Quick reaction, kid from Roger's ship!"
However, the moment he finished speaking, Valthior's figure had already vanished from his sight.
As a former member of the Rocks Pirates and someone who had participated in many battles between top experts, Gill Bastar was also very experienced. His Observation Haki instantly captured Valthior's figure.
It was future sight!
He made his judgment ahead of time, stomped both feet hard against the air, and quickly used a technique similar to Moonwalk. His figure darted back and forth twice before landing on the roof of another house.
But before his feet could steady themselves, his expression suddenly changed. He threw away the sniper rifle in his hands on the spot, and two additional arms abruptly grew from his body.
At this moment, the four-armed Gill Bastar pulled the guns from his waist, rolled on the spot, and threw himself away. After widening the distance by more than ten meters, he jumped onto the opposite building.
In the next instant, the roof where he had just been was directly smashed into ruins by Valthior's axe-kick from above.
Clearly, Valthior had predicted his prediction.
However, this guy's reaction speed was quite fast, and he managed to dodge that strike in time.
Seeing Valthior smash through the building with one kick, Gill Bastar fired rapidly with all four arms. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Several bullets wrapped in the power of Haki shot toward Valthior at high speed.
Valthior had no intention of defending at all. The ice crystal armor naturally spread across his body, and a series of sharp crackling sounds exploded beside his ears.
"I already said your bullets and your ability are useless against me. All you can do is play petty tricks!" Valthior gave a savage smile, and with a swing of the chain axe in his hand, it swept across dozens of meters through the air and coiled toward Gill Bastar.
The Four-Armed Gun King was, in fact, actually a normal person with only two arms.
But by borrowing the power of his ability, he could make the souls of his arms appear, creating the posture of having four arms. The pistols held in his two physical hands could fire solid metal bullets, while the other two arms fired soul bullets that could make people fall into a negative state.
Because of this, his attacks mixed the real and the false. If an ordinary person was careless and got hit, they would immediately lose their will, drop their defenses, and then be shot dead by him.
Once again using a technique like Shave (Soru), Gill Bastar's figure shot into the air before the battle axe could reach him.
However, before he could widen the distance, he felt a burst of cold air rushing toward him. In his vision, Valthior's figure suddenly appeared, already right in front of his face.
Before he could react, Valthior's heavy elbow had already smashed hard into his chest.
"Man!"
Gill Bastar's marksmanship was very sharp, and his ability was also fairly powerful. It could work wonders against ordinary strong fighters, especially since many people did not know his information. If they carelessly took a Negative Hollow, they would lose the power to resist on the spot. This was one of the reasons Gill Bastar was often able to defeat stronger opponents despite being weaker.
After all, his own raw strength was not especially impressive.
In that rushed moment, he had only just covered his chest with Haki when that elbow strike brutally shattered his Armament Haki. Immediately after, the sound of breaking ribs and the suffocating pain in his chest made Gill Bastar spit out a mouthful of blood.
But in the end, he was still an old veteran who had often appeared on battlefields filled with top-level experts. In that instant, he forcefully suppressed his body's instincts and injuries. As his figure flew backward, his feet stepped rapidly through the air.
This time, Valthior saw it with absolute clarity—it wasn't merely similar to Moonwalk; this was literally Moonwalk! This guy knew the Six Powers!
After pulling away from Valthior in an instant, Gill Bastar already had the thought of retreating. As a gunman, if one shot missed, immediately fleeing far away was his style. It was just that he had not thought too highly of Valthior earlier, so he had arrogantly fired another shot, which led him into this situation.
Now, he was already preparing to run.
On the other side, however, when Sphinx saw him get hit by the elbow strike and could not help spitting out a mouthful of dirty blood, the corner of her mouth curled into a cruel smile. "This time, it's the real body..."
After landing, Gill Bastar threw out a smoke bomb. With a bang, thick smoke burst open, covering a range of several dozen meters.
A flash of surprise passed through Valthior's eyes, because this guy's smoke bomb could actually interfere with Observation Haki. Clearly, this was also some kind of unique trick.
"Valthior, the next time we meet..." Gill Bastar's voice rang out from within the smoke, clearly intending to leave behind a few parting threats before retreating.
But before he could finish, a sharp pa suddenly echoed out. A flower of blood burst open within the smoke.
Only after roughly a third of a second did the distant gunshot finally reach Valthior's ears.
