One Piece: The Legend of Beasts

As the night deepened, dark clouds covered the entire night sky, hanging low as if about to come down. Gusts of wind swept across the sky, causing the originally calm sea surface to become turbulent under their confrontation.

A huge wooden pirate ship was bumping forward on the choppy sea. A red sail with a skull with curly beard was hung on the tall mast. It was swaying slightly in the strong wind.

On the bow, a tall man in a red robe stood quietly with his hands folded across his chest, gazing at the rough sea with cold eyes. His expressionless face did not stir up the slightest ripple, as if he was indifferent to everything around him.

The ship was hit by the waves and swayed from side to side from time to time, but his feet seemed to be firmly nailed to the ground. No matter how violently the whole ship swayed, it never moved at all, and even his body was straight like a gun.

"Oh, with such strong winds and waves, aren't you afraid of catching a cold standing here?"

As a deep and magnetic voice sounded from the deck, a blond man in a long robe walked over slowly with his hands in his pockets. He looked at the rock-like back with a half-smile on his face and said slowly, "Or are you worried about letting the prey that was about to be caught slip away from your nose?"

The man did not say a word, his eyes were still fixed firmly in front of him, and his body did not move an inch. If it were not for his hair fluttering in the sea breeze, he would probably be mistaken for a lifelike statue.

I don't know how much time passed, he slowly opened his tightly closed lips, and thick and turbid words came out slowly from his mouth: "Don't interfere casually in things that have nothing to do with you."

"Isn't what you said a little irresponsible?"

The blond man spread his hands, pretending to be wronged. "If you had told me at that time where the injured puppy had escaped to, I would have rushed over and killed her immediately, and I would have been able to successfully retrieve the fruit."

While he was talking, he stopped just a few feet away from the man, raised his head and showed a malicious face, "It's not good to make such a mistake due to momentary negligence again, why don't you give up your seat to someone else, I don't mind at all, Captain Roger~"

As soon as he finished speaking, the red-robed man suddenly turned his right face, and his gray eyes shot straight at the blond man like a knife, as if they could pierce his heart. He said word by word: "I'll give you three seconds to correct your wording immediately!"

The blond man couldn't help but shudder at the sudden glare from his fierce eyes. His arrogance also subsided a little. He slowly raised his hands and took a few steps back, twitching his mouth awkwardly. "Tsk, you can't even take a joke. It's too early to challenge you now. For now, we should just get along well as a superior and a subordinate."

The red-robed man's eyes returned to their usual emotionless color in an instant, and he returned his gaze to the heaving sea surface. There was still no expression on his face, making it impossible to guess his true thoughts.

Therefore, it is not an easy thing to be his subordinate. No one knows when one day he will suffer a tragic end because of accidentally offending this man with words.

But on the other hand, it is precisely because of the man's impeccable strength that people with ulterior motives are forced to give up their ambitions and submit to him.

After a long while, he slowly opened his mouth and said lightly: "The fruit can be recovered at any time. It's just a matter of sooner or later."

His tone of voice was very cold, but it carried an unquestionable majesty. He was still looking into the distance, not even glancing at the blond man, as if talking to himself: "I already have what I want. It's meaningless to cling to the past that has lost its value. Let's focus on the present."

As if he was surprised that his usually taciturn superior had said so many words in one breath, the blond man pushed his glasses and was stunned for a while. Then a hint of expectation flashed in his eyes: "Three years have passed in a blink of an eye. I think this conference will also attract a lot of attention... Have the location and time been decided?"

"In one month, we will go to the 'Valley of Gods' in the West Sea. Let's go now." The red-robed man casually mentioned a few key information without any unnecessary nonsense. His hands were still pressed tightly against his chest, and his head did not move at all.

"It is rumored that the resources there are quite rich. It is also a very remote island. No matter what we do there, the outside world will not notice it. It is indeed the most suitable place for the conference."

The blond man guessed the other party's thoughts without a moment's hesitation and sneered, "The rules are still the same as last time, right?"

"constant."

"That is to say, once I win the championship of this tournament, I will have the right to challenge you!"

"You're not qualified."

The red-robed man mercilessly choked this ambitious subordinate, then suddenly remembered something and asked him, "Have you finished shielding the signal?"

The sudden question made the blond man startled for a moment, then he took out a Den Den Mushi with a shell covered with spikes from his coat pocket, and an intriguing smile bloomed on his handsome face: "Don't worry about this, as long as this 'Special Horned Den Den Mushi' is here, no signal can be transmitted within a radius of ten kilometers, so there is no need to worry about someone leaking the information."

"It's still of some value... When those two groups are fighting each other, that will be the day for us to annex them in one fell swoop."

The red-robed man expressed his thoughts expressionlessly, without any praise in his tone. He slowly turned around, looked up at the huge red pirate flag, and said coldly in a very contemptuous tone, "It's a symbol of thieves. It's really unpleasant to see it too much. It's time to make this dirty thing disappear from our sight."

