“Don’t let anything happen.
Please don’t let anything happen!”
“Damn it!
You bastards!”
“I cleaned out the surrounding seas.
Where did these pirates even come from?”
Happy Town.
Flames reached toward the sky.
Between the crumbling ruins, dense silhouettes moved — the controlled townspeople, and the pirates with twisted, vicious expressions.
Outside the town, a blurry figure approached from afar, his form flickering intermittently.
Each flicker carried him over ten meters forward.
“There!”
Kane sensed Bepo, Shachi, and Penguin’s positions with Observation Haki.
They were the closest.
There was also an unfamiliar presence nearby.
If he had to guess, that was the enemy!
The townspeople, their eyes vacant and lifeless, noticed Kane’s forceful entrance and charged toward him with howls.
Kane did not pause for a moment.
He dodged the townspeople with agile movements.
At the same time, one ghost after another emerged from the shadows beneath his feet, swaying in the firelight.
The ghosts were immensely strong.
They pounced on the townspeople and pinned them down, rendering them immobile.
As for the pirates who had just reacted — they were in for a world of pain.
The ghosts swarmed them, giving them no chance to fight back, and brutally tore them apart.
Under the moonlight, the ruined town continued to burn.
A blurry figure led the way, with over a hundred ghosts following behind, painting everything in their path black, as if they would devour all in their wake.
This scene could only be described as a hundred demons parading at night.
“Bepo!”
Kane roared, his speed increasing by another third.
A large, fat man dressed as a sumo wrestler was plummeting from high above, gripping Bepo as he dove down, clearly intending to slam him into the ground.
Shachi and Penguin staggered to their feet not far away and stumbled toward Bepo’s landing point.
Just as the three of them were frantic with worry, Bepo suddenly twisted his body, breaking free of the sumo wrestler’s grasp, and reversed his grip to slam the man down hard.
After a vicious Front Lotus throw, Bepo let out a roar to the heavens.
The sumo wrestler, his face covered in blood, leapt backward in panic, trying to get away from this rampaging white beast.
But he did not notice a blur rapidly closing in from behind.
“How dare you harm my little brothers!
Repent in hell!”
“Ghost Shadow Whip!”
Kane swung his blade fiercely, aiming a slash at the sumo wrestler’s waist.
The power of the Second Ghost God, Phantom Shadow Kaija, surged into his blade, transforming into three enormous slashes along the edge of his sword, splitting the sumo wrestler into four pieces.
And it did not end there.
The dark purple slashes acted like steel whips, reaching their limit as they lashed out, then folding back and retracting, dealing secondary damage to the sumo wrestler.
Aside from the head that had rolled to the side, it was impossible to tell how many pieces the body had been reduced to.
“Big brother!”
“Brother Kane!”
Shachi and Penguin stopped in their tracks.
The sight of that familiar figure filled them with immense relief.
“RAAAAH!”
Bepo kept roaring, savagely attacking the empty ruins.
His gaze occasionally swept toward Kane and the others, but he never charged at them.
“Brother Kane, something’s wrong with Bepo!” Shachi shouted anxiously.
“It’s the full moon!” Penguin’s mind worked quickly.
“Bepo was sitting on the ground staring at the full moon.
Not long after, he turned into this.
He kept looking at the moon every now and then too.”
Kane finally got a good look.
Bepo’s body had swollen more than a full size.
His fur had grown long and thick, making him look like a majestic lion.
It was the Sulong form!
“Don’t worry.
I’ll handle it.”
“Dark Moon Descent!”
Kane raised his demonic hand high.
A dark moon formed, then suddenly expanded into a massive black curtain that blanketed a fifty-meter radius, blocking Bepo’s view.
The black curtain vanished in an instant — and for Kane, that split second was more than enough.
Bepo’s vision had just returned, still a little blurry, when a blur shot toward him, and darkness enveloped him once more.
Kane’s right hand covered Bepo’s eyes.
His long sword was already sheathed.
Without the full moon’s influence before his eyes, Bepo’s body began to slowly shrink.
