Crofort. The Royal Palace.
Inside the Great Hall, over a dozen clergy members and paladins, clad in black vestments adorned with white crosses or heavy plate armor, stood gathered. Every face was etched with solemnity, and beneath that, a flickering shadow of terror.
News had just arrived: Griffinfort had been blindsided by a lightning raid led by "Golden Ring" Aeridar and "Thunder God" Enel. The Noble Council had been completely eradicated. Of the personnel the Church had sent to negotiate the peace talks, not a single soul had returned.
First came the defeat at Valanfort and the death of Razalo; then the total collapse of the Revolutionary Army. Now, the Noble Council was gone, Leog was dead, and Mondos Bank was missing. Within a matter of days, the once-sprawling power structure of the Bivins Kingdom had been hollowed out, leaving the Church of the Night as the sole remaining faction standing in the ruins.
Having lost their primary combat assets—Razalo, Vice Commander of the Dark Tribunal; Toulouse Leog, the Grand Knight Commander; and Mondos Bank, the "Strongest Heretic Executioner"—the Church of the Night was effectively crippled.
The Church's high-level combatants were few to begin with, and they had deployed more than half of them to the Bivins Kingdom. To lose three pillars in such a short span... how were they supposed to continue? Was the next step simply an organized march toward death?
Thump! Thump! Thump!
Horkheimer Max rapped his knuckles against the table. His face was a mask of cold indifference. "Speak up. What is our next move?"
The men looked at one another, but no one dared break the silence. Even Bane, a fellow Obsidian Archbishop, remained tight-lipped. The silence in the hall was deafening.
Click-clack, click-clack...
The sharp sound of approaching footsteps cut through the tension. Malha, clad in a long black trench coat, and Ryūkawa Jiku, wearing a pristine white kimono, strode into the hall.
"If no one else is going to talk, then I will!"
Malha marched to the center of the room, his eyes scanning the clergy. He spoke with deliberate weight: "Leave. If we don't leave now, we never will."
"Yohehehe~" Ryūkawa glanced around the room, letting out a low, mocking chuckle.
"We have poured so much manpower and resources into this! We've suffered countless casualties, including three of our top-tier fighters! You expect us to just... walk away?" Bane shouted, his temper flaring.
The Bivins Kingdom was the parish he governed. To leave meant abandoning his territory, a prospect he found utterly intolerable.
"Hmph. You think I've sacrificed little to support you?" Malha's brow furrowed as he let out a cold snort. "More than half of the blades, guns, cannons, and armor you use were supplied by me free of charge. Without my backing, could you have gathered this much in such a short time?"
He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a dangerous hiss. "Furthermore, if it weren't for my help, your people would have been assassinated a dozen times over. Do you think the Chris Investigation Bureau is a joke?"
To support the Church of the Night, Malha, authorized by Aldrich Gustav, had even mobilized CP0 agents. He had paid a staggering price for this venture.
However, the combat prowess displayed by the Chris Pirates over the last few days had been a brutal wake-up call. There is a time to hold and a time to fold. If he didn't cut his losses now, he feared he would be dragged down with them.
"You..." Bane glared at Malha, teeth bared.
"If you don't leave, how do you plan to fight?" Malha's eyes flashed with unconcealed disdain. "With the people you have left? You wouldn't even be a warm-up for a single one of their Officers."
Malha knew that to reach the rank of Obsidian Archbishop, one needed both strength and administrative capability. But while Bane was formidable, he wasn't a dedicated combat specialist. In a real life-and-death struggle, Malha doubted Bane could hold his own against any core member of the Chris Pirates.
"..." Bane opened his mouth to retort but found himself speechless.
The dozen-plus Officers of the Chris Pirates were all infamous New World heavyweights. Taking on even one was a monumental task; taking on all of them was suicide. Even if he and Max teamed up and performed beyond their limits, they could at most stall three or four. The remaining Officers would still be enough to level Crofort ten times over.