As he spoke, without any sign of him doing anything, a ball of strange black flame emerged from the tip of the mast, gradually spreading along the sail below to the surroundings, and in the blink of an eye, it covered the entire ship.

Strangely enough, every structure of the Orl Jackson did not burn when it came into contact with the flames, nor did it emit a trace of burning sensation. Instead, it began to change at a speed visible to the naked eye, revealing a brand new structure.

If most people suddenly saw this scene, they would at least look panicked, if not turn around and jump into the sea to escape.

After all, it is unbelievable that a good ship suddenly burned into a completely different appearance.

However, the two men who witnessed this moment not only did not have any surprised expressions on their faces, they did not even blink, as if all this was already commonplace to them.

The black flames spread up from the soles of their feet, wrapping around their bodies in the blink of an eye. At this moment, the two bodies twisted and squirmed like two lumps of black mud, gradually transforming into a completely different appearance from before.

At the same time, the old red color on the sail gradually faded into clean white under the attachment of the black flames, and the skull pattern with curly beard also slowly faded away, replaced by a cross-shaped symbol with a circle drawn at the top and center, and a row of conspicuous large characters written below.

WORLD GOVT.

"Huh...huh..."

At the bottom of the cabin, a pile of wooden boxes were placed in a disorderly manner. The boxes were covered with thick dust, and the musty smell filled the air. It was obvious that they had been left here for a long time and seemed to be transported to a certain place for disposal.

In one of the most inconspicuous boxes, there lay a dying boy. His face was pale and almost transparent, his clothes were stained with blood, and there was a fist-sized hole in his stomach that was constantly oozing blood, staining the board behind him red, which looked extremely shocking. Only from the weak breathing sounds coming out of his mouth from time to time could we tell that he still had a trace of life.

The boy was wearing a gray iron helmet on his head. It seemed that he had suffered a violent impact and there were tiny cracks on the surface. The mechanical arms on both sides of the helmet that should have moved freely drooped on the ground motionlessly, as if they had stopped functioning.

The wooden box was not joined very firmly, so there was a tiny gap at the opening. A trace of air flowed in through the crack, allowing the boy to barely satisfy his breathing instinct. He greedily took a few breaths, which made his brain slightly more conscious.

——The wound has opened again... Fortunately, it has not been discovered so far...!

He raised his eyes with difficulty and slowly scanned the pitch-dark environment. After making sure that no one other than himself was around and no footsteps were approaching, he secretly felt lucky. With his trembling right hand, he slowly moved towards the wound on his abdomen that was bleeding, "Painful decomposition..."

The next moment, the blood flow gradually slowed down, and the pain felt in the nerves was relieved to a certain extent.

Then, he propped up his upper body slightly, squeezed out a little strength to tear off a large piece of his sleeve, and wrapped it around the wound to bandage it. Then he let out a long sigh of relief, and his already exhausted body finally couldn't hold on, and he fell limply to the ground.

He took a few deep breaths, and his somewhat distracted eyes slowly glanced at his right shoulder stained with blood, as if what happened that day was still fresh in his memory.

Just as Uno was being knocked away by the extremely sharp blood arrow, the seastone nail that was tightly stuck in his right shoulder was bounced out due to inertia, and the sound of it falling to the ground was just covered by the sound of the blood arrow breaking through the air.

Taking advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, he used his ability without any further thought to shatter the blood arrow into pieces. However, because the momentum of the blood arrow was too strong, a violent explosion occurred at the moment of shattering, and the huge air wave formed sent him flying directly into the depths of the tunnel.

When the boy woke up again, the noise from above continued to ring in his ears, along with the friction sound of the cargo box touching the ground. Although he didn't hear it clearly, Uno still judged that it was a sign that the enemy was preparing to retreat.

Uno wanted to run back to the Skull and regroup while they were not paying attention, but whenever he thought of the man who could control blood, he felt a sharp pain in his heart, and all the resentment seemed to burst out.

Now he was almost certain that the enemy had used some means to impersonate Roger's pirate group, with the obvious purpose of causing a war between Rocks and Roger.

Because the pirate Scoba Jabba, who has been Roger's right-hand man for many years and is famous in the New World, can never be a Celestial Dragon living in the holy land of Marijoa!

Damn it! The signal on the island was completely cut off, and there was no way to inform Mr. Rocks of this information, but I didn't have any extra time to think!

We must find that man and kill him at all costs!

With this thought in mind, Uno bit his lip and quickly made up his mind. He reached out and lightly tapped an inconspicuous button on the back of the helmet. His whole figure gradually became transparent and finally disappeared without a trace.

In order to be prepared, he equipped his helmet with an item called "transparent camouflage". Although it could only make him alone transparent, it could perfectly shield his own aura. Even masters who were proficient in observation Haki could not detect his presence.

——The infiltration plan is going smoothly... Once I recover from my injuries, I can try to get close to that guy! Then I can...