Chapter 186: Landing on Ghost Island! The Severely Injured Old Man and the Undying Dead
Cold and deathly still, even the sea breeze seemed to have stopped flowing here.
Accompanied by the dull sound of mechanical gears meshing, Franky pulled the lever in the control room and lowered the drawbridge.
"Hee hee hee hee! The big adventure begins!"
Luffy was the first to jump ashore from the drawbridge in excitement.
Following closely behind were Zoro, Sanji, Robin, Franky, and Tatsuya.
They also walked down the drawbridge in turn and stepped onto this land filled with the breath of death.
Before them was a moat emitting a nauseating stench.
The river water displayed an extremely eerie dark green color, with unknown turbid foam even floating on it.
Beyond the moat lay a vast black forest with gnarled, claw-like branches.
The withered branches looked like ghostly hands reaching toward the sky for help.
Robin stopped her pace, her deep and charming eyes quietly watching the pitch-black, bottomless river water.
An elegant smile curled at the corners of her mouth:
"The water is so turbid; I wonder how many dismembered corpses are sunk at the bottom.
"Perhaps when we walk across, a water ghost will suddenly stretch out a pale hand from the silt and grab our ankles tightly."
"..."
Hearing these words, Franky, who was walking in front, shuddered visibly.
"Hey, hey, Big Sis Robin!"
Franky turned his head with a face full of black lines to complain.
"Even though this lord is a Super tough guy, please don't say such terrifying things in such a gentle tone, okay?!"
On the other side, Sanji had a completely different reaction.
His eyes instantly turned into two beating red hearts, and his whole body wiggled like a noodle as he leaned in:
"Ah~~ Robin-chan!
"Even when telling such a gloomy ghost story, Robin-chan's intellectual appearance is still so charming!"
Tatsuya helplessly rubbed his brow and took the lead into the gloomy forest of withered trees.
Not long after the group entered the black forest, the withered branches under their feet made a crisp "crackling" sound.
Suddenly!
"ROAARRRR————!!!!"
From the bushes ahead, a deafening beast roar erupted without warning!
A monster the size of a small mountain of flesh leapt out from the forest, crashing heavily in front of everyone and blocking the path.
It was none other than a legendary Cerberus.
It was covered in messy grayish-black fur, and highly corrosive saliva flowed from its three bloody maws.
However, when everyone looked closely, they noticed a very discordant sense of absurdity.
The head on the far left of this Cerberus was not only a size smaller than the other two.
But its fur was reddish, and it had a pair of pointed ears... it was actually a fox's head.
"A Cerberus?"
Zoro looked at the deformed giant beast before him, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly:
"It seems in this boring ghost of a place, there's finally some fun to stretch my limbs with."
On the other side, Sanji also took a deep drag of his cigarette and slowly exhaled a puff of thick smoke.
His right foot stepped back half a pace, his leg muscles instantly tightening as he prepared to kick.
Just as the two main forces of the Straw Hat Pirates were about to take action and tear the giant beast to pieces.
"Wait!!!"
Luffy shouted with extreme excitement, directly bypassing Zoro and Sanji, and rushed toward the terrifying Cerberus without hesitation:
"What a cool dog!!!"
"I want to be like Usopp! I'm taking it as my mount!!!"
Facing this "little snack" that had delivered itself to its door.
The Cerberus's three large mouths let out an angry low growl simultaneously, lunging fiercely at Luffy to bite him!
However, Luffy didn't retreat; he advanced.
Facing the incoming stench-filled wind, he didn't even intend to dodge.
"Gomu Gomu no—Pistol!!!"
Accompanied by an extremely dull loud bang.
Luffy's fist, containing terrifying monstrous strength, smashed precisely onto the nose of the most arrogant dog head in the middle of the Cerberus.
"Awooo——!!!"
The Cerberus, which had been fierce and malicious just a moment ago, was smashed by this punch so hard that its entire massive body flipped half a turn in the air.
The head in the middle instantly saw stars, tears streaming from the pain as its nose bled profusely.
This giant creature immediately acted like an extremely obedient pet dog.
With its limbs on the ground and belly flat, it wagged its tongue pleasingly, allowing Luffy to jump onto its back in excitement.
"..."
Watching this absurdly instantaneous taming process.
The entire crew rolled their eyes in unison and collapsed on the spot.
And so, in this gloomy and terrifying foreign land.
The group followed Luffy, who was riding on the back of the giant Cerberus, through the withered forest and arrived at a vast cemetery of crosses.
Looking around, hundreds of broken cross tombstones were faintly visible in the mist.
Suddenly, a very slight sound of soil shifting broke the silence.
In a grave right next to the Cerberus Luffy was riding, the hard soil began to churn outward.
"Slap!"
A pale, rotting palm violently reached out from underground, tightly grabbing the edge of the tombstone.
Then, amidst the chilling low moans of "urghhh,"
A zombie with a face full of crude stitches crawled stiffly out of the dirt of the grave.
"We have a situation!"
Everyone instantly tensed their nerves at this moment, preparing to battle this evil spirit crawling out of hell.
