Lucas stood before the temple gate, his fingertips brushing against the cold rock.
He had decided long ago which Devil Fruit he would consume in the future.
It was either the Bird-Bird Fruit, Mythical Type, Nue Model, or the Bat-Bat Fruit, Mythical Type, Vampire Model, currently sleeping within the temple before him.
The reason was simple: at this stage, there were only three ownerless Mythical Zoan fruits whose locations he could confirm.
Excluding the Nika Fruit, which only the chosen successor of Joy Boy could unleash to its full potential—while others would merely become ordinary rubber humans—he actually had no choice at all.
Following the normal process, finding this place would require deciphering the ancient texts scattered throughout the Grand Line, piecing together fragmented clues, and navigating through countless traps and mechanisms.
Who could have imagined that the attack by the Golden Lion would actually smash him straight to the finish line.
Sometimes, luck itself is a form of strength.
Lucas suppressed the palpitations in his heart and stepped into the temple.
The silence of a thousand years was broken by his footsteps, echoing hollowly through the passageway.
Unexpectedly, there were no traps or guards here.
Deep within the temple was a massive circular hall.
In the center of the hall stood a solitary, pitch-black stone coffin.
There were no carvings or inscriptions on the coffin; its surface was smooth as a mirror, emitting a chilling cold.
Lucas walked forward and felt around the coffin, but could not find any switches or gaps.
He pushed hard with both hands, but the stone lid did not budge.
Raising an eyebrow, Lucas planted his feet deeply into the hard stone floor.
His arm muscles knotted, and veins writhed beneath his skin like angry dragons.
“Crack—”
A dull sound reverberated through the hall.
The stone lid, of unknown weight, was forced open just a crack by his sheer strength.
Lucas pushed the stone lid aside with effort.
At the bottom of the coffin, a strange fruit lay silently.
Its skin was a deep purple, like congealed blood, covered in swirling black patterns.
Even from several meters away, one could sense an aura that was cold, sinister, yet full of vitality.
Zoan Bat-Bat Fruit, Mythical Type, Vampire Model.
Lucas picked up the fruit, blew off the dust, and took a large bite.
As the sun set, the golden afterglow gilded Torrance Town with a warm edge.
Lucas returned to the inn.
At dinner, he asked casually:
“I see quite a few outsiders coming and going on this island, so why is that temple still so well-preserved?”
Yadoya bit her fork and said, looking matter-of-fact:
“There’s just a broken stone coffin in there, and the lid is heavy as death; over a dozen people couldn’t push it open.
There’s nothing but stone, so who would go there for no reason?”
Lucas promptly shut his mouth.
Only then did he realize what a stupid question he had asked.
The stone lid he had barely managed to push open with all his might was, to an ordinary person, an insurmountable chasm.
Fortunately, that was the case.
Kaido, Big Mom, Whitebeard, Loki, Harald…
monsters whose power could crush him at his current stage, just happened not to have the opportunity to come to this remote town.
Otherwise, this Mythical Zoan fruit, enough to drive the entire sea into a frenzy, would never have been his turn to claim.
After dinner, the two wished each other good night.
Lucas returned to his room, sat cross-legged on the bed, and felt the brand-new power within him.
He could clearly hear a cockroach crawling across the floor a hundred meters away.
This was the gift of the bat, a sense of hearing sharper than a human’s.
He spent some time learning how to filter out the useless noise.
Just as he was preparing to sleep, a flurry of chaotic footsteps and the sound of clashing weapons clearly reached his ears from an alley a few hundred meters away.
“Avenge the boss!”
“Chop that meddlesome pretty boy into mincemeat!”
“Heh heh, that chick with glasses looks pretty good; let’s grab her and have some fun with the brothers!”
The foul language drifted over on the wind.
Lucas opened his eyes, a flash of cold killing intent in his gaze.
Truly courting death.
He casually grabbed his pants and put them on, then walked to the window shirtless.
His ears became slender, his teeth grew sharp, his pupils turned blood-red, and a pair of massive black bat wings extended from his back.
With a gentle flap of his wings, he flew out the window, merging into the thick night.
Under the moonlight, more than fifty pirates wielding steel blades were sneaking through the alleyways, creeping toward the inn.
Their faces wore hideous smiles as they fantasized about the revenge and debauchery to come.
No one noticed that on the eaves above, a black figure was quietly watching them.
Lucas hovered in mid-air, a faint black mist swirling around him.
He opened his mouth and emitted a high-frequency ultrasonic wave that was completely inaudible to human ears.
Silent death descended in an instant.
The few pirates walking in the front suddenly let out shrill wails, their steel blades clattering to the ground.
They clutched their stomachs and collapsed to the ground, bodies twitching violently, blood seeping from their seven orifices and every pore, quickly turning them into blood-soaked figures.
In an instant, a dozen more pirates fell in the same manner.
The remaining people were scared out of their wits, waving their swords and slashing blindly, yet they couldn’t even see a shadow of the enemy.
“Ultrasonic waves are really useful.”
On the roof, Lucas stopped the sound, a wicked smile appearing on his face,
“I just wonder if Armament Haki can block this kind of attack.”
There would be plenty of opportunities to test this question later.
“Next, let’s try the true power of this Mythical Zoan.”
He spread his palm, and black mist churned in it, condensing into dozens of blood-red bats the size of fingernails.
These little bats lunged toward the pirates on the ground like sharp arrows.
Screams rose and fell one after another.
The blood-red bats landed on the pirates, crazily biting into their skin.
As the bats fed, the pirates who had originally been struggling saw their hair turn gray at a speed visible to the naked eye; their skin quickly withered and wrinkled, their muscles atrophied, and their eyeballs sank deep into their sockets.
In just a few breaths, living people turned into mere husks of skin and bone.
The blood and life energy within them transformed into streams of red light, flowing continuously into Lucas’s body.
A warm, flowing power coursed through his entire body.
Lucas was stunned for a moment, then an expression of incredulous ecstasy appeared on his face.
What was contained within this blood was, in fact, the purest life energy!
According to his research over the years, his special constitution wasn’t so much about absorbing nutrients from food to strengthen his body and accelerate self-healing.
It was more about life energy.
After all, vegetarian food had no effect on him.
This fruit was practically tailor-made for him!
Lucas mobilized the life energy flooding into his body, directing it toward the unhealed internal injuries.
His broken ribs made faint clicking sounds, and his damaged internal organs repaired themselves at an astonishing speed.
Before long, the injuries that had tormented him for days were completely healed.
Even his physique had subtly improved.
“What a pleasant surprise.”
Lucas felt the unprecedented fullness of power within him, and the smile on his lips became increasingly unrestrained.
After cleaning up the battlefield, he flapped his bat wings gently, turning into a streak of black light as he flew back to the inn.
(Note: Let me mention here the basic abilities of the Vampire Fruit in the game: bloodsucking, lifespan absorption, generating black mist, and controlling bats.
These are the only ones, and the game doesn’t even explicitly state whether Red Earl transforms into a human-beast form or a beast form.
After all, vampires, as fantasy creatures, are inherently perceived as humanoid creatures.
Therefore, the beast form of the Vampire is as vague as Nika’s, as Nika is also a humanoid fantasy creature.
This book additionally gives the Vampire Fruit ultrasonic waves, super hearing, and blood control.
Anyway, this thing probably won’t appear in the official manga canon, so it doesn’t matter how it’s set.)