"Why is it so easy to get in? It's unsettling…" Benn Beckman squinted at his surroundings.
Arderay was the largest island in Alucard's territory, used by the Captain as his main base. Logically, the security should be extremely tight. Shanks' Conqueror's Haki was strong, and it had taken care of a few hundred small-fry pirates at the outer perimeter. But to walk this far into the island without seeing a single person was extremely odd.
"Oh, look, some rare animals."
Shanks pointed to the jungle beside the road, where several golden reindeer with sharp, knife- like antlers were eating grass and looking at them.
"Golden Reindeer? A very rare breed," Benn Beckman explained. "They aren't afraid of people, and while they're gentle, their attacks are extremely strong. A jab from those antlers can really hurt."
Slurp...
Lucky Roux swallowed a mouthful of saliva. "I heard that Golden Reindeer meat is super delicious. How about we…"
Whoosh!
Before Lucky Roux could finish his sentence, the Golden Reindeer suddenly bolted into the jungle, disappearing from view at an incredible speed.
"You big pig, you scared them off," Yasopp joked.
"No," Benn Beckman said, shaking his head. "Lucky didn't show any murderous intent. Based on their habits, they wouldn't run away. Something must be about to happen."
RUMBLE!
As soon as Beckman finished speaking, a massive, rectangular steel column suddenly rose from the ground about half a mile ahead of them. It looked like a giant iron box, from which a continuous thump, thump! of pounding could be heard.
"What's that?" Shanks tilted his head.
The massive steel box's door opened, and the first thing to crawl out was a… hand? It was something that could be called a hand, but it looked more like a bizarre, failed experiment. Countless pieces of black flesh were twisted together like a pretzel, and on the skin, there were deep red markings. If a Marine under Zephyr saw it, they would instantly recognize that the strange red markings were the same as the ones on Zephyr's body, both in appearance and aura.
After the hand, a head emerged, followed by a torso. When the nearly twenty-meter-tall body was fully revealed, Shanks and his crew were at a loss for words to describe what they were seeing.
The creature had a large body, short legs, and was mostly dark brown or black, with crimson markings on some parts of its body.
"ROOAAR!"
The monster swept its hand across the forest, leveling a large section of trees. It threw its head back and let out an earth-shattering roar, then lowered its gaze to Shanks and the others. It seemed a bit stiff, as if it had been locked away for too long.
"Oh! The reindeer weren't scared by me; they were scared by this thing!" Lucky Roux shouted after swallowing his last piece of ham.
"That's not important right now, is it?!" many of the Red Hair Pirates retorted.
"What is this, Beckman? I've never seen anything like it…" Shanks' words trailed off as he suddenly remembered an event from more than a decade ago. When he was a little apprentice pirate on Roger's ship, the Marines used a similar, bizarre creature to fight them on an island in
the first half of the Grand Line. They had to put in a great effort to win, only to be ambushed by Garp afterward, which put the entire crew in danger.
Even after all this time, that event had left a deep and unforgettable impression on Shanks. "That's why I said a Yonko's territory isn't so easy to enter!" Benn Beckman said seriously. "I'll put a bullet in his head!"
Yasopp, the sniper, suddenly raised his rifle and fired a shot at the monster's head, which pierced through its skull. However, the attack was completely ineffective. Everyone saw a hole appear in the monster's forehead, but it was still full of life, roaring and swinging its fist toward them.
"Dodge!"
Shanks warned them, and the Red Hair Pirates quickly scattered. The monster's fist slammed heavily into the ground, leaving a deep, irregular crater.
"How about this?"
Yasopp reloaded his gun and fired a series of shots at the monster's vital points. He quickly assessed the location of its internal organs and fired several bullets in under five seconds.
"Roar…"
The monster let out a low roar and suddenly smashed its fist into the ground beside its feet. It hunched over, and half of its ten-meter-long hand sank into the earth.
"Yasopp! Look out!" Shanks shouted a warning.
Yasopp's eyes widened, but before he could react, a massive black, fist-like object shot out of the ground. In the nick of time, Yasopp had no choice but to hold his pistol horizontally in front of him as a shield.
BANG!
The tremendous force sent Yasopp flying backward. He soared dozens of meters through the air before crashing heavily onto the ground.
"Yasopp!" the other Red Hair Pirates yelled in worry.
"I'm fine," Yasopp said, but blood was still trickling from the corner of his mouth.
Inside the castle, a Den Den Mushi sat on the red carpet of the main hall. Its projected image was cast onto the wall, turning the dark room into a movie theater. What was playing on the screen was the battle between the Red Hair Pirates and the monster.
"Not bad…"
Matthew stroked his chin, which was not covered by the iron mask. He wasn't the only one; everyone present was shocked that the creature was still alive even after its head, organs, and throat were destroyed.
Dr. Indigo stood to the right of Alucard, spreading his hands in an explanatory gesture. "We'll call this one the Wrecker for now. Unlike the infected we've created before, this one eats everything and just keeps growing."
Alucard watched the show playing on the projection. "It's still not enough to deal with Red- Haired Shanks."
"I have more up my sleeve."
Dr. Indigo took out a remote and pressed a button. Suddenly, at Shanks' location, countless smaller but still two to four-meter-tall monsters poured out of the steel box that had released the Wrecker.
They were hulking, over four-meter-tall creatures with two massive sledgehammer hands: the Blacklight Dominators. There were also two-meter-tall, ferocious-looking monsters with claws for hands, crawling on all fours: the Blacklight Contenders.