"No matter how much trash strengthens itself, trash can never escape its fate."
A sharp light flashed in Mo Wu's eyes. Everything beneath Hungry Bird's bronze-colored scales became transparent before his gaze in that instant.
So this is… the Transparent World!
Having seen through Hungry Bird's movement path, Mo Wu's eyes erupted with a sun-like brilliance, stabbing straight into Hungry Bird's own. For a brief instant, the beast was actually frozen in midair by sheer intimidation!
"When I cut down scum like you, I feel no burden at all!"
As hot breath poured from Mo Wu's mouth, blazing flames surged violently from his hand and wrapped themselves upward around the Nichirin Blade. The pale blade was dyed crimson.
"First Form: Dance!"
The long sword carved a crescent of fire through the air. Like a perfectly precise scalpel, it sliced cleanly through the protection of Hungry Bird's scales and, in the span of a single breath, severed both of his hands!
Blood sprayed everywhere.
Hungry Bird's agonized scream once again rang across the beach. His hands—his hands had been cut off again! The pain of losing both hands at once was so intense that his brain temporarily stopped functioning. His body, still in mid-leap, lost all control and crashed straight toward the ground.
Turning slightly aside, Mo Wu avoided the spiraling Hungry Bird as he smashed into the sandpit. Watching him, Mo Wu let out a calm smile.
Trash like this could treat human lives like weeds beneath their feet?
This world is rotten to the core.
The hand gripping the hilt tightened slightly. With a subtle tremor in his forearm, Mo Wu used a clever flick to shake the blood from the blade.
Disgust showed faintly on his face.
Meanwhile, Hungry Bird staggered back to his feet, shrieking in pain, and flung his severed stumps outward in an attempt to regrow his hands. But for some reason, the burning sensation at the cut ends was suppressing the growth of his flesh!
"Y-you… who exactly are you?!"
Looking at the slowly sprouting buds of flesh, and at his own body growing visibly thinner from the attempt to regenerate his severed limbs, an indescribable terror rose within Hungry Bird's heart.
"Me? I'm nothing more than a wandering swordsman."
"By rights, I have no place interfering in the battle between you and the Marines."
Hearing that, a look of frantic hope appeared on Hungry Bird's face.
"I—I can tell you where my treasure is hidden! Let me go! As long as you let me—"
Mo Wu cut him off before he could continue.
"But…"
He dragged the word out.
Sweeping his eyes across the Marines still fighting all around, Mo Wu turned and looked toward Milenko, who had already been helped to his feet by a Marine soldier.
Ignoring the Hungry Bird, who was desperately regrowing his hands while begging for mercy, Mo Wu curled his lips into a smile and spoke the words that would be etched into Milenko's memory for more than ten years, not to be forgotten until death itself.
"At this moment, I am applying to join the Marines."
Then, without paying any attention to Milenko's dropped jaw, Mo Wu slowly began walking toward Hungry Bird, who was kneeling on the ground and knocking his head against the sand as if pounding garlic.
"Please, spare me! I have one hundred million Berries! I have treasure worth one hundred million Berries!"
"If you let me live, I'll give it all to you!"
Burying his face in the sand and raising his half-regrown arms above his head in submission, Hungry Bird kept begging.
"Oh? You can really give me one hundred million Berries?"
Hearing the faint amusement in Mo Wu's voice, Hungry Bird's lowered face twisted into something vicious. Yet the voice that came from his mouth remained obsequious and flattering.
"Of course, of course. If you spare my life, money is nothing but something outside the body."
At that moment, Hungry Bird looked as obedient as a dog rolling over and exposing its belly to please its master.
But Milenko, standing nearby, immediately sensed something wrong.
Based on what he knew of Hungry Bird, there was no way the man would surrender so easily.
His eyes locked onto the scaled tail swaying back and forth behind Hungry Bird. A thought flashed through Milenko's mind, and he instantly realized what Hungry Bird's backup plan was.
"Watch the tail!" he shouted to warn Mo Wu.
