Chapter 31

|3rd POV|

A massive dinosaur appears in front of Yuuji and roars in anger. Valerie's beast form takes low, retracts her limbs inside her armor, and then starts to spin. Yuuji looks at her and jumps away from her way.

Yuuji can see a massive boulder cut clean by Valerie. The side spike on her armor is so sharp that it can cut a boulder as if it were butter.

She stops spinning and looks at him with a snarl before starting to spin once more. Then, seeing the incoming creature, Yuuji's clone starts to chant.

"Ancient light, rise and revive! Wall!"

An invisible wall appears in front of him and manages to stop Valerie on her track. While his clone is busy taking care of Valerie, Yuuji jumps high into the air and does a drop kick toward Valerie.

*BOOM*

A massive crater was created from the impact.

*Splurt*

Yuuji did not get out unscathed. His feet have a hole on it because Valerie can grow more spikes to all incoming attacks. Combining it with her mastery over haki, she manages to pierce his body.

"Rahahahahaha! You can't break my armor, fools! You will break your limbs if you try!"

"Oh, yeah?! Let's try it!"

With all of his limbs coated with Haki, Yuuji starts to punch. His clone also jumps into the air and starts to punch as well. While punching, Yuuji creates a clone to heal them from the back. So much blood comes out of Yuuji and his clones, but each time they receive their injury, the clone will heal them.

With the continuous barrage of punching, Valerie cannot even move. Each of his punches pushes her deeper into the ground, creating a hole from the attack.

"Fuck off!"

Valerie fires the spike out of her back at point blank toward Yuuji when his observation haki flares at him, Yuuji and his clone jump away, barely managing to escape the hail of spikes.

When she is able to get moving once more, Valerie charges at Yuuji, but this time, she is not spinning. Instead, she uses her legs to dash forward and spin slightly to use her tails to attack. Seeing the incoming attack, the other two clones stand behind him and start their chant.

"Shining light, shield from all directions! Protectja!"

"Mighty breeze, heal from the sky! Curaja!"

Both clones will be the ones supporting Yuuji while he stands between Valerie and the clones with both his hands coated with haki. Valerie's tail and Yuuji's fist meet each other and create a massive shockwave. However, instead of fighting for dominance, Yuuji grabs her tail and smashes her to the ground.

After slamming her to the ground, Yuuji tried to grab her head, but before he could do that, she had already retracted her head inside her armor. Seeing she did not have any choices, Yuuji decided to use her only White Mage's attack spell.

Three Yuuji start their chant.

"Bright light, shine down on bloody impurity! Holy!"

Three bright pillars appear on top of Valerie before combining to create a bright, massive single pillar. Yuuji and his clones manage to get away before the pillar creates a deep hole in the middle of a field.

While the power of Holy Spell is very effective against a non-undead creature, it still has a heavy punch that can kill someone. When the pillar of light disappears, Yuuji looks at the hole and sees Valerie is fried from the inside out.

Her entire body burned to crisp.

"I don't know if the Holy spell will burn my target but it looks like it did."

Yuuji jumps into the hole and sees Valerie change back to her human form. He places his finger on her nose and checks if she is breathing. There is none. He moves to her neck and checks for a pulse. There is none. She is dead.

He takes her body and picks it up from the hole before walking toward the fort. From his clone vision, he knows that the fight is over, and right now, his crew and Pell's crew are cleaning the battlefield and gathering the injured.

When they see Yuuji walk back to the fort with Valerie's body, they start to cheer while the pirates who get captured look down at the sight of their captain, who is dead. The fight is over, and the Marine triumph once more.

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"Sir! We found this! There should be around one hundred and forty million Belly, maybe a little bit more. We already count it, sir."

I look at my men carrying a lot of big chests from the White Lily pirate's ships. When they open it, I can see a lot of money inside the chest. Some of the chests are filled with precious gems.

"Give them to Pell. We don't really need them."

We already have Valerie's bounty, and it was quite a lot.

"Ah, we don't need them, Commodore."

I look at my back and see Pell walking toward us with a smile on his face.

"We already get a lot from your help, Commodore Yuuji. Take them and use them to make sure your crew get some bonus."

"... Very well."

I nod and look at Smoker and Hina, who just arrived on the dock after seeing their injured crew.

"Smoker! Hina! Come here for a second."

When they get closer, Smoker is the first one to say.

"What? What do you need?"

"Take twelve of the boxes. There should be around seventy million Belly in there. You can use it for whatever you want. This is your share. Hina, take the rest. There should be another seventy million Belly inside."

"You sure?"

"Hina cannot take this sir!"

I chuckle a little at the contrast between their answers. Smoker accepts it as if it was nothing, while Hina quickly refuses the gift.

"Just take it. This is your share of the mission. Think of this as a bonus."

I can see Hina still hesitating, and I am about to say more, but Smoker decided to say something before I could.

"Just take it, you troublesome woman. Just accept it, he will find a way to place that money into your ship somehow."

"What?"

"Just take it."

I chuckle a little at their bickering and at the way Smoker tells her how I will put the money inside her ship. Well, that is true. I will make sure she gets her share even when she refuses.

"That's right, Hina. Please take it. If you can't think of it as your share from this mission, then think of it as a gift from me to you."

"I-I… Thank you. Thank you, sir. Hina will make sure to use the money carefully."

"Bah. You can use it whatever you want, Hina."

We then move the chest to their ships, and after moving them all, I walk toward Pell and say.

"That is all, Pell. When the mission is over, we will get back to HQ."

"Ah, can you stay for a few days, Commodore Yuuji? The king has prepared a feast for you and your crew."

I look at Smoker and Hina, who shrug their shoulders. Finally, I look at Pell and say.

"We will attend the feast."

"Great! Please follow me! The king has already prepared a room for you in the palace."