“Kill them all!
Leave no one standing!”
Scar-Hawk’s roar drowned out the wind and waves.
His burly frame moved like a small giant as he kicked a sailor square in the chest, caving in his ribs.
The man screamed and flew backward.
His movements never paused.
He raised a pistol and fired.
Smoke spewed from the muzzle.
The lead bullet drilled precisely into another sailor’s shoulder, blood instantly soaking the coarse linen shirt.
Hawk’s single eye burned with pure excitement.
He licked the blood froth at the corner of his mouth, savoring the merchant crew’s desperate resistance and screams.
He felt as if he were being directly locked onto by death itself, a sensation of pure fatal targeting.
Captain Lyle’s heart dropped into despair.
He swung his cutlass, barely parrying a pirate’s slashes, while his peripheral vision stayed locked on that rampaging figure.
Fast.
Precise.
Vicious.
Every move Hawk made was simple and efficient.
No flashy techniques—just a killing technique refined through countless life-and-death battles.
And his strength was terrifying.
One swing of his blade left deep gashes even in the sturdy oak deck of the Bang-Bang Orange.
“Can’t fight him head-on…” Cold sweat began to seep down Lyle’s forehead.
Ordinary crew members couldn’t last three moves against him.
Lyle himself had experience, but age and stamina were not on his side.
His only chance might be that well-maintained, modified long rifle behind him.
Using the recoil from a parry, Lyle stumbled back, braced himself against the main mast, and quickly unslung the rifle.
The brass barrel gleamed cold in the sunset.
He took a deep breath, suppressing his racing heart and trembling arms.
He pressed the stock to his shoulder, squinted one eye, and centered the sights on Hawk’s bald head—conspicuous even in the crowd.
In that critical moment, Hawk suddenly turned.
His one good eye locked precisely onto Lyle’s position.
What made Lyle’s blood run cold was that Hawk did not flinch or dodge.
Instead, he grinned, revealing tobacco-stained teeth, his excitement almost overflowing.
It was as if death itself had him locked in its gaze.
“Madman!” Lyle cursed under his breath.
A surge of danger made him pull the trigger on instinct.
BANG!
Muzzle flash erupted.
The lead bullet spun through the air, flying straight at Hawk’s face.
In the same instant Lyle fired, Hawk moved.
But not to dodge.
Like a beast that had spotted the most challenging prey, he kicked off the deck and charged directly at Lyle.
The bullet screamed toward him.
Instead of evading widely, he flicked his wrist—CLANG—sparks scattered as the bullet was deflected off the flat of his blade.
Hawk had blocked it with his sword.
“Damn it!” Lyle’s pupils contracted.
He tried to draw his sidearm, but Hawk was too fast.
The distance between them vanished in an instant.
The stench of blood and sweat washed over Lyle.
Hawk leaped high, his cutlass arcing down with all his momentum.
Lyle could only raise the empty rifle to block.
CRACK!
The forged iron barrel snapped like rotten wood.
The cut was perfectly smooth.
The force transmitted through the broken rifle shattered Lyle’s grip, numbed his arms, and sent him flying backward.
He slammed into the mast, his vision dimming.
“Little mouse!
I’ll gouge out your eyes and pickle them in booze!
Hahaha!”
Hawk laughed wildly, his blade never slowing.
He twisted his wrist, the edge slicing toward Lyle’s neck.
Lyle could see the still-wet blood on the blade.
Death pressed in like ice.
Then, in that lightning-fast instant, a gray rock flew in from the side and landed in the path of Hawk’s swing.
“What the hell?” Confusion flickered across Hawk’s eye.
A rock?
And something was attached to it?
Before he could think further, the rock’s surface glowed faintly—and a half-man-high barrel materialized out of thin air.
Hawk’s killing blow slammed directly into it.
THUD!
The barrel shattered.
Instead of wooden splinters, thick gray-white chunks of foul pickled fish meat burst out, reeking of fishy stench.
The contents poured over him, drenching Hawk from head to toe.
“URGH!” The stench invaded his nostrils.
The slimy, cold mass coated his skin and clothes.
Hawk’s momentum stalled.
His stomach churned violently.
His body froze for a brief instant.
“Who?!
Which sneaky bastard did this?!” Hawk roared, eye bloodshot.
At that same moment, a sharp whistling sound came from behind.
A blade flashed toward the back of his neck.
Even blinded and disrupted, Hawk’s combat instincts forced him to crouch and twist, his heavy cleaver swinging up to block.
CLANG!
Another deafening crash.
Moren gripped his long blade with both hands.
Hawk held it with one, the weapons locked in a shower of sparks.
Now Hawk could see his attacker: a young man with black hair and black eyes, dressed like neither sailor nor merchant.
The young man stared back coldly, still pushing forward.
A force no less than Hawk’s own pressed against him.
“Tch.
Fast reflexes.
Scar-Hawk…
no, Stinky-Fish Hawk suits you better.” Moren clicked his tongue, coldly taunting him.
“Bastard!
I’ll skin you alive!
I’ll—” Hawk snarled, rage exploding.
But Moren didn’t let him finish.
At that moment, a faint flash of light appeared on Moren’s sword.
POOF!
A cloud of pungent red powder exploded directly in Hawk’s face.
Like a full sack of the strongest spices smashed into him.
Brutal and unavoidable.
“GAAH!
COUGH!
ACHOO!
ACHOO!”
Hawk’s roar collapsed into violent coughing and uncontrollable sneezing.
The powder burned his eyes, nose, and throat.
Tears and mucus streamed freely.
His vision became a blurred field of pain and suffocation.
Now his strength meant nothing.
Blinded and overwhelmed, he swung wildly like a headless man, unable to touch Moren, who had already stepped back.
Now!
Moren’s eyes sharpened.
He didn’t use his own blade.
Instead, he raised his left hand, another sticker between his fingers.
It showed a short-handled throwing axe frozen mid-spin, its edge cold and metallic.
This was a [Sharp Throwing Axe That Had Already Been Thrown]—an item he had “collected” by chance from a previous group of pirates.
Items that retained their thrown state were rare; this was the only one he had.
He still hadn’t figured out a stable method for collecting them.
But even one was enough.
Moren flicked his wrist.
The sticker dissolved into light, replaced by a blur of cold steel.
The axe shot through the air and buried itself in the side of Hawk’s neck.
SHRIP!
A dull tearing impact.
Hawk’s movements froze completely.
His bloodshot eye widened in disbelief.
He tried to look down, but darkness was already swallowing his vision.
Warm blood gushed from his neck, soaking his chest and the rotten fish clinging to him, splattering Moren’s face.
“Haa…
haa…” Hawk’s throat produced a broken, wheezing sound.
His massive body swayed, then collapsed onto the fish- and blood-stained deck like a dead fish collapsed on the ground.
He twitched twice and went still.
The chaotic deck fell into dead silence.
All pirates stopped moving, staring at their once-invincible captain now lying lifeless.
The merchant sailors froze, eyes shifting between Moren and the corpse in stunned silence.
Moren slowly straightened.
He wiped the warm blood from his face, feeling the faint dizziness of his racing heartbeat.
Scar-Hawk, bounty 12,000,000 Berry, was dead.
Killed by a barrel of rotten fish, a sack of chili powder mixed with pepper, and a “collected” throwing axe.
The sea wind blew, thick with the stench of blood and fish.
The sunset painted the sky and sea deep red, mirroring the deck below.
Moren exhaled a long breath.
He looked up at the remaining pirates and smiled—a chilling, sinister smile.
“Now it’s your turn, you bastards.”
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