Chapter 189: Dense······light!!!
Nameless bay,
The pirate flag fluttered in the wind.
The terrain here was not suitable for building a port. Although there were no reefs near the sea, the problem was that the rocky beach on land was too narrow. Less than fifty meters from the water’s edge was a nearly ninety-degree steep cliff, about eighty meters high, which deterred the Alabasta Kingdom from opening a port here.
However, there was a small road leading to the inland depths, and bold merchants would take the small road to transport supplies to this nameless bay for trade with the pirates.
“Damn it, Porche, haven’t you finished resupplying yet?”
“Boss, we have to wait a bit longer.”
“Wait longer? How much longer do we have to stay in this godforsaken place! We’ve already been in this godforsaken place for three days.”
“Boss, don’t get angry. This is unavoidable. This isn’t a proper port, and merchants rarely come here. Wait a little longer; we should be able to finish resupplying by tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow, tomorrow! How many tomorrows has it been! Those headscarf-wearing bastards from Alabasta are all damn crooks!”
A short man wearing a purple fur coat sat sulking on a large rock under the cliff. He rubbed his long red nose, cursing the Alabasta Kingdom for their incompetence. Previously, that bastard Crocodile wasn’t this ruthless; he wouldn’t wipe out every passing pirate.
Now, they couldn’t even go to proper ports and had to avoid Alabasta’s navy, hunkering down in this godforsaken place and roughing it outdoors.
This man was the captain of the Silver Fox Pirates, Foxy, nicknamed “Silver Fox,” with a bounty of 24 million Beli. He was a rookie who had just entered the Grand Line from the South Blue. Rookie… actually, he was already thirty-eight years old and had been mixing it up in the South Blue before.
The reason he had the courage to enter the Grand Line this time was not because he suddenly grew ambitious.
It was purely because a super crazy, cold-blooded rookie pirate had recently risen in the South Blue. Whether navy, pirates, or civilians… no one who dared to stand in his way escaped alive. Everywhere he went, blood flowed like rivers.
He was just too damn brutal.
The pirates of the South Blue were all terrified.
Foxy didn’t dare stay in the South Blue, fearing he’d run into that troublemaking rookie, so he gritted his teeth and charged into the Grand Line.
“Boss, over there… looks like a ship is coming.” The speaker was a woman, quite beautiful with long indigo hair, wearing a strange black mask that was practically useless. It seemed like standard pirate crew gear… and her figure was quite nice!
She was a fighter and cheerleader for the Silver Fox Pirates.
She stood on tiptoes, straining to gaze at the distant sails.
At that moment,
The pirate ship anchored in the bay also erupted in chaos.
Clearly, the pirates left guarding the ship had also noticed the fleet heading toward the bay.
“No pirate flag… doesn’t seem like pirates?” Back on the pirate ship, Porche took the telescope and peered at the approaching warship. She didn’t see a black pirate flag, only a man at the ship’s bow holding a Den Den Mushi, seemingly talking to someone?
She lowered the telescope.
She looked at the captain beside her… Foxy, who was also peering through his telescope, was trembling, his legs shaking like he had spasms.
“Boss?”
“Boss?”
“Are you okay?”
Porche was startled.
“Porche, retreat, retreat… no, no, escape… hurry and escape! We’re going back to the South Blue!!!” Foxy suddenly threw away the telescope, jumping up and down, yelling for the pirates to raise anchor and set sail.
Because resupply wasn’t complete and there were no enemies nearby in the bay, the crew was quite lax.
Foxy himself had just gone ashore from the ship to relax.
Even though the unidentified fleet approaching prompted reactions from the pirates, the undisciplined crew couldn’t assemble quickly. Plus, no one understood why the captain suddenly issued such an absurd order.
So,
Foxy’s orders were not effectively carried out.
“You idiots, what are you standing around for? Waiting to die? Get your asses moving and raise anchor!”
Foxy was furious.
“Boss, Boss, what’s wrong?” Porche looked at the hysterical Foxy, completely baffled. They’d barely crossed Reverse Mountain to the New World, and now they were heading back to the South Blue to face that brutal maniac Kid?
“Porche, didn’t you see?”
Foxy’s voice was shrill with rage. “That’s the Black Prince, the Black Prince. You… we’re done for, done for. No escaping now.” Watching the warship close in rapidly, realizing escape was impossible, Foxy’s strength drained instantly, and he plopped down on the deck.