Shachi and Penguin rushed over.
By the time they arrived, Bepo had already returned to his normal form.
“Take care of Bepo.
Don’t let him look at the full moon again.” After confirming Bepo was not in life-threatening danger, Kane dashed toward the town center, where Law and Wolf were still fighting hard.
“Got it, Brother Kane!”
“Leave it to us!”
Bepo opened his eyes, still looking dazed.
“Umm…
did we win?”
Shachi crossed his arms, the firelight reflecting off his sunglasses, a bright smile on his face: “Of course we won!”
Penguin also crossed his arms, his head perfectly blocking the full moon, giving a thumbs-up: “With me and Shachi here, a small-time enemy like that is nothing to worry about.”
“That’s great!” Bepo sat up excitedly, beaming — but then his expression dropped, as if dark lines had suddenly appeared before his face.
“I’m so useless…
If I had trained harder…
I couldn’t help at all when it mattered…”
“What are you doing, Bepo?
Not this again?” Shachi and Penguin were caught off guard, scrambling to comfort him.
“Bepo, you did great!”
“You protected me and Shachi.”
“Really?” Bepo blinked, not quite convinced.
“You’re just trying to make me feel better, right?”
“No, we mean it.
If you hadn’t badly wounded that enemy, we never would have lasted until Brother Kane arrived.”
“Brother Kane?” Bepo’s eyes lit up.
Shachi and Penguin exchanged glances, then nodded firmly at Bepo: “Yes.
The enemy was actually defeated by Brother Kane.
He saved us.”
“And you were amazing too, Bepo.
You beat that fat guy so bad he couldn’t even fight back.”
“Hehe, don’t say that.” Only after hearing Brother Kane’s name did Bepo finally believe them.
He sat on the ground, rubbing his head and laughing goofily.
“I can help too.
Hehehe.”
On the other side, Kane was getting closer to the town center.
Through Observation Haki, he sensed that Law and Wolf’s auras were a bit unstable, but their fighting spirit was still there.
It seemed things were not too bad yet.
Kane felt slightly relieved and picked up his pace.
His serious expression suddenly broke into a grin — a grin so fierce it was almost savage.
Oh no!
How could he be laughing at a time like this?
…But he just could not help it!
Kane knew perfectly well that laughing at a moment like this was completely inappropriate, but he simply could not stop himself.
Especially when he thought back to the sumo wrestler he had just carved into pieces, and all the pirates he had encountered along the way — so many familiar faces.
It had been a bright, sunny afternoon.
Kane had taken Bald Johnny’s head on Gegelan Island, and then run into these very people at the harbor in Longtao Town.
That’s right — the ones who had cursed at him!
Hohahahaha!
Fancy running into them here!
Couldn’t they have robbed anywhere else?
Why did they have to come looking for trouble on Swallow Island?
Old grudges plus new ones — not a single one of them was getting away!
They would all die!
Kane raced forward, pushing his perception to maximum output.
At that moment, his Observation Haki actually made a small breakthrough.
A grey-white image appeared in his mind.
He passed through narrow, scorched streets, and the view suddenly opened up.
A wide square stretched out under the moonlight.
In the center stood the ruins of a half-destroyed temple, with massive stone pillars jutting diagonally toward the sky.
Happy Town had been built around this temple.
The ruins were still standing, but the town itself was unrecognizable.
Kane’s “gaze” swept rapidly across the square.
At the temple entrance, Wolf leaned against a crumbling stone wall, his body leaning slightly forward, his grey-white brows furrowed as he stared intently at the center of the battle.
In front of the temple, Law wielded a uniquely shaped katana, locked in fierce combat with the pirate captain.
Faint arcs of electricity flickered along the blade.
Law moved nimbly, focusing primarily on evasion.
His opponent was emaciated to the point of looking sickly, yet bulging veins stood out on both arms as he gripped two spiked clubs.
The two heavy weapons spun fiercely in the pirate captain’s hands, smashing craters into the ground and sending debris flying in all directions.
Kane took a deep breath, a slow grin spreading across his face.
He had arrived.