A total of four ships.
At Doflamingo's request, this large-scale transaction was conducted at sea.
The government's trading ship was in the center. The remaining three ships docked alongside; to the east were Merlin and Doflamingo's ships.
To the west was Tsuru's warship.
At this moment.
Merlin and Doflamingo, each carrying a glass vessel, arrived in the cabin of the World Government ship.
Tsuru and Gion were also here.
On the CP9 side, the person in charge of the escort mission was a capable-looking young man in a black suit, about 24 or 25 years old and three meters tall.
At this moment, a staff member opened the glass vessels to inspect the goods, continuously spouting a string of professional terms that most people couldn't quite understand.
However, one could see from this professional's eyes that he was very excited.
Merlin leaned against the cabin doorway. Under the six o'clock sun, half of his body was in the light, and half was in the shadow.
And under this sunlight, Merlin's shadow covered most of the room's interior.
A faint smile played on his lips.
At this time, Merlin raised his eyes to look at the woman who had been staring at him since he came in, and chuckled lightly. "Have you seen enough?"
Gion's face was calm, but she replied instantly, "Not enough! I want to chain you up with Seastone chains, tie you by my side, scold you when I want, and beat you when I want."
"Go to sleep! Dreams have everything."
Merlin said flatly.
Gion's mouth twitched, but soon she glared viciously at Merlin. "Where are your dog eyes looking?"
Merlin's plain gaze moved away from her prominent, fair cleavage, smiling disdainfully. "Your Marine Headquarters' logistical medical care isn't much either!
"Can't even clear away a mere scar like this."
Gion understood instantly what this guy was referring to—wasn't he talking about the scar on her chest? Her chest rose and fell as she gritted her teeth in anger. "Then tell me which bastard did this?"
Merlin looked thoughtful, then smiled at her. "Such a beautiful you, yet you have a scar on your chest. What a pity!"
Gion's face turned dark. Merlin laughed again. "I can help you heal it. As a condition, how about you teach me Paper Art (Kami-e)?"
Regarding the Navy Six Styles (Rokushiki), Merlin valued three of them the most: Moonwalk (Geppo) and Iron Body (Tekkai), which he already knew. As for Finger Pistol (Shigan), Shave (Soru), and Tempest Kick (Rankyaku), in Merlin's view, they were derivative techniques of the first two. As for the last one, the body force-dispelling technique Paper Art, Merlin didn't know it yet.
As for why he wanted this, it might involve the cultivation of Life Return (Seimei Kikan).
Iron Body represented hardness, Paper Art represented softness.
Cultivating both hardness and softness, with consciousness reaching every corner of the body in a thought, perhaps he could get a glimpse of Life Return.
"Keep dreaming! Don't even think about it, you damn pirate!!!"
Before Gion could speak, the CP9 escort leader spoke first with a disdainful tone. Seeing Merlin look over, he said even more arrogantly, "A mere pirate wants to covet our World Government's secret body development techniques?
"Are you trying to make me die of laughter?"
The famous Tsuru and Gion were present, so he had no scruples.
Just a pirate brat with a bounty of less than a hundred million. He, who mastered the Six Styles, could easily handle him.
Moreover, he had long been displeased with Merlin and Doflamingo. Basically no fame, yet acting so arrogant.
At this moment.
Both sides in the field fell silent.
Doflamingo's mouth curled up, looking at this CP9 agent with a faint smile.
Tsuru and Gion's expressions changed slightly, and they quietly focused their attention on Merlin to prevent him from violently hurting someone.
"Mr.... what's your name?"
Merlin asked him with a smile.
Who's-Who looked at Merlin disdainfully and said pompously, "Remember my name, I'm Who's-Who."
Merlin chuckled lightly. "Sorry, I never remember the names of useless trash who can't even take one of my moves."
Who's-Who froze for a moment, then became alert. But then he realized Merlin hadn't made any move. However, he saw the mockery in Merlin's eyes.
Instantly, his face flushed red. He felt severely insulted.
However, under the interweaving of light and shadow.
Merlin's shadow had already overlapped with his shadow. In this moment, a gleam flashed in Merlin's eyes, and a phantom black flame rose on the shadow.
Merlin's eyes were half-closed, sensing that the Calamity of Freezing had been infused into his shadow. Furthermore, the "bridge" connecting his main body and shadow was under his control.
As long as his consciousness moved, this calamity would follow the shadow, like a positional swap, swapping onto his main body.
This was the extent of what Merlin could do after synthesizing the fruit origins.
Using the symbiotic medium of form and shadow to achieve all kinds of incredible operations.
"You bastard, dare to toy with me?"
