Chapter 218

I smiled at the large, finely dressed white lump of flesh sleeping on its side in a dark corner as I walked through the entrance to the dimly lit room.

"There you are, Gecko Moria," I remarked, intentionally loudly tone as I stared at the sleeping warlord. "Get your ass off the floor so I can properly kick it," I added, crossing my arms in front of my chest.

"Who are you?!" Moria exclaimed in a high-pitched voice as he slowly sat up and lethargically stared at me. "Oh... you're that fellow who fought Crocodile a while ago, aren't you? What did you come here for, brat?" he added as he leaned his back on a wall and got a better look at me.

"Did you come all the way here just to give me your shadow? How generous, Kishsishishi..." Moria asked, laughing at the end of his sentence and putting his hands behind his head as a cushion.

I tried to say something, but I had to stop as Moria's shadows suddenly shifted and materialized in front of me.

The shadow instantly attacked me, throwing a punch at my face. I caught the shadow's fist and reached with my other hand to grip its other limb, frowning as I turned to Moria.

"You're nowhere near strong to bull this kind of shit on me, Moria," I calmly remarked as I ripped the shadow in half using brute force.

"Maybe if it was you from 18 years ago, but the way you are right now..." I added, mockingly shaking my head as I released an omnidirectional impact shock wave, dissipating the remnants of Moria's shadow before it could turn into bats.

"Who the fuck do you think you're talking to, brat?" Instantly angered, Moria exclaimed loudly enough to shatter the room's windows as he stood up, staring me down with veins visibly bulging on his face.

"A loser who got his ass kicked by Kaidou so badly he can barely function as a human being anymore," I replied, crossing my hands in front of my chest and smiling as more veins bulged on Moria's face.

"Look at you, you fat fuck. You're nothing more than a husk, only capable of preying on weaker pirates in Paradise and relying on moving corpses and shadows to fight your battle for you," I added, dismissively waving a hand to the side.

"Fucking pathetic," I concluded, spitting to the side and loosening my arms to the side.

"I WILL KILL YOU!" Moria exclaimed, his voice loud enough to make the very mainmast tremble as he blindly charged at me with a hideous scowl on his face.

I couldn't help my smile becoming more pronounced as I stepped forward, punching Moria in the gut. He went flying, creating a hole in the room as he flew outside, falling towards the ground.

"Now that's more like it..." I muttered under my breath, grinning as I jumped through the Moria-shaped hole in the wall and dived behind him.

...

"Where the hell is Absalom?! Why isn't he fighting off the trespassers, and why didn't he awaken the zombie generals already?!" Hogback exclaimed, anxiously pacing around his lab, Cindry and three weird-looking zombie soldiers watching over him as he did.

"We don't know where Lord Absalom went," Gyoro, the short, blue zombies soldier that looked like a one-eyed samurai, said, shaking his oval head.

"We've already awakened the zombie generals on his behalf," Nin, the pinkish-red zombie with a bow slung over its back, remarked, nodding his triangular head.

"But one of the trespassers, the yellow fish-man, is keeping them busy," Bao, the yellow zombie soldier dressed as a monk with bandages wrapping around his limbs, added, raising its arms in bewilderment.

"He's purifying the zombie generals with salt!" The three zombie soldiers concluded as one.

"What?! Purifying them, you say?!" Hogback exclaimed in alarm, his expression turning panicked for a second. "It must be that damned skeleton! No one else knows about the zombies' weakness!" he added, his panic and alarm turning to frustration as he recalled how the skeleton tricked him into divulging the zombies' weakness three years ago.

"Well, no matter..." Hogback remarked, regaining calm and cunningly smiling as if preparing to give a speech to the three zombie soldiers.

However, Hogback froze his cunning smile turning dismayed as Cindry moved in front of him, blocking the three zombie soldiers' view.

"Lord Moria will soon wake up!" Moria exclaimed, dramatically raising his hands in the air as he discreetly inched to the side so the three zombie soldiers could see him as Cindry was blocking their vision.

However, Cindry didn't let up and moved the side, blocking the zombie soldiers' view again.

"Eh... excuse me, Cindry-chan, I'm trying to give an evil speech here..." Hogback inaudibly muttered in a voice that only Cindry could hear, careful so that the zombie soldiers wouldn't overhear him. However, Cindry did not move nor react.

Hogback gritted his teeth in frustration, but he didn't give up and moved to the side again, still maintaining his dramatic gesture of raising his hands into the air while staring at the ceiling.

"He will destroy them! And then they'll be nothing but corpses dor me to experiment on! Fos-fos-fos!" Hogback exclaimed, wickedly and loudly laughing, his shoulders trembling in anticipation.

Cindry once again moved in front of him, blocking the zombie soldier's vision and causing him to snap.

"Will you stop it, woman?!" Hogback exclaimed, his eyes twitching as he glared at Cindry.

He wanted to keep scolding the zombified woman. However, the sound of a suppressed chuckle interrupted him. He turned to the lab's entrance and immediately panicked at the sight of two humans, a humanoid bear and a horse, strangely looking at him.

"Didn't I tell you this guy looks like an idiot...?" Bepo innocently remarked while pointing at Hogback, much to Law and Doc's amusement, as they shook their heads with exasperated expressions.

"I don't want to hear that from a talking bear! You're the one who looks like an idiot. Your whole family looks like idiots!" Hogback exclaimed, matching Bepo's gesture, clearly angered by the polar bear mink's words.

...

"Very well..." Kozue muttered as she stared at Ryuma, clutching her katana. "If you insist so much, I'll put you in your place..." Kozue added, sheathing her sword and lowering her stance.

"Oh? You want to finish it in one move? Yohohohoho. That works too," Ryuma calmly remarked, sheathing his sword as he calmly began walking towards Kozue.

"One sword style..." Kozue muttered, standing still and closing her eyes with a tranquil expression.

"Three-Verse Humming..." Ryuma similarly muttered, halfway unsheathing his katana and staring at his own reflection on the blade of his sword.

Kozue and Ryuma suddenly disappeared for a fraction of a second, only to appear behind each other's back as if they had swapped places.

"Destined Death."/"Arrow Notch." The two samurai muttered, respectively, Kozue opening her eyes and Ryma turning to the sky while sheathing his sword.

Kozue frowned as she looked at her torn right sleeve and the cut beneath it but didn't react. She turned to look at Ryuma instead.

"I've lost," Ryuma muttered, struggling not to fall to his knees as countless delayed red slashes appeared around his body, eviscerating him. However, that wasn't all, as even the thick metallic chain that could hold the weight of Thriller Bark's outer walls suddenly split cleanly in half between the two samurais.

Byron acted quickly, transforming into his crow form, picking up Brook, and flying towards Kozue, who climbed on his back while staring at Ryuma as he fell to the ground.

"Take it," Ryuma remarked, throwing his katana to Kozue. "A great samurai once wielded the great sword, Shusui. I'm sure it will be happy to have you as its master..." he added as he looked up and saw that Kozue had received the blade.

"It pains my samurai heart that I must taste defeat..." Ryuma concluded, his body turning limp as he continued to fall.

Looking at this scene, Kozue clicked her tongue in annoyance, only to sigh as she jumped off Byron's back, diving towards Ryuma's unmoving corpse.

"Feeling shame over your defeat means that you're a samurai indeed, despite occupying my ancestor's remains..." Kozue said, sighing as she reached Ryuma.

"Your last actions and grace in defeat won't bring dishonor to the remains, nor the legacy of Shimotsuke Ryuma, at least," she concluded, pouring a bag of salt into the body's throat and sighing as a wreathing black shadow flew from Ryuma's body towards Brook.

...

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