Black Prince?
The name, unfamiliar yet vaguely familiar, left the pirates exchanging bewildered glances.
Then,
Someone recalled the name that had once dominated newspaper headlines.
“Black Prince… that monster on par with the Four Emperors?” Porche remembered too, matching the man’s face she’d seen earlier with the photo in her memory from the newspaper. Immense fear crashed over her like a tsunami, shattering her resolve.
She might die?
More than one or two pirates shared that thought.
The poison of despair seeped into the pirates’ hearts.
“But why… why is the Black Prince here? Shouldn’t he be in the New World?” Porche knelt on the deck. Even craning her neck, she could see the deep blue national flag embroidered with a golden coffee tree fluttering on the approaching warship.
The sea breeze kept blowing, the pirate flag flying high.
The deathly still pirate ship was like a floating graveyard at sea, the pirates waiting to be buried at the seabed with their ship.
In fact, not everyone was unwilling to fight; it was just that the captain Foxy’s demeanor disheartened them, extinguishing the courage of the few, who then followed suit and gave up resistance.
“…Hey, no way?”
“What’s going on?”
Elus was stunned.
The state of the Silver Fox Pirates… was way beyond his expectations. He’d planned to use these small fry for real combat training to hone his fruit ability! What was with this no-resistance attitude? Utterly unreasonable.
Elus waved his sleeve, accompanied by a “clang” sound.
His flagship and the opposite pirate ship were forcibly connected. Sailors threw wooden planks, quickly building a pontoon bridge.
Elus crossed the creaking pontoon bridge onto the Silver Fox Pirates’ ship and saw his target person… Silver Fox Foxy, Paramecia Slow-Slow Fruit ability user, slumped on the deck like mud, head bowed in a posture ready for slaughter.
“Why not resist?”
Elus kicked the red nose; Foxy didn’t budge, like a corpse.
“Resist… it’s useless!”
Foxy was utterly dejected.
His mind was sharp. Compared to those fearless, single-minded idiots, the “Silver Fox” Foxy was smart among pirates. Unfortunately, his smarts were all petty cleverness. Realizing he’d hit an insurmountable wall, he instantly gave up trying.
“…”
Elus was speechless.
That was… the truth!
But this made it boring! No sense of accomplishment at all.
“How about you try resisting? If you can injure me, I’ll let you live.” Elus tried persistently to stir their fighting spirit. “I won’t use Haki or my powers. All of you can come at me. Even a graze or scrape counts as your win…”
“…”
Foxy lifted his head. No one wanted to die if they could live. He’d come to the Grand Line precisely because he feared staying in the South Blue and getting taken out by that dishonorable junior Kid. Of course, he didn’t want to die so soon in the Grand Line.
“Um, will we get killed in the fight?”
Foxy’s mind was indeed flexible.
He could still think of that at a time like this.
“No.”
Elus smiled. “Killing you doesn’t benefit me much; at worst, I’ll beat you until you can’t resist.” He hadn’t forgotten to collect souls to replenish the Hogyoku’s consumption, but he truly didn’t plan to kill during the fight. He needed these guys to test his fruit ability.
Anyway, wiping them all out after testing made no difference.
Of course, if they actually injured him, he wouldn’t break his promise. A few hundred low-quality souls weren’t a big deal!
Sigh!
No helping it; he was just that kind of trustworthy man.
“Um… if you fly into the sky, we can’t possibly injure you.”
Elus chuckled.
He couldn’t tell if this Silver Fox was bold or cowardly. Bold? He lacked even the courage to resist Elus. Cowardly? Yet he dared negotiate terms with Elus repeatedly.
“How about… we limit the battlefield to that rocky beach over there?”
Elus was unusually accommodating now, not wanting too quick and boring a victory, happy to impose restrictions on himself.
Rocky beach,
Foxy’s earlier relaxation spot. Less than fifty meters front to back, about a hundred meters side to side, flanked by piled-up stone heaps from earthquakes… a natural landscape, but not large.
Strictly speaking, smaller than a standard soccer field.
“How’s that? Satisfied now? Don’t tell me there’s still a problem?” Elus grinned at Foxy. Once or twice was fine, but a third time… he’d just use spiritual pressure to crush all conscious and subconscious resistance and forcibly strip the Devil Fruit.
