Chapter 27: Ancient Zoan
“What the hell… is that thing?”
Umit, standing on the highest mushroom-shaped rock, furrowed his brows. Since Doflamingo could notice the spiritual pressure erupting from Elus, he naturally wouldn’t miss it either. Moreover, the “welcome ceremony” he had arranged at the port was a probing tactic to begin with.
It was worth it to probe even a little of Elus’s background, even if it meant sacrificing all the arranged manpower.
However,
A portion of Elus’s ability had been exposed.
But this exposed method left him utterly baffled about what the hell it really was. It looked like Conqueror’s Haki, but clearly wasn’t Conqueror’s Haki. He himself didn’t possess Conqueror’s Haki, but he had clashed with plenty of strong persons who did, so he was very familiar with it.
“An ability user? Paramecia, or…”
Umit knitted his brows tightly.
With this limited intelligence, he could only make such a vague guess: preliminarily, a Paramecia Devil Fruit user, and one similar to BIG·MOM’s Soul-Soul Fruit. He had personally witnessed the scene of BIG·MOM stripping the souls from the resisters.
His intuition told him the two had striking similarities.
But it was precisely this intuition that increased the pressure in Umit’s heart even further.
He knew full well BIG·MOM’s terror,
The clearer he understood this terror, the more cautious he became, fearing that a single lapse in judgment would lead to capsizing in the gutter and becoming another negative example in the Dark World whose infamy would linger for who knows how long.
“Phew! Lord Umit, this feeling… is kinda scary!”
Marcus, the bald man wearing a baseball cap, crouched at Umit’s feet. He looked toward the port and sighed in great distress. As Umit’s number one strong person among his subordinates, Marcus also mastered Observation Haki, and to a considerable degree.
Besides sensing the mysterious terrifying power from Elus, he had also noticed the formidable presence of Elus’s aides-de-camp.
Such powerful strength,
Was not easy to deal with at all.
“Another deadly tough battle! …Sigh! Who knows if there’ll even be a chance to play cards in the future!” He sighed, seemingly reminiscing about those blissful past days of happily playing cards with others.
“Marcus… shut your mouth if you can’t say anything useful. Once we deal with these troublesome brats, I’ll give you half a month off to play cards.”
Marcus’s pre-battle demoralizing behavior nearly made Umit pass out from anger right then and there,
“Only half a month? Can’t it be longer?”
“Shut your mouth.”
Umit glared fiercely at his subordinate who was still trying to haggle. Such nonsense was utterly meaningless right now. If they survived this battle, how he played afterward would be trivial, but if they screwed up this time and dug their own graves… there’d be no need to spout such nonsense anymore.
As he spoke, Umit listened to the heavy footsteps approaching from afar, interrupting his lecturing of his subordinate. Instead, he brought Marcus to the edge of the mushroom-shaped rock, where they could clearly see with the naked eye the sparse group moving toward them at astonishing speed.
“Planning to win with quality? Quite confident!”
Umit stared at the approaching six-person group.
Elus, Dick, Dillon, Kappas, Eschbach, and that tagalong Farrug.
Fran had stayed on the flagship to guard the ship and wasn’t participating in this operation.
In comparison, Umit’s side had over six thousand people, a numerical advantage of a thousand times over.
“Ah! It’s really that guy Farrug…” Marcus suddenly shouted, “I thought he was dead! He’s still alive… Wait, did this guy defect? Spineless bastard! Damn it!”
“Just a little crawler, no need to mind him.”
Umit didn’t take Farrug to heart. Whether dead or defected, he wasn’t an important figure. Even if he sold intelligence… sorry, a Hidden Pawn like Farrug originally didn’t know any information about Umit’s maritime transport group.
“More importantly, Marcus, are you confident you can take down that big guy?”
Umit pointed at the culprit causing the ground beneath their feet to tremble slightly: Eschbach, standing behind Elus.
“Lord Umit, don’t blame me for not boosting morale. How could there be full confidence in something like this? I can at most do my utmost. I can only guarantee holding him back so he doesn’t interfere with your battle before you win.”
Marcus didn’t speak in absolutes.
His Observation Haki sensed intense danger from Eschbach.
This was a formidable enemy, a terrifying one where a single misstep could lead to defeat and death. Holding him off was already the biggest promise he could make; anything more… would just be deceptive nonsense.
“Then do your utmost, Marcus.”
Umit responded, then turned his attention back to the approaching six-person group. Once they entered cannon range, Umit, who had long been holding the Den Den Mushi in wait, issued the order to fire. In an instant, the roar of cannon fire nearly drowned out all surrounding sounds.
The sea breeze, the waves, the gulls’ cries—all of it was overshadowed by the thundering cannon fire.
Hundreds of cannons unleashed their full fury, spewing destructive cannonballs one after another like they were free. In fact, Umit had indeed invested heavily this time; this six-thousand-strong legion carried a superabundant amount of weapons and supplies.
This was more than enough supplies for a battle on the scale of ten thousand.
So,
The bombardment lasted far longer than at the port. The gunners had their fill today, expending ammunition piled up beside the cannons like it really was free.
“Roar————!!!”
A roar that shook the heavens actually overpowered the thunder of those hundreds of cannons.
A super-gigantic monster appeared on the earth—a… dinosaur, a super-gigantic one with an extremely long and powerfully robust neck and tail, roughly over fifty meters in body length. Judging by its height and estimated muscle density, its weight… absolutely exceeded one hundred tons.
“Hulala————!!!”
The suddenly appeared super-gigantic dinosaur opened its massive jaws and blew a fierce breath, sending nearly a thousand incoming cannonballs flying away, even farther and deeper than when they were fired, directly blasting the logistics warehouses.
“A Zoan Devil Fruit user? And an Ancient Zoan, no less…” The destruction of the logistics warehouses didn’t faze Umit. This bombardment tactic was, after all, just another testing method to probe the abilities of Elus and his aides-de-camp.
As long as enough intelligence could be gathered, paying some price wasn’t unacceptable.
In comparison, an Ancient Zoan Devil Fruit user—this was the real trouble.
