Chapter 9: Cat-cat Fruit, Ancient Zoan, Giant Leopard Form
The history of the Marineford Era’s 1500 years is indeed sufficiently long compared to an individual, but when placed under the unified concept of humanity, it is not all that ancient; yet even this 1500 years of history is so mottled and incomplete.
The disappearance of ancient civilizations, the regression of science and technology······ the path forward for humanity is full of ruggedness and thorns.
However, the most helpless thing is that ancient civilizations disappear, science and technology go backward, yet only the art of killing has been passed down from ancient times to the present.
Strangling.
It is one type of killing technique.
Its origins are already unreliable, but what can be confirmed is that the strangling technique remains active on battlefields and execution grounds, tirelessly depriving one human life after another: Strangling Ghost Farrug, the Great Pirate with a bounty of 140 million Beli, this man who charged from South Blue into the Grand Line is a master-level figure in the way of strangling.
From South Blue to the New World of the Grand Line along this route, countless corpses laid the foundation for his infamous title of “Strangling Ghost.”
Although after arriving at the New World, this hell-level difficulty new map teeming with strong persons, the once-infamous Strangling Ghost tasted his first defeat in life, it did not cause him to fall into an inescapable abyss from then on; he stubbornly survived in the New World.
Even if it meant being a dog for someone,
He survived.
Unfortunately—
“Puchi!!!”
A dark yellow light flashed by.
Three deep wounds visible to the bone were added to his right shoulder; feeling the fresh pain from his shoulder, Farrug’s face became extremely ugly.
As expected, this battle was as difficult as he had anticipated, but not because of the Zoan Devil Fruit User’s tough vitality that was resistant to beatings, but because······ that speed which was too fast for him to catch up to; every time he reached out, besides pulling off a few leopard hairs, after five minutes of combat, he had not achieved any substantial results.
He was just unilaterally getting beaten.
Dick, transformed into a massive Leopard, toyed with him with speed surpassing his own, like an elusive wind blowing incessantly around him.
Every time it brushed past his body, it always left behind a deep and long wound; as the wounds on his body continuously increased and expanded, what flowed out was not only fresh blood, but also his strength drained away along with it.
No matter what methods he used—feigning defeat, deliberately exposing flaws······ none of it worked.
“Damn it, who the hell are you? A strong person like you absolutely isn’t some nobody on this vast sea!” Farrug roared in anger; he felt like he was being toyed with, and while the New World this godforsaken place was indeed full of hidden tigers and crouching dragons, strong persons as numerous as the fish in the river.
But,
Strong persons are still countable; aside from a few extremely isolated countries like Wano Country, as soon as a strong person emerges, they are immediately known to all the influences in the New World.
After all,
Strong persons need to sharpen each other with other strong persons to become even stronger, and once they make a move, it’s hard to hide their intelligence.
But no matter how hard he racked his brains, he couldn’t think of a strong person like Dick.
“Who am I?”
Dick’s voice was elusive, just like his lithe form wrapping around Farrug like a gale.
“Since you want to know so badly, it doesn’t hurt to tell you: I am Dick. I ate the Ancient Zoan Cat-Cat Fruit—Giant Leopard. Remember my name; one day, my name will echo throughout the world alongside His Highness Elus.”
Arrogant words fell.
The final fierce strike arrived abruptly.
Dick shifted from beast form to hybrid form; the claws of the upright-walking Leopard Person deeply gouged into Farrug’s shoulder.
The wound became exaggeratedly huge.
Fresh blood surged out like a fountain.
“I won’t die, I absolutely won’t die—Teacher said it, said it: I am the man who will spread the name of the Sallier Strangling Technique across the world. I, I absolutely won’t die······” Farrug collapsed to the ground, half his face pressed against the hard, rough stones, struggling to open his eyes wide, staring fixedly at Dick in his Leopard Person form standing before him.
He gasped for breath,
murmuring to himself, his eyes deep with despair and unwillingness.
“You’ve lost!”
Dick lowered his head, looking into Farrug’s eyes; his golden ponytail fell down beside his ear, the fine strands of hair gently swaying in the wind.
“Am I······ going to die?”
Farrug finally faced reality.
He,
Had fallen once again.
Moreover, it was a failure without any luck; from start to finish, he hadn’t seized a single chance to unleash his strangling technique, only continuously taking passive beatings, continuously getting wounded; wounds covered his body like cow hairs, fresh blood flowed out endlessly, and what drained away was not only fresh blood, but also his strength.
By the time Dick’s final heavy blow landed, he finally couldn’t hold on.
Even tenacious willpower couldn’t resist the dizziness from blood loss.
“Do you want to die?”
Hearing Farrug’s weak voice, Dick blinked and asked.
Those already dimmed eyes lit up again; Farrug squeezed out the last of his strength, laboriously lifting his head to look at Dick. “Can I still live?”
“I can give you a chance, but whether you ultimately survive will depend on your luck.”
“······Thanks!”
After uttering a word of thanks, Farrug finally had no strength left; excessive blood loss made him pass out.
“Ah! This guy isn’t going to die just like that, is he?”
Looking at Farrug covered in blood, Dick scratched his head a bit annoyed.
Fighting is fun in the moment, but cleaning up afterward is such a hassle, especially since he had said he would give Farrug a chance—he couldn’t let this guy die like that, or wouldn’t that make him a promise-breaker?
He sighed, squatted down, took out his carried first-aid medicine, and began stopping Farrug’s bleeding.
“Dick, what are you doing?”
The voice came from behind; it was Eschbach.
“Stopping the bleeding! Can’t you tell?”
Dick’s first aid was obviously extremely crude; compared to his combat skills, this hemostasis technique was simply atrocious.
“Are you sure you’re stopping the bleeding and not letting it bleed more?”
Watching Dick’s crude handiwork, Eschbach couldn’t tolerate this behavior that was called saving someone but was actually killing; he kicked away the squatting Dick. “Get lost! If you keep messing around like this, I guarantee he’ll be done for in ten more minutes······ You’re simply wasting such good hemostatic medicine.”
Rough but meticulous—that described people like Eschbach.
He seemed rough and burly, but in reality, those iron-pillar-like fingers were nimble enough to thread a needle.
Dick, kicked to the side, didn’t get angry; after all, during sparring, he had been beaten by Eschbach plenty of times—that was really beating to near death! As His Highness Elus said, as long as there’s still a breath, beat to death without hesitation; compared to that misery, getting lightly kicked like this was nothing?
“Right, Eschbach, what happened to that Black Beast guy?”
Watching Eschbach stop Farrug’s bleeding, the bored Dick looked for a topic to relieve the tedium.
“In that pit over there! Want to see? Go look yourself.”
Eschbach said without looking back, focused on the emergency treatment.
