“What use are you trash?
You can’t even get me something to eat!
I’m hungry!
I want to eat right now!”
Wapol’s obese frame almost filled the entire chair.
He had greasy, deep purple hair, an absurdly large mouth, and a cold iron cylinder around his chin that clanked whenever he spoke.
“Prince Wapol…
I beg you…” The head chef, sporting dark circles under his eyes, knelt on the ground with a mournful expression.
“It’s already one o’clock in the morning, and the shops at the foot of the mountain are long closed.
The blizzard outside is too fierce; nobody can go out!
Just hold on for a few more hours, and as soon as it’s light, I’ll go buy you the best ingredients immediately!”
Drum Island was a winter island frozen year-round.
There was no nightlife here, and no 24-hour shops.
Once night fell, apart from the palace, the entire island would fall into dead silence.
No one was willing to risk freezing to death by going out in the blizzard.
“I don’t care!” Wapol slammed the table, causing the surface to instantly cave in.
“Just because they’re closed, doesn’t mean they can’t be woken up?
Serving this prince is their greatest honor!
You can’t do it, is that it?”
A sinister smile appeared on his face as his mouth suddenly opened, expanding to the size of a washbasin in a way that defied the laws of physics.
“Then you can be my food yourself!”
“No!
Prince, spare me!”
The head chef’s scream came to an abrupt end.
Wapol moved his throat, swallowing the man whole, and licked his lips as if still craving more.
The surrounding maids and guards were trembling with fear, burying their heads even lower, not daring to even breathe audibly.
“Still not enough…
I’m going out to find something to eat.”
Wapol patted his round belly, and with his short legs, waddled out of the palace.
It wasn’t until his figure completely disappeared into the blizzard that everyone in the bedroom breathed a sigh of relief.
In the cedar forest outside the palace walls.
Lucas, hidden in the black mist, had heard everything that just happened clearly.
“Perfect.
I’ll use you, trash, to test the Lineage Factor separation technique.”
He snorted coldly, and his Observation Haki spread out, instantly locking onto the bloated figure rampaging through the snow.
He pushed off the ground, his body flickering as he vanished from the spot.
Thick, heavy clouds blocked out all Moonlight.
The deep night on Drum Island was truly pitch black.
Wapol couldn’t care less.
He floundered through the snow, opening his big mouth, devouring whatever he saw along the way.
Just as he took a bite at a thick cedar tree, “Bang!” came a dull, loud thud.
He only felt a heart-wrenching, intense pain from his mouth.
His whole body flew backward like a kite with a broken string, crashing heavily into the snow and creating a huge crater.
“Who?!
Who’s there?!”
Wapol clutched his bleeding mouth, his face filled with unprecedented panic and fear.
His Munch-Munch Fruit could devour anything; this had been his capital for running rampant his whole life.
This was the first time he had encountered something he couldn’t swallow.
Blood gushed from nowhere, gathering into a pool of blood.
A giant palm made of blood suddenly shot out from the pool, gripping Wapol’s obese body.
“Let me go!
Do you know who I am?
I am the prince of Drum Island!
If you dare touch me, my father won’t let you off!”
Wapol struggled desperately, screaming, trying to activate his Munch-Munch Fruit to devour this blood hand.
But it was all in vain; without Haki, he couldn’t destroy this blood at all.
Lucas slowly emerged from the black mist, hovering in mid-air with an expressionless face.
He gently raised his right hand.
An invisible force erupted instantly.
The blood, life energy, and the unique fluctuation belonging to the Devil Fruit within Wapol began to seep uncontrollably from every pore of his body, turning into streaks of red thread that flowed into the pool of blood beneath his feet.
Wapol’s body shriveled at a speed visible to the naked eye.
His originally smooth, fair skin became covered in wrinkles, and his jet-black hair turned white in an instant.
In just a few seconds, a young man had turned into an old man on the verge of death.
The light in his eyes dimmed rapidly, and finally, he completely lost his life.
Lucas ignored the shriveled corpse on the ground.
He held his breath and focused, concentrating all his mental energy on the pool of blood.
Following the method taught to him by Dr.
Kureha, he precisely sensed and extracted the cluster of Lineage Factor emitting strange fluctuations.
This process was extremely delicate and could not tolerate the slightest error.
If he were the least bit careless, the Lineage Factor would dissipate completely.
A few minutes later, a pure energy cluster emitting a purple glow was separated from the pool of blood.
Lucas landed on the ground and unfolded a pre-prepared cloth bag, which contained a pile of fruit.
Guided by the blood, the purple Lineage Factor slowly descended and drilled into one of the fruits.
A bizarre scene occurred; the fruit’s skin quickly turned deep purple, a jagged crack split open in the middle, and rings of the iconic black spiral patterns slowly emerged on the surface of the fruit.
After finishing all this, Lucas waved his hand, and the remaining pure life energy in the pool of blood turned into a streak of red light, surging into his body.
A faint warm current flowed through his entire body.
Lucas raised an eyebrow slightly, a trace of disdain appearing on his face.
Absorbing Wapol’s entire life energy only brought an improvement equivalent to one day of his basic training.
As expected, trash is trash.
He struck a match, the faint flame flickering in the darkness, illuminating the newly born Devil Fruit in his hand.
“Paramecia: Munch-Munch Fruit.”