"Let's go. We abandon the Bivins Kingdom. We have failed," Max said softly, letting out a nearly imperceptible sigh.
"Archbishop!"
"Archbishop Max!"
The room erupted. As Bane had pointed out, the Church had invested too much to simply retreat.
Malha and Ryūkawa watched the chaotic scene in silence. Did these priests think the retreat was easy for them, either? From start to finish, they had exhausted immense resources to weaken the Chris Pirates. Malha and Ryūkawa had even personally intervened to help the Church seize this very castle, only to end up slinking away like beaten dogs.
"Enough!"
Max's voice boomed, instantly silencing the room. He looked at the agitated faces of his subordinates and said flatly, "My decision is final. Prepare for immediate evacuation. Anyone who is unwilling to leave is free to stay behind on their own."
The district bishops and knight commanders looked lost, their eyes turning toward Bane.
"Retreat," Bane said, standing up slowly. He kept his head lowered, looking like a man who had lost his soul.
With both Obsidian Archbishops in agreement, the lesser officials had no choice but to comply. In truth, many felt a secret sense of relief.
Seeing the Church's decision, Malha nodded and turned to Ryūkawa. "Let's make our own preparations."
Ryūkawa whispered, "Everything is ready."
"Malha-sama, would you like to depart with us?" Max asked, rising and walking toward him.
"No need. I have my own ways of leaving," Malha declined. He was an Emperor of the Underworld with the clandestine support of the World Government; leaving on his own was far safer than traveling with a marked target like the Church.
"No... I think it would be better if Malha-sama came with us," Max said, his hand idly stroking his obsidian staff.
Malha's expression shifted. He narrowed his eyes at Max. "What is that supposed to mean?"
Ryūkawa's hand drifted toward his hilt. The atmosphere in the hall turned dangerously cold.
"It means exactly what I said," Max replied, his face as calm as a still pond.
At those words, the Church's district bishops and knights stood up in unison, surrounding Malha and Ryūkawa with expressionless faces.
"You intend to keep us here? Why?" Malha asked, his brow furrowed in genuine confusion. This was a variable he hadn't accounted for.
"When two great tigers clash, the weak need a bargaining chip for the negotiations," Bane said, walking over to join Max, staring coldly at the duo.
"I see. I underestimated you," Malha said, realization dawning in his eyes.
"Since our cooperation was so pleasant, I wanted to be polite," Max's voice turned frigid. "But it seems we'll have to do this the hard way."
Riiiip!
The sound of tearing fabric filled the air. To the shock of Malha and Ryūkawa, Max's body began to swell and distort, shredding his priestly vestments.
Max's head and torso elongated; coarse, dark-gray fur erupted across his skin. His eyes turned a predatory crimson, and his limbs morphed into sharp, bestial claws. Within seconds, he had transformed into a four-meter-tall werewolf, a thick tail swishing behind him.
"This... a Zoan-type!" Malha and Ryūkawa's hearts skipped a beat as they felt an overwhelming aura of bloodlust and danger radiate from him.
"It's here! Archbishop Max's true form!"
"The guardian deity of the Church of the Night, the Lunar Werewolf!"
"A pity it isn't a full moon, or we would see the Archbishop's true, unbridled power!"
The Church members cheered, their spirits instantly lifted.
"Gruuurh—!"
The transformed Max let out a low growl. Gripping his obsidian staff, he looked down at Malha and Ryūkawa and spoke in a raspy, bestial voice: "Zoan: Human-Human Fruit, Mythical Model—Werewolf. It belongs to the Human-Human series. It is... quite a potent ability."
"A Mythical Werewolf Fruit!"
Malha's face paled. He had read the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia. Records of the Human-Human Fruit, Mythical Model: Werewolf were scarce, described only with two words: Mysterious. Powerful.
Of course, many Devil Fruit scholars argued over whether the "Werewolf" belonged to the Human-Human series or the Dog-Dog series. Regardless of the taxonomy, the power before them was undeniable.