Chapter 181: Spirit-spirit Fruit
The ghosts didn’t fly too far; spiritual bodies don’t possess something like gravitational potential energy.
They floated in the air.
As if they had been beaten silly, they blankly stared at Fran.
“Fran.”
Elus was also a bit curious.
Spiritual bodies, according to this world’s reason, cannot be touched by ordinary means, including Armament Haki, which also cannot affect spiritual bodies. Even if you could punch down an entire mountain with one fist, you couldn’t harm a spiritual body even a tiny bit.
“How did you just… do that?”
Punching ghosts away with one fist,
This didn’t conform to this world’s operating mechanism at all.
“……It’s my ability.”
Fran herself was also a bit confused.
She thought for a few seconds before slowly saying: “This flame of mine seems… able to touch souls!” A circle of golden-red illusory flames wrapped around her hand, blooming with brilliant yet non-dazzling gentle light.
“……True absolute defense? Including attacks on the soul level that can be resisted…… I’ve always felt that compared to Marco’s regeneration as fellow Mythical Zoans, or Kaido’s ability to manipulate wind, thunder, and weather, simply enhancing defense seems a bit… weak.”
Elus sorted through the thoughts in his mind,
“Hey, Lion Face, got fire?”
“Fire?”
The playing-dead Absalom moved, “I don’t have a lighter, but my arms are equipped with rocket launchers.”
“Rocket launcher…… that’ll do! Aim at the forest over there and give me a big fire.”
“Yes, yes.”
Two rocket launchers suddenly appeared on Absalom’s arms.
This guy hid it well; earlier on the deck, he had clearly exposed himself but still kept the rocket launcher hidden.
However,
After witnessing Fran punching away the ghosts, Absalom realized that his idea of relying on the rocket launcher equipped on his arm to catch them off guard and turn the tables at a critical moment was nothing but a pipe dream…… so, he honestly revealed the rocket launcher proactively.
“Smart move.”
Elus glanced over, unmoved.
The smile on Absalom’s face grew even more unnatural and flattering. With two “whoosh” sounds, the rocket launcher fired, followed by deafening explosion sounds. The dead trees by the roadside were blasted apart, and blazing flames burned fiercely on the broken tree stumps.
“Fran, don’t use Armament Haki. Use that flame of yours…… to touch it.” Elus pointed at the burning tree stump.
Fran stepped forward.
She extended her left hand into the burning flames.
“……How does it feel?”
After waiting a few seconds with no reaction from Fran, Elus had to ask proactively.
“No feeling, just…… very ordinary.” Fran carefully experienced the nuances, “Unlike Armament Haki, using the fruit ability consumes less stamina…… It seems that even without Armament Haki, it can hurt Logia ability users.”
“Oh! Interesting.”
Elus raised an eyebrow.
If Fran’s feeling was correct, then the Golden Winged Bird Fruit’s ability wasn’t really that weak; used well, it might not be inferior to other Mythical Zoan fruits.
You have to know,
Armament Haki is limited.
Once depleted, it requires time to recover. In prolonged wars, you have to carefully control Haki consumption. Many people in the New World can use Armament Haki, but aside from a few, most only cover parts of their bodies in combat.
Few would waste Haki on full coverage.
Fran’s Golden Winged Bird Fruit flames have properties similar to Haki but even more superior, and they don’t overlap with Haki calculation, which greatly boosts her stamina. And this might not be all; Paramecia fruits have all sorts of strange abilities, many of which Armament Haki struggles to defend against.
For example, the Op-Op Fruit’s transfer and cutting abilities, the Spirit-Spirit Fruit’s soul attacks, the art fruit’s smoke that turns people into artwork…… and the like, not uncommon.
While Armament Haki can’t resist them, it doesn’t mean the Golden Winged Bird Fruit’s flames can’t play a role.
It’s just lacking experimental data to confirm.
But even so, it’s enough to make one feel pleased.
Elus was happy to see his subordinates grow stronger, especially confidants like Fran. The stronger his confidant subordinates, the greater the help they could provide him in the future.
After lingering in the forest for a while,
The group set off again.
The obstructing ghosts had quietly vanished. Elus said nothing, and Absalom chose silence. His loyalty to Lord Moria would never change. Letting the injured Perona notify Lord Moria was, in his view, something to be delighted about.
Even if he would be punished by Lord Black Prince later for “knowing but not reporting,” he accepted it.
“……Lord Black Prince, after crossing this forest and the graveyard ahead, it’s Doctor Hogback’s residence. You can already see the tip of the residence’s tower from here.” Absalom pointed to the sharp tower tip in the distance, introducing the route ahead.
“Graveyard? Such a lively graveyard is rare.”
Elus scanned the graveyard piled with grave mounds and lined with tombstones.
It seemed eerily quiet, but rustling noises were constant. Though there was no breath of living creatures in this graveyard,…… zombies were plentiful.
“——Splurt——”
Soil churned.
Bluish arms broke out from underground like bamboo shoots in spring.
Where there’s one, there’s two; where there’s two, there must be three…… Like a signal, the zombies hidden in the graveyard all stirred to life. Their bodies were shriveled and emaciated, wrapped in yellowish bandages all over, their tattered clothes covered in muddy stains.
“Wooo wooo woo……”
The zombies made strange cries, shambling toward Elus’s group at not-too-slow paces.
“Stop, all of you stop right now. Whoever moves, I’ll shove him into the furnace to burn as firewood.”
Absalom yelled furiously.
These idiot zombies didn’t see how carefully he behaved around Lord Black Prince, afraid to displease this big shot. Fine if these zombie soldiers didn’t help, but they even dared to undermine him.
