Cowed by his utterly terrifying appearance, the soldiers no longer dared hesitate.
They scrambled to raise their rifles and take aim, the sound of bolts clicking back ringing out one after another as cold black muzzles aligned in unison on the zombies, Lucian, and the others.
“Damn it!” Zoro’s eyes darkened, and his three blades were instantly crossed before him, the steel reflecting the figures of the Marines raising their guns.
Rika, terrified, hid behind Lucian, her small hands clutching the hem of his shirt, her tiny face deathly pale.
Koby stood frozen too, his lips trembling as he stared at those pitch-black muzzles.
“Don’t be afraid,” Lucian said, his voice as calm as a pool of deep water.
The gray mist at his fingertips shifted faintly, and he ordered in a low voice, “All together!”
The shambling zombies immediately let out snarls and charged straight at the Marine soldiers.
“Open fire!” Morgan looked at the zombies rushing toward him, and he did not even spare a thought for Helmeppo, who was mixed in among them.
There was not a shred of hesitation on his face—only cold, ruthless cruelty.
The Marine soldiers behind him recognized exactly who was charging at them, and their hands, already gripping their rifles, began trembling again.
Their fingers hovered over the triggers, but not one of them dared actually pull it—that was Helmeppo-sama and their own comrades who had worked right alongside them!
“I said open fire, all of you!” Seeing them still hesitating, Morgan’s fury erupted in an instant.
The axe on his arm came slashing down with a vicious swing, and with a sickening crunch, a massive gash split open across the chest of a soldier beside him.
The man let out a single agonized scream and crumpled to the ground.
“Or else I’ll execute you myself!” Morgan roared, raising his axe-arm high.
“Aye—!” The soldiers, scared out of their wits by the bloody scene, no longer dared hesitate and pulled their triggers one after another.
Even so, they still subconsciously avoided vital spots, their bullets striking only the zombies’ arms and ankles.
“What the hell is with these guys?” Luffy scratched his straw hat, looking at the soldiers firing their guns, then glancing at Morgan, who had just cut down his own comrade.
His face was full of incomprehension.
“The Marines attack their own people?”
“These Marines aren’t right,” Zoro said, his brow deeply furrowed as his eyes swept over the terrified soldiers.
Koby stared at everything unfolding before him, his eyes behind his glasses filled with utter disillusionment, his voice trembling.
“This isn’t right…
the Marines aren’t supposed to be like this…
they’re supposed to protect civilians…”
The zombies charging forward had no fear of bullets whatsoever.
Black blood gushed from the holes shot through their ankles, yet they kept crawling forward, dragging their injured legs as if they felt nothing at all.
They soon reached the Marine soldiers and sank their teeth in viciously.
The sounds of tearing and screaming rose one after another as the same scene from before played out once again—the bitten soldiers soon had their eyes rolling white and joined the ranks of the zombies.
Seeing this, Morgan let out a furious roar and raised his axe, ready to charge in and start hacking, only to be blocked by three figures moving in unison.
Luffy flashed a wide grin, his fists already cracking as he clenched them.
Lucian flanked from the side, the gray mist in his palm churning silently.
The three of them formed a triangular encirclement, trapping Morgan dead in the center.
“You’re asking for your execution!” Morgan glared at the three brats blocking his path, his rage burning white-hot.
He swung his axe with a howl of wind, aiming straight for the nearest target—Luffy.
“Bring it on!” Instead of retreating, Luffy stepped forward to meet him.
He cocked his fist tight against the roaring arc of the axe, and his rubber arm stretched out like a whip, hurtling straight at Morgan’s face with a piercing crack.
Boom!
Fist and axe haft collided with brutal force.
The sheer impact sent Morgan staggering a step backward.
His eyes, shot through with blood-red veins, bulged with shock and fury as he let out a snarl.
“Bastards!
Just who the hell are you people?!”