Devil Fruit stripping required the host not to resist.
Not just physically powerless, but crucially, no mental resistance—not even subconscious. After research, Elus found spiritual pressure could thoroughly crush the host’s resistance.
However,
This trick probably only worked on weaklings.
Someone like Bruno, Elus could crush his consciousness and strip the Devil Fruit in minutes. True powerhouses could counter Elus’s spiritual pressure with Conqueror’s Haki alone…
Pirates Emperors, Navy Admirals—even as prisoners, it might take ten days or half a month of grinding to successfully strip their Devil Fruits.
“Hey, how long are you gonna think? My patience is limited. If you piss me off… even a quick death becomes an unattainable luxury.” Elus threatened. This simple scare worked surprisingly well!
“I agree.”
Foxy nodded frantically, fearing Elus’s patience would run out in the next second.
“Good.”
Elus clapped his hands.
“Then… go make preparations! You have…” Elus turned and beckoned. Clarice, the maid temporarily serving in Fran’s place, hurried over. “Clarice, what time is it?”
“Your Highness, it’s three twenty-seven p.m.”
She checked her pocket watch and reported the exact time.
“Three twenty-seven… Red Nose, you have half an hour to deploy. At four o’clock… I’ll charge straight from here onto that beach. Got it?” Elus asked with a smile.
“Got it, got it.”
Foxy nodded rapidly.
Seeing Elus turn and cross the pontoon bridge, Foxy knew he had to act now. Not daring to waste time, he immediately called together Porche, Hamburg, Swordfish Fish-Man Kabody, Pickles, Loach Fish Giant Bikkpantha… these cadres to discuss what to do.
Back in the flagship’s bridge,
Elus had just sat on the sofa when Clarice brought fresh muffins and a steaming cup of coffee milk… all his favorites.
“Yo, Bruno, want some sweets?”
“No need.”
Directly opposite him, Bruno sat unbound on the sofa, wiping a cup with a white silk cloth.
It was already spotless, but Bruno meticulously wiped the cup on the coffee table inside and out, his focus drawing attention… This was Bruno’s hobby, the most oblivious among CP9 colleagues.
Unlike others with distinct likes—Lucci loved drinking, especially brandy, obsessively; Kaku polished his beloved sword in spare time; Jabura was always lost in love, cycling through romance and breakups… everyone had their own hobby.
During group training before, Bruno had briefly liked baseball.
But sadly, it was a team sport needing cooperation, so he quickly gave it up… For a long time after, his free time was just training or zoning out; he couldn’t find anything he enjoyed.
Until he disguised as a bar owner in Water 7,
He discovered he loved wiping cups. Watching them get perfectly clean seemed to clear his mind too.
Captured alive by Elus and leaving Water 7, he didn’t hope to escape under Elus’s watch without his fruit power, even unbound… With nothing to do on the ship, he resumed wiping cups.
Utterly engrossed.
“…You’re a weird guy, liking to wipe cups… Well, actually not that weird.” Elus sipped coffee milk. “Everyone has the right to choose their hobby. Wiping cups… isn’t a big deal.”
Bruno ignored Elus’s chit-chat.
He was fully immersed in wiping the cup.
Elus hit a wall with Bruno and got snubbed, but he wasn’t annoyed. He didn’t dislike such single-minded people. Truly loving something or some work from the heart… that was happiness!
He drank coffee milk, ate muffins, watched Bruno wipe cups…
“Your Highness, one minute left.”
Clarice reminded him.
“Already?”
Elus shook his head. “Time flies… Let’s see if they can entertain me enough.” He stood, left the bridge, stood at the ship’s side, gripped the railing, and gazed at the rocky beach between the cliff and sea waves ahead.
Three hundred Silver Fox Pirates lined up on the east side, leaving the west side empty—apparently reserved for Elus’s entrance.
“Not bad! Nice and orderly!”
Elus eyed the Silver Fox Pirates’ formation, pointing and commenting.
Then—
“Hope you can last a bit, so I can properly test my growth.”
Elus leaped into the air.
Spiritual pressure formed a nearly transparent platform under his feet, letting him walk on air as if on flat ground. He easily crossed the sea between the flagship and rocky beach. Looking down from above, he saw excavation marks on the east side of the beach.
