"Bastard, you bastard, how dare you use such a crude method!"
"What the hell is wrong with your head? In a fight, as long as it works, who cares how it looks?"
Jack had originally thought Cavendish was a brave Warrior. It wasn't like there'd never been anyone who dared challenge the Hundred Beasts before, but someone charging in this proactively was still rare.
But now his opinion changed; he felt Cavendish was simply not quite right in the head.
"You barbaric brute—Beautiful Sword·Cyan Bird!"
Cavendish, who had climbed back up, launched a fierce thrust at Jack. The speed of this sword strike was incredibly fast; because of the speed of the thrust, air currents curled up along both sides of the blade. But compared to the slash just now, this strike was no different.
The gap between the New World and the First Half of the Grand Line revealed itself. Back in the First Half of the Grand Line, Cavendish was a highly gifted Swordsman; if he trained for a while in the New World, he could also become a true powerhouse.
But before he trained Haki, as a Swordsman it was very hard for him to injure Jack.
Although he far outstripped Jack in speed, Jack only needed to activate his Haki to make Cavendish completely unable to break his defense, so what had just happened occurred once again: Cavendish took another slap and was smacked back to where he'd started.
This time Jack hit the other side of his face, making him look much more symmetrical.
"For a rookie, you're pretty decent, so I'll give you one more chance."
Out of the corner of his eye, he glanced at Sheepshead and Ginrummy's battlefield; the mammoth-man and the elephant-man had already led their squad in ripping open the enemy's defensive line. It looked like it was only a matter of time before the battle ended.
"I refuse. This young master has no intention of joining such a crude bunch as you!"
"Mm, looks like I'll have to switch to another method."
According to Kaidou's teaching, when you want to recruit someone, you first display your strength to intimidate the other side. If they surrender on the spot, then you can consider the next step.
If they refuse, then beat them up so they fully understand the difference in power, and then recruit them.
If they still refuse, then take them back and let them understand the consequences of refusal.
"I'll make sure you work elegantly. You can have a nice long discussion about etiquette with those guys."
Elegance always comes with a price—like mining elegantly.
And Cavendish didn't continue attacking. Although he'd been slapped twice in a row, it also made him realize the huge gap in strength between them. Up to now he'd never met an opponent whose skin he couldn't even cut.
Closing his eyes slightly, Cavendish seemed to lose consciousness. When he opened them again, his eyes were already turning white, and the corners of his mouth had curled up to an exaggerated degree—he had awakened his inner persona.
Cavendish knew that slaughter-loving inner persona very well. That persona was insanely violent and almost devoid of reason. So normally Cavendish kept him suppressed, giving him a chance to appear only when Cavendish was asleep.
Crazy as he was, that inner persona possessed Swordsmanship even stronger than Cavendish's, who was already a Swordsmanship prodigy.
Since they shared the same body, as Cavendish grew stronger, that inner persona also became stronger.
When facing an enemy who was too strong, Cavendish would voluntarily let that persona come out to fight his opponent.
In his inner-persona state, Cavendish's speed rose another step. The air rang with sharp whooshing sounds as inner-persona Cavendish appeared beside Jack, Durandal in his hand whipping out a dense web of sword strikes that successfully shredded Jack's vest.
"I actually kind of liked that piece of clothing."
Jack's upper body was now bare, revealing his bulging muscles. Although the inner persona's attack frequency was very high and his Swordsmanship very refined, he still failed to break Jack's defense, only leaving some whitish marks on his body.
Even this arrogant inner persona now had a trace of astonishment on his wildly exaggerated expression.
Right after that, this inner persona took a solid slap from Jack, just like Cavendish had.
Cavendish and his inner persona were able to communicate; as long as the other side hadn't fallen into a deep sleep, they could both perceive what was happening outside. So this slap drove Cavendish's inner persona completely insane.
"Bastard, bastard! I'll tear you apart—tear you to pieces!"
Back then in the Rommel Kingdom, murders occurred every time night fell. The Navy reinforcements who came weren't his match and couldn't even see who the enemy was.
Speed itself was the hallmark of Cavendish's inner persona. Because his instant kills were as fast as a gust of wind, those unknown-assailant killings were called the "Scythe Weasel of Rommel."
Right now, he circled Jack, attacking nonstop, trying to find Jack's weak point. At such extreme speed, it was very hard for Jack's attacks to land on him—but Jack had long since come up with a countermeasure.
Jack dropped into a horse stance and assumed a straight-punch posture.
"Fishman Karate·Karakusagawara Seiken!"
The essence of Fishman Karate lay in striking the water inside the human body to cause greater damage. Karakusagawara Seiken was a special technique that used a punch to generate a 360-degree shockwave.
Against such a high-speed but squishy opponent, this technique was extremely handy.
For Cavendish to attack Jack, he had to get close. This punch sent him flying right out.
This time Jack didn't slap him away, but grabbed him in his hand, not giving him any chance to continue attacking.
"Nine minutes—just about right. Hey! Sheepshead, you're too slow!"
"Lord Jack, it'll be over any second now, please wait just a bit longer."
Hearing Jack's urging, Sheepshead and the others sped up their fighting and soon wiped out the Handsome Pirates.
"Reporting, Lord Jack: including the Captain, we've captured a total of seventy-four members of the Handsome Pirates, one white horse, some treasure, and… countless love letters."
They perfectly carried out Jack's orders and captured the entire enemy crew alive. Compared to the gap between Captains, the gap for regular members in the New World was even more terrifying.
Under the leadership of the junior officers, they collapsed at an astonishing speed, and everything on the ship fell into the hands of the Hundred Beasts.
"Lord Jack, what are we capturing them for?"
"To see if we can recruit them. Besides, the mines in Wano Kuni seem to be short-handed lately. These energetic guys should be quite suitable.
Go find a Seastone Chain and lock him up. This guy's got a few screws loose."
After defeating Cavendish's inner persona, Cavendish didn't come back out, instead falling into a deep sleep. This was a choice he actively made in order to let his inner persona fight at full power; only when the other persona was completely asleep could the one who was awake bring out their full strength.
He just hadn't expected that his trump card would still be so fragile in Jack's eyes—only enough to make Jack use a few proper techniques, nothing more.