However.
As the captain of the ship, Luffy's train of thought was forever unique.
Looking at that terrifying zombie, there wasn't a trace of surprise or fear on his face.
He walked step by step to the front of the zombie that was still low-growling and clawing the air.
Under everyone's incredibly disbelieving gazes.
Luffy reached out his hands and firmly pressed down on the zombie's shoulders from both sides.
Then.
He used all his strength... and stuffed that zombie back into that pitch-black grave exactly as it had come out.
"Eh?!" The zombie didn't even have time to react.
It was forcibly pressed back into the dirt by this monstrous strength, leaving behind only a series of extremely confused low growls.
After doing all this, Luffy even thoughtfully stomped the soil around the grave firm with his feet.
He patted the dust off his hands, turned his head, and said with a big laugh:
"Don't be afraid, everyone. That was just a severely injured old man.
"He was so badly hurt he couldn't even walk straight, so I helped him back to continue resting."
The next second!
Countless veins instantly bulged on the foreheads of Zoro, Sanji, and Franky.
They roared at Luffy with insane intensity:
"Are you blind!! Where is there an old man!! That was clearly a zombie crawling out of a grave, okay?!!!"
"What on earth is in your head!! Have you ever seen a normal, severely injured old man crawl out of the dirt in a cemetery?!!!"
"Are you a demon?! Are you a pervert?!!!"
Just as the Straw Hat Pirates were joyfully and loudly complaining internally.
Luffy's "polite" behavior seemed to have completely enraged the spirits of this cemetery.
"Urghhhhh——!!!"
The entire cemetery instantly boiled over!
Hundreds of strangely shaped zombies, like a tide, accompanied by shrill hissing sounds, frantically broke through the soil!
In just a few seconds, they had the Straw Hat Pirates completely surrounded.
"Tsk, since you've come back to life, then die once more!"
Zoro's eyes turned cold, his two swords unsheathed, and he bit down on the Wado Ichimonji.
His arm muscles bulged, and his body spun rapidly like a top.
"Three Sword Style: Dragon Twister!!!"
A terrifying tornado composed of extremely sharp sword qi rose from the ground.
Like a roaring sword dragon, it instantly swept the dozen or so zombies in the front into its vortex, cutting them into countless fine pieces!
"Tsk, how boring."
Zoro shook the dirt off his blades and frowned.
"It feels like I'm cutting through a pile of moldy, rotten wood."
"Hey! You guys emitting that disgusting, rotten stench!"
Sanji flipped rapidly in mid-air, his right foot carrying extremely fierce force, sweeping out like a bolt of black lightning.
"Collier Shoot!!!"
His feet moved like the wind, directly kicking the heads of a group of zombies away like footballs with extreme violence.
"Trying to use numbers to bully us? Witness the power of this lord's science!"
Franky laughed arrogantly, his right arm's mechanical structure instantly deforming, his iron fist blasting out like a heavy cannon.
"Super——!
"Take my Strong Right!!!"
In the center of the group, Robin maintained an elegant stance.
She crossed her hands in front of her chest.
"Thirty Fleur: Clutch!!!"
Countless white arms, like blooming cherry blossoms, suddenly blossomed on the zombies that were lunging forward.
Those arms tightly throttled the zombies' necks, accompanied by a series of crisp bone-breaking sounds.
In an instant, she snapped the necks of an entire row of zombies, leaving them collapsed on the ground in twisted positions.
The Straw Hat crew's combat power was terrifying, like autumn leaves being swept away, instantly clearing a large open space.
However.
Before everyone could catch their breath, a scene that horrified everyone occurred!
Under the glow of the ghostly green phosphorus fire in the Cross Cemetery, those "corpses" lying on the ground actually moved again!
Then.
This terrifying army of the dead once again let out chilling hisses.
As if they hadn't suffered any damage at all, they continued to lunge at the group one after another!
"You've got to be kidding me..."
Zoro frowned deeply as he watched this scene that defied all logic.
"These guys... not only can they not be cut to death, but after being sliced like that, they don't even bleed a single drop?!"
Just as everyone was becoming extremely frustrated by this army of zombies that wouldn't die or feel pain, and were about to fall into a bitter struggle.
Tatsuya, who had not yet made a move.
His black eyes instantly transformed into an eerie crimson.
Under the perspective of the Sharingan, these corpses themselves were indeed completely and utterly dead.
There was no living blood flowing, nor any signs of physiological function.
But.
Inside each rotting corpse, there resided a mass of black energy emitting strange fluctuations.
They were "shadows" that had been forcibly stuffed into the corpses!
They extended countless black energy threads, perfectly controlling the actions of these deceased like marionettes!
He suddenly looked up and shouted loudly to the group ahead who were still in a bitter struggle:
"Zoro! Sanji! Franky!"
"These things are just empty shells being controlled by someone!"
"They have no souls inside; instead, other people's'shadows' have been forcibly stuffed into them as a power source!"
"As long as those shadows aren't destroyed or extracted, pure physical attacks are completely useless against them!"
"Don't waste your energy!"
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