Merlin grinned lightly, speaking flatly at the same time: "Freeze!"
Crack! Suddenly, a terrifying sense of crisis appeared in Who's-Who's heart, but he couldn't find the source. Immediately after, in an instant from inside out, Who's-Who turned into an ice sculpture in the middle of the room.
In this moment, everyone present was stunned.
In this moment, Merlin appeared behind Who's-Who. At the same time, a pitch-black shadow hand pulled Who's-Who's shadow up from the ground. Zanye was unsheathed and swept past. Rip! A shadow with the same shape as him bared its fangs and claws.
Merlin glanced at it and said calmly, "Quiet!"
Immediately, the shadow quieted down.
Shadow contract established.
This was a characteristic contained within the Shadow-Shadow Fruit to establish a master-servant contract with the shadows of external objects.
It could also be called control power.
"Moria's... Shadow-Shadow Fruit ability?"
"How is that possible? Real or fake?"
"Hehe, it really is so. Even seeing it with my own eyes, it's still somewhat unbelievable, isn't it?"
The three people present spoke different words one after another.
Merlin glanced at them. Although their expressions varied, Merlin could derive a common point from their eyes: deep apprehension.
Seeing this!
Merlin grinned. "Don't worry, the conditions for copying are too harsh. I'm not interested in your abilities.
"After all, washing things, strings and threads... they really don't interest me."
Since he had the ability, he couldn't hide it and not use it. So he needed someone to endorse it. Just as a witness, Tsuru was quite qualified.
"Copy?" A gleam flashed in Tsuru's eyes. Under the literal meaning deliberately guided by Merlin, she instantly thought of how he obtained the Shadow-Shadow Fruit ability.
This world already had all kinds of weird Devil Fruits, so Tsuru would only attribute Merlin's copy ability to some kind of Devil Fruit power.
The reason Merlin deliberately said it was because the ability to copy abilities had probably already spread.
Pink told people in the Donquixote Family, Rosinante would undoubtedly tell Sengoku in the Marines, and Tsuru would probably know before long.
Again, rather than letting them guess wildly, it was better to be open about it.
And words spoken from his own mouth would always be more convincing to others.
"What is the condition?"
At this time, Gion suddenly spoke, attracting their attention. Then she added, "Moria died, and you possessed it. Surely the condition for your copy isn't death, right?"
Saying this, noticing Merlin's expression didn't look good, she narrowed her eyes slightly, then chuckled lightly. "And such a terrifying ability probably doesn't have just one condition, right?"
"You guess?" Merlin looked calm, but the corner of his eye twitched imperceptibly. Gion noticed it and instantly felt more certain. So she continued to guess. Suddenly, she thought of a rather buggy fruit ability, the Paramecia type Age-Age Fruit (Juku Juku no Mi? No, likely referring to Bonney's fruit or a similar concept of distorted future). After awakening, as long as there was enough imagination, regardless of limitations, the user could turn themselves into any possible future.
In other words, as long as one firmly believed in their imagination, they could distort their own reality and possess multiple types of abilities.
But conversely, as long as one couldn't firmly believe in their imagination, they absolutely couldn't use this ability to distort their own reality.
Then belief... Gion narrowed her eyes. "The condition for your copy... wouldn't be... you must firmly believe it's an ability you could theoretically possess, right?
"And a shadow is something all beings possess."
In this moment, Merlin looked at Gion with great shock in his eyes. This wild imagination... Merlin almost believed it himself.
At this moment, Merlin's expression fell right into Gion's eyes. Gion glanced at Merlin with immense pride.
Merlin's loss of composure gave her a very satisfying feeling, even more refreshing than winning a fight against him.
At this time, Merlin's face seemed to stiffly become calm. He forced a smile. "Think whatever you want!"
Saying this, he looked at Doflamingo. "Hurry up and trade. Staying here annoys me."
Doflamingo's mouth curled up. He also heard Gion's words and saw Merlin's shocked expression just now when his mind was seemingly read. Thus, his apprehension towards Merlin decreased significantly.
Seeing Merlin change the subject, Gion became even more certain. Beside her, Tsuru narrowed her eyes slightly. Although not sure yet, she felt Gion's words made sense.
Perhaps the final condition had some discrepancies, but it should be largely like that.
However, at this time, Tsuru said, "We are trading this time, yet you harmed someone from the trading party. Isn't that a bit excessive?"
Merlin raised an eyebrow. "I'm not taking the blame for this. He's just frozen.
"If you thaw him with warm water in time, he'll catch a cold at most. He won't die."
But speaking of this, Merlin laughed. "Or could it be that you also find him annoying, so you don't want to save him?