The zombies were stunned.
They blankly stared at their commander who jumped out to stop them, unsure what went wrong.
This wasn’t their first time coordinating; before, Absalom would lure targets over, then the zombies would swarm and surround the prey.
This time,
something seemed off?
————
Deep within Thriller Bark.
A sprawling palace complex hid in gloomy thick fog. Thick rusted iron chains connected in all directions mid-air. The solitary castle had no lights, its dilapidated roads covered in dust and dry bones. Bats flew in flocks across the sky.
A burst of eerie laughter suddenly rang out.
White ghosts gathered toward the castle from all directions, passing through high walls, closed gates, tightly shut windows…… In front of the floor-to-ceiling window, a bandaged teddy bear saw the ghost fly into the room and hurriedly greeted:
“Oh oh…… oh oh oh!!! You’re back, Lady Perona.”
“Shut up, Kumashi.”
The ghosts surged into the lavish swan velvet bed deep in the room. A slender gothic-dressed girl sat atop it. As the dispersed souls converged, the girl, previously motionless like a puppet doll, came to life. She stood on the floor, hands on hips, glaring angrily at the trembling teddy bear,
“Your voice is small and low, not cute at all…… Things that aren’t cute have no right to serve me.”
“And…… hiss! It hurts!”
The girl hadn’t finished speaking when tidal pain overwhelmed her, clutching her head and letting out shrill wails.
The teddy bear watched the wailing girl in panic but didn’t dare make a sound, only looking helplessly at its master.
Perona sat on the bed’s edge for a good while before releasing her head-clutching hands. The soul-splitting pain finally subsided. Catching her breath, she tearfully cursed the woman who caused her agony, “Damn woman, what kind of monster is she…… That bastard Absalom……”
Since eating the Spirit-Spirit Fruit and mastering ghost clones, this was the first time she’d been hit so painfully.
A fist straight to the soul.
She still hadn’t recovered.
“No, those two are too dangerous. I must notify Lord Moria.”
Perona stood up again.
The lingering pain in her mind constantly reminded her something was wrong. This was a situation she’d never encountered before, and that guy Absalom…… Thinking carefully now, from Lion Face’s foolish expression, he seemed very afraid of that man and woman……
The determined girl acted immediately,
She found a Den Den Mushi on the table but put it down after looking at it for a few seconds. Some things couldn’t be explained clearly over the Den Den Mushi.
So,
The girl sat back on the bed,
An identical ghost clone emerged, flew two loops in the air, and instructed the little bear teddy, “Kumashi, watch my body.” Then it plunged into the wall, passing straight through the shortest path to the castle main house before Thriller Bark’s main mast.
This was Moonlight Moria’s residence.
Essentially the captain’s room.
It was a very tall and large room. A gigantic man rested his head on an oversized pillow, lying supine on thick rugs…… His size was far too huge and fat compared to normal humans.
He had a fire onion-like hairstyle, demonic features, horns on his forehead sides, pointed ears, sharp steel fork-like fangs visible in his breaths, a long neck somewhat like the Snape Tribe, wearing a bat-collar shirt and gothic art clothing.
This man,
Was the Seven Warlords’ Moonlight Moria.
“……Lord Moria, Lord Moria……”
Perona’s ghost clone floated in the room’s air.
“……Perona, huh! Heh heh heh heh! What’s up?” The awakened Moria greeted the airborne Perona cheerfully, showing no morning grumpiness.
In fact,
As Pirate Crew captain, Moria was a good superior.
His subordinates were all loyal. Absalom risked being besieged by Doflamingo and Pacifistas during the Summit War to rescue Moria, and later even dared attack the Blackbeard Pirates, who had replaced Whitebeard as one of the Four Emperors, to save Absalom.
Perona was also a child he picked up, whom the girl saw as a father figure and deeply respected, well…… though she was later lured away by Hawk Eyes.
“Lord Moria, someone boarded the ship.”
“Oh? New prey?”
“No, not right, Lord Moria. This enemy’s different from before. Absalom seems coerced by them. My ghost clones were injured by them; it still hurts a bit now.”
Moria was dazed for a moment.
As if taking time to process Perona’s words.
“Perona, you say…… your ghost clone was injured?” The speaking Moria was clearly surprised. Perona was a child he picked up and raised from young, and even the precious Paramecia Spirit-Spirit Fruit was obtained through great effort.
He knew well how tricky the Spirit-Spirit Fruit was.
Without targeting Perona’s main body directly, even he had no way to deal with the ghost clones.
“Yeah, a red-haired maid.”
“Red-haired maid?”
Moria blinked, trying hard to recall, but no such figure came to mind.
“Right right, the man with that maid…… feels like I’ve seen him somewhere.” Perona recalled the scene, but perhaps due to the ghost clone’s injury, the memory in her mind wasn’t clear.
“Ah——! Can’t remember.”
Perona was very annoyed.
She clearly had an impression, yet couldn’t match it to a name in memory. Her intuition told her it was important—no, a very terrifying guy.
“Heh heh heh heh! Interesting! Interesting! I want to see just who it is.”
Moria beckoned, and three small zombies at the door hopped in. “Pao, Jin, Xiuluo, have Spider Rat check what happened to Absalom. Bring back photos of the intruders; I want to see who came.”
“Yes, Lord Moria.”
The small zombies cheerfully agreed.
They hopped out the door to find the Spider Rats scattered in every corner of the ship.
Spider Rats were the smallest and most numerous zombies on Thriller Bark, with five hundred rat-like zombies active in every corner of Thriller Bark. They were the best scouts and top assassins; prey they targeted never escaped.