Probably landmines,
Pretty dedicated!
Elus descended like a great bird, right hand flicking lightly. Iron-colored chains shot out like dragons emerging from water, slamming into the ground at astonishing speed, predictably triggering the buried landmines’ explosions.
Then the second, third… dozens of chains branched out, slithering like great serpents across the ground, detonating every last landmine.
“Fire cannons! Fire!”
Seeing Elus effortlessly detonate all their painstakingly buried landmines, Foxy shuddered, realizing anew the terror of their opponent—an enemy they couldn’t even touch the shadow of despite all their means.
Under his command,
Twenty cannons dismantled from the ship fired simultaneously.
Cannonballs flew toward Elus, who hadn’t landed yet.
“Reaction’s a bit slow!”
Elus spread his left hand’s fingers, grinning brightly, and uttered two simple words: “Heat… add.”
Vast heat burst out instantly, rapidly accumulating in the confined space. Air expanded swiftly past the reaction threshold… and exploded. Amid deafening roars, scorching blast winds blew forward, sending every incoming cannonball tumbling back into the Silver Fox Pirates’ formation.
The erratic returning cannonballs shattered the Silver Fox Pirates’ neat formation.
Pirates screamed in agony amid the chaos,
Foxy hadn’t even reacted—cannonballs they fired came flying back?
Add-Add Fruit,
This was the Devil Fruit Elus was currently analyzing.
It could add extra properties to a specified target.
Like heat, hardness, gravity… and more. Elus had just added massive heat to the air, triggering the explosion.
“Hold steady! Stay in place, no moving! Gunners keep firing; others prepare to fight.” Foxy suppressed his inner panic, forcibly calming his restless subordinates, barely avoiding immediate collapse.
Gunners reloaded but didn’t know where to aim.
Thick smoke from explosions obscured their view; they couldn’t pinpoint Elus. But facing their red-eyed captain, they didn’t dare disobey, firing blindly ahead as long as cannonballs stayed within the smoky area.
The sea breeze dispersed the swirling smoke.
But… they still didn’t see Elus.
“Up there, above!”
A sharp-eyed pirate spotted Elus, pointing to the nearly vertical steep cliff wall on the side.
Foxy quickly craned his neck and saw Elus standing on the cliff wall, chains from his right hand wrapped around protruding rocks… like a spider, Foxy thought instinctively.
But he shook off the idle thought instantly.
Because Elus was plummeting downward rapidly.
This time, without captain’s urging, gunners with other pirates’ help swiftly turned the cannons. No need for precise aiming; distance closing fast—just fire. No time for adjustments anyway.
Not one cannonball hit Elus amid the rain.
But cannonballs smashing the rock wall kicked up showers of debris. The flying stones were trickier than cannonballs. To avoid them, Elus spun chains like coiling dragons around him at high speed, deflecting the debris.
At that moment,
Foxy bravely stepped forward to meet the descending Elus.
His right thumb, middle, and ring fingers curled, only index and pinky extended—like a modified orchid finger… Anyway, he aimed at Elus descending steadily in midair. “Take this! Slow-Slow Beam.”
A visible circular magenta light wave.
The beam’s speed was extremely fast but not true light speed, or Elus couldn’t have dodged.
He didn’t tank it with his body. The extended chains suddenly retracted, reversing his descent to ascent, shifting upward to evade the magenta beam. Only one deliberately left chain got hit.
In an instant,
The lightning-fast chain slowed.
Like slow-motion footage, it lost all agility. Even as Elus yanked, the hit chain’s speed didn’t change, contrasting starkly with the untouched parts vibrating into afterimages… an indescribably eerie disparity.
Thirty seconds.
Elus monkeyed across the cliff wall, dodging the torrent of attacks.
Full thirty seconds passed; the slow-motion chain normalized.
“Slow-Slow Beam… impressive!”
Memory was just memory.
Only after witnessing and experiencing it firsthand did Elus truly grasp how… fun the Slow-Slow Fruit’s ability was! In those thirty seconds, he’d conceived multiple uses for it, especially combined with his diverse abilities…
Can’t miss it!
Such a useful fruit in the hands of an unambitious guy like Foxy was a waste.
“Slow-Slow Fruit… show me more!”
Elus laughed into the wind.
The fun game had just begun!
While Elus was enjoying himself, a major event occurred in the New World!