When Valthior turned his head to look, he saw a blue-haired twin-tailed girl standing excitedly atop a distant rooftop. In her hands was a massive sniper rifle taller than she was, and she laughed wildly as she pointed it his way.
"Idiot, who are you trying to act cool for? This old lady will blow your head off with a single shot!!!"
Valthior suddenly waved his hand, and a burst of wind pressure instantly swept away the smoke before him. Narrowing his eyes for a closer look, he could not help but click his tongue inwardly.
Good grief.
The Four-Armed Gun King, Gill Bastar, who had just been putting on such an imposing act moments ago, now had his brains splattered across the ground. The upper half of his skull had been completely blown apart, with red and white matter smeared everywhere in a gruesome mess.
"This really is… did someone just steal my kill?" Valthior muttered, a clear edge of displeasure in his voice.
It was obvious what Gill Bastar had intended—use a smoke bomb to slip away right under Valthior's nose. Did he really think Valthior was some roadside Mountain Bandit King?
That man had personally killed fifty-six Emperors. Did Gill Bastar seriously believe he could pull something like that off?
Even if that blue-haired loli gunner hadn't intervened, Valthior would never have allowed that bastard to escape alive.
Not far away, Spencer—who had been observing the entire scene from start to finish—raised a brow in mild amusement.
"Oh my, another famous gunman from the underworld," he murmured. "The Rampaging Loli, Sphinx, and her partner, the Blood-Handed Lion, Rengar… I've heard she's never been shy about expressing her objections to Gill Bastar's so-called title of Gun King."
"From today on, she's the Gun King, then." Valthior grinned. "Are these two very strong?"
"The exact details of their strength are unknown, but one is an Ancient Zoan user, and the other's marksmanship... well, you saw it yourself," Spencer said softly.
While the two of them were talking, Rengar and Sphinx had already come closer. Looking at the corpse on the ground in the distance, Rengar said helplessly, "You blew him up like that, even his own mother wouldn't recognize him. How are we supposed to exchange him for the bounty now?"
"Headshots are this old lady's romance!" Sphinx said unhappily. "Are you questioning this Gun King?"
"It's precisely because you blow people's heads to pieces every single time that even though we clearly completed ten contracts, only five clients were willing to settle the payment with me! Running into such miserable straits is entirely your fault!" Rengar cursed and grumbled.
As they said this, the two of them had already arrived beside Valthior. Rengar's expression then became awkward.
Although Sphinx had blown Gill Bastar's dog head apart with one shot, this act did indeed feel a little like stealing the kill. Especially since... earlier, they had also wanted to kill Valthior.
Standing in front of him now, it was natural for things to feel a little awkward.
"Well..." Rengar hesitated for a moment, still preparing to speak and ease the situation.
Valthior raised his brow and spoke first. "How much is this guy worth?"
"Hm?" After a brief pause, Rengar said, "His Marine bounty is 260 million berries, but in the underworld, someone also put up five hundred million for his life. Added together, that makes seven hundred and sixty million..."
"Well, if you hadn't forced out his real body, this old lady wouldn't have been able to take him down so smoothly with one shot. How about this, then? Let's split the bounty. Seven hundred and sixty million total. I'll take a bit of a loss; you give us three hundred and fifty million, and you haul away the corpse!" Sphinx said carelessly with the rifle over her shoulder.
But the moment she finished speaking, Rengar knocked her on the top of the head with a fist. Then he looked at Valthior somewhat apologetically and said, "Speaking of which, are you planning to form a new pirate crew? Are you still short on people? What do you think of the two of us?"
"Hey, Rengar, did you forget we're going to join Shiki?" Sphinx said in surprise.
"Idiot. I heard that during the Rocks Pirates era, Gill Bastar had a pretty good relationship with Shiki. You killed him, so how are we supposed to join Shiki now? I don't want to gamble on whether Shiki will avenge him or not..." Rengar glared at Sphinx and said.
Valthior originally had the idea of recruiting people and strengthening his pirate crew. Just now, he had been wondering whether he should try asking them, since these two seemed quite interesting.
In the end, the other side actually brought it up first, and the corner of his mouth immediately rose.
"Ahahahahaha! There's no future in following that guy Shiki. Come aboard my ship. Everyone on our ship is talented, and they speak so nicely. You'll definitely love it!"
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