"Too late!"
Unfortunately, Milenko had realized it just a moment too late.
The humble tone vanished from Hungry Bird's face in an instant. His expression turned savage as he shouted and lashed out, the sharp tail behind him—like a spear—stabbing forward in a blur so fast it even produced a sonic crack in the air.
"Die—"
"Go to hell."
A merciless voice sounded from the front.
Mo Wu had long since seen through the contraction of the muscles in Hungry Bird's tail. Combined with his awareness of the flow of energy, how could he possibly fail to react?
This was nothing but a cat toying with a rat.
A chill spread across Hungry Bird's neck, followed by a dizzying spin in his head. He wanted to ask why Mo Wu was still acting so arrogantly right before dying, but in that moment he realized he no longer had the strength to speak.
He couldn't even stop his eyelids from slowly falling shut.
I…
Looking ahead at the headless corpse still kneeling on the sand, at the limp tail collapsed beside it, and at the snow-white blade engraved with the words Destroy Demons—
So… I'm already dead?
Mo Wu kicked Hungry Bird's head straight into the battlefield where the fighting was still raging, then, with his breathing technique amplifying his voice, shouted at the top of his lungs:
"Hungry Bird is dead!"
The sheer force of his voice made the pirates on the battlefield shudder.
For a moment, a single thought rose in their minds.
Hungry Bird? That name sounds familiar—
Wait…
Hungry Bird?!
Countless pirate cutlasses fell to the ground, kicking up sand everywhere. The moment the pirates understood, many of them immediately clutched their heads and dropped to their knees.
"The captain's dead!"
"That's the captain's head!"
"Run! Run for your lives!"
But there were still quite a few pirates who, after seeing Hungry Bird's head, turned and fled in panic.
That lasted only until Mo Wu casually picked up a stone from the ground and hurled it at the farthest-running pirate, knocking him flat. Seeing that, the remaining pirates' legs gave out, and they all dropped to their knees on the beach.
"Ohhhhhhh!"
"We won!"
"We beat the Hungry Bird Pirates?!"
Shouts of joy burst from the surviving Marines. Having defeated the Hungry Bird Pirates, their spirits were now soaring.
One after another, they quickly tied up the pirates and dragged them before Milenko and Mo Wu.
Their hearts were filled with joy.
They were completely immersed in the thrill of victory.
Until…
They saw the bodies of their comrades lying in pools of blood.
And the seawater stained red by severed limbs.
"I'll kill you bastards!"
One Marine soldier, maddened by rage, snatched up a fallen blade from the ground and charged forward, intent on personally cutting down these evil pirates.
"That's enough!"
A furious roar stopped him in place.
"Private Luca, I order you to stop!"
"You're satisfying your anger for a moment, but have you thought about what that makes you? What difference would there be between you and a pirate?"
Dust flew up.
The long blade hacked into the sand beside a pirate instead.
Luca fell to his knees helplessly, then slammed a fist into the sand, staring at the pirates before him with burning hatred in his eyes.
I didn't kill anyone, so why are you trying to cut me down?!
The unlucky pirate singled out swallowed hard.
It felt as though the fire in the young Marine's eyes had burned across his body once already. Having barely escaped death, he was so terrified that tears began streaming down his face, and his trousers were already wetting.
Taking a deep breath and forcing himself to steady his emotions, Milenko looked at the Marines gathered before him. His tone gradually became hard, like steel.
"We are not pirates. We are Marines of justice, bound by discipline!"
"I don't know how other branches operate. I only know this—under my command, such a thing can never be allowed!"
Then, to everyone's surprise, Milenko shook off the support of the Marine beside him. He removed the Justice coat from his back, lowered his head, and bowed to the Marines around him.
A trace of regret colored his words.
"If not for the man beside me, I believe all of us would have died at Hungry Bird's hands!"
"I was the one who led you out to sea. It was my mistaken judgment that harmed you. If you are angry, then direct all that anger at me!"
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