“I’m Luffy, the man who’s gonna be King of the Pirates!” Luffy answered with a ringing laugh, using the recoil to launch himself high into the air.
His legs snapped straight like steel whips as he came crashing down with tremendous force toward Morgan’s back.
Morgan whirled around in a panic and blocked with his axe.
A deafening clang rang out, and he was forced backward yet again, the stone slabs beneath his feet splitting into spiderweb cracks.
“Let’s wrap this up quickly, Captain.” Zoro’s voice cut in sharply from the side as three streaks of blade light shot forward like meteors.
Morgan had just managed to fend off Luffy’s attack, only to be forced into a desperate, stumbling dodge by the fierce blades.
Three deep gashes, cut all the way to the bone, instantly split open across his shoulder, blood gushing forth.
“Damn brats!
All of you, die!” Morgan descended into total madness.
He raised his axe high, gathering all his strength for a devastating cleave, forcing both Luffy and Zoro to momentarily pull back.
In that very instance, a figure slipped behind him as silent as a ghost—it was Lucian.
He formed his hand into a blade and drove it down savagely onto the back of Morgan’s neck.
With a crisp crack, Morgan felt a searing pain shoot through his neck.
His vision plunged into blackness as a mouthful of blood, thick with the reek of iron, came surging out.
“Now!” Zoro’s eyes flashed with razor-sharp intensity.
He closed in like an arrow, his three swords weaving a blinding net of light under the sun.
“Three-Sword Style: Tora Gari!”
The instant the blades flashed past, the axe in Morgan’s hand snapped clean in two.
His entire body was sent hurtling backward by the powerful shockwave, crashing heavily to the ground and sending up a cloud of dust.
“Gomu Gomu no Pistol!” Luffy seized the opening and lunged forward, driving his fist like a sledgehammer square into Morgan’s chest.
“Guuaaah—!” Morgan spewed another mouthful of blood.
His body went completely limp on the ground, and at last, he fell silent.
“It’s over.”
“Hehe, nice teamwork,” Luffy said with a grin from beneath his straw hat.
Lucian stepped forward.
The gray mist coiling around his fingertips silently extended and slowly seeped into Morgan’s body.
“What are you doing?” Zoro came closer, watching that eerie wisp of gray mist, a flicker of curiosity passing through his eyes.
“Absorbing gray mist,” Lucian replied shortly.
His gaze then shifted toward the still-snarling zombies, and the gray mist in his palm suddenly spread outward in a surge.
As the mist flowed, the ashen pallor on the zombies rapidly receded.
Their movements grew sluggish, and one by one, they collapsed limply to the ground, returning to their normal human appearance—though they remained unconscious.
Rika came skipping over.
Seeing the soldiers restored to their original state, she clapped her hands in delight.
“They turned back!”
Koby gazed at the wreckage strewn all around, then looked at Luffy and Zoro standing side by side.
Suddenly, he clenched his fists, his voice ringing with a young man’s resolve.
“I…
I’m going to become a real Marine!
I’m going to make the Navy what they’re supposed to be!”
Hearing this, Luffy let out a hearty laugh.
“Then you’d better work hard!
Once you get strong, maybe we’ll meet again someday!”
Zoro glanced at him, and the corner of his mouth secretly curved upward into a faint, barely perceptible smile.
Lucian closed his eyes, feeling the gray mist surging within his body.
He felt his strength had doubled, his senses sharpened several times over.
Suddenly, a fragment of memory flashed through his mind—zombie level classification, from Level 1 to Level 9, and finally the Zombie King.
Right now, he could be classified as Level 3 zombie.
Lucian shook his head, uncertain where this sudden memory had come from.
He thought about it for a long while but came up with nothing.
“So Luffy really wasn’t lying.
Going out to sea really does make you stronger.” He looked down at the Marines lying all across the ground and murmured quietly.
The sunlight fell upon his face, illuminating the anticipation shining in his hollow eyes.
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