"If that's the case, I can take the blame."
Seeing this, Tsuru glanced helplessly at the few CP agents standing in the room and said directly, "Why aren't you taking your chief back to thaw out?"
The CP agents reacted, hurriedly carrying Who's-Who to the bathroom in the back.
Tsuru watched them leave with a calm gaze. Although she could clear that frozen state.
She didn't want to do it. After all, interacting with idiots carried the risk of contagion.
Rather than saving him, better to let him learn a lesson.
Staff Officer Tsuru thought to herself.
At this time, Merlin looked at the shadow in his hand. With a thought, this shadow began to soften, seeping into his hand like fluid.
Absorbed and fused by Merlin.
Merging with Who's-Who's shadow, a sense of instinct surged in Merlin's heart.
He flashed to the deck outside, used Iron Body, making his body hard as rock, then Moonwalk into the sky, leaping through the air. Then, relying on instinct, he kicked out a vacuum air blade towards Gion, who had chased him out.
Face darkening, Gion drew her sword and slashed.
Clang! She shattered the slash.
A smile flashed in Merlin's eyes. He kicked the atmosphere under his feet. Pa! With a ring of air pressure appearing, he arrived on the sea surface to the north. As soon as he landed on the sea, the shadow beneath his feet expanded and spread.
Simultaneously, the Calamity of Freezing was released.
For calamities that could affect and interfere with the environment like this, Merlin could now influence matter through his shadow.
Under the hundred-meter diameter circular shadow, as ice, snow, and cold air erupted, a thick layer of ice froze instantly. Then, Merlin retracted the shadow, stood on the ice, looked at Gion on the ship, and lifted his chin provocatively. "Long time no see. Come and try?"
Gion locked her gaze on the ice beneath Merlin's feet, a flash of weariness in her eyes. This guy's abilities seemed endless.
However, with a flash of her figure, Gion arrived in front of Merlin in the blink of an eye. In an instant, a sword slashed out like lightning.
Merlin's pupils constricted, a trace of red light appearing in them. At the same time, he leaned back to dodge the cold light slashing towards his face.
In that instant, Gion wasn't surprised by Merlin's counterattack, but rather his dodge.
Simultaneously, in the spark of lightning, Merlin's consciousness relied on instinct to estimate his body, combining movement and stillness, naturally possessing the muscle estimation within static force.
Although surprised in her mind, Gion's movements were not slow. Taking a step forward, her right foot turned pitch black, kicking the atmosphere under her foot to roar. In that moment, the backward-leaning Merlin, through his "Climate Sense" sensitivity to airflow, perceived the explosive power of the air current in advance. In that moment, driven by bodily instinct and a thought, estimating his whole body's muscles, he utilized the force-dispelling technique of Paper Art.
Unfortunately, Gion's kick was too agile and too violent. That kick landed heavily on Merlin's waist.
Boom! With full-body force dispersion, Merlin's waist seemed to deform as he flew horizontally off the ice surface in an instant. Tumbling bang bang along the ice, he flew off the ice sheet in a blink, splashing into the seawater with a plop.
In this moment, because Merlin entered the sea too fast, except for a very few people present who saw clearly, the rest were pale with shock.
Especially Monet and the others on the eastern ship. But at that moment, boom, the seawater where Merlin fell exploded. A figure wrapped in a tight, seamless shadow armor like an exoskeleton broke through the sea surface.
Pa! As the air exploded under his feet, Merlin reappeared on the ice surface.
"So... so cool!!!"
"Damn it! That kid is too damn good at showing off!!!"
"So cool! Big Brother Merlin!"
"White Demon? I think Black Demon is more like it. But, he is so cool!!"
In this moment, whether it was his own people or the female Marines on the opposite side.
They all had stars in their eyes, looking shocked or envious and jealous.
Doflamingo grinned. "As expected of you. Compared to you, Moria simply wasted his ability to control shadows.
"It seems you can fight in seawater too."
Helplessness flashed in Tsuru's eyes.
On the ice, watching the shadow armor on Merlin's body "liquefy" and sink into his feet like fluid, a strange light flashed in Gion's eyes.
A smile played on Merlin's lips. He hadn't practiced this development and control of shadows little in these few months.
"Seawater" could limit the use of an ability user's ability, but it didn't limit the ability itself. As long as the main body didn't touch it, he wouldn't be affected.
At this moment, Merlin looked at Gion, chuckling. "Didn't disappoint you, did I?"
Hearing this, Gion scoffed, looking disdainful. " Ideally, drown you, you bastard!"
Saying this, holding her sword, she rushed over in the blink of an eye.
And Merlin rushed forward as well.