The one-eyed pirate grabbed the young boy. The boy clamped his mouth down on the pirate's wrist. The pirate, as if impervious to pain, tightened his large hand around the boy's neck. The boy, ignoring everything, bit down with all his might. Crack, crack. The sound of bones fracturing came from the boy's neck, yet he still held his bite.
The one-eyed pirate grew increasingly excited. The boy struggled to breathe, his face pale, but his mouth did not loosen.
Suddenly, a flash of light. The pirate's arm was severed, blood spraying outwards.
An ear-piercing scream made everyone shudder while simultaneously feeling a sense of disbelief.
The one-eyed pirate stared at the person before him, his pupils contracting, his face instantly overcome with terror and rage. He practically roared, "Capone Bege! Capone Bege! It's you, Capone Bege…!"
"We truly are fated to meet, aren't we, Taku? Do you think you'll be leaving here alive this time?" Bege said, looking at the one-eyed pirate with an expressionless face.
That's right. This one-eyed pirate was none other than the son of the Demon Lord of Fear, Taku.
"Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!" Taku shrieked in terror, clutching his severed arm. The pirates instantly charged towards Bege.
Bege's men also moved swiftly, intercepting the pirates. They fought with full force; this group of pirates had lost all humanity, and killing them was no different from slaughtering dogs or pigs. Bege advanced on Taku step by step, his sword flashing, each strike drawing blood, each one fatal. The pirates were being massacred in a one-sided slaughter.
With every kill, the blood-red glow on the Cursed Sword Hannya intensified.
The middle-aged pirate who had been entangled with the Marine Rear Admiral broke away and rushed straight for Bege. His body rapidly underwent a beastly transformation, turning into a half-man, half-wolf creature. His long saber thrust towards Bege's back.
Bege spun around. Hannya sliced through the air, striking the pirate's saber. The saber instantly shattered. Hannya then slashed at his body. Armament Haki surfaced on his skin, but Hannya directly smashed through it. If he hadn't hastily retreated, Hannya would have killed him outright.
"Young Master, run!" the middle-aged pirate roared at Taku.
"Run? Where can you run?" Bege's figure abruptly appeared beside the middle-aged pirate. His cold tone made the pirate's scalp tingle. He tried to flee rapidly, but Hannya streaked through the air, instantly slashing into his body. The keen edge nearly cleaved him in two, and a large amount of blood was devoured by Hannya.
He collapsed to the ground, left with only a single breath.
"Capone Bege! I'll kill you!" Taku, terrified and frenzied, was enveloped in billowing black smoke. The surrounding thick smoke rapidly and madly converged on him, and even the smoke in the sky plunged downwards, shrouding him and transforming into an immense black smoke giant.
"Die! Just die for me!" The black smoke giant roared, smashing its colossal fist down towards Bege.
"You're still far too weak," Bege sneered, casually swinging his sword and cleaving the giant smoke fist apart. Another slash followed, and an astounding blood-red strike directly split the black smoke giant in two. The dense black smoke dispersed in all directions like a tidal wave.
"Impossible… impossible… How could I…"
Taku stumbled and fell to the ground. Still unwilling to give up, the surrounding smoke gathered again, forming into giant serpents that lunged at Bege.
Bege casually swung his sword, slicing all the giant serpents apart and dispersing the smoke.
Taku struggled to his feet and fled madly towards the port.
A wave of sword qi flew swiftly, severing one of Taku's thighs. He lost his balance and fell to the ground again.
"No! You can't kill me! My father is the Demon Lord of Fear!" Taku's remaining eye was completely consumed by terror. He let out a horrified growl, attempting to intimidate Bege with his father's title.
"All you know is how to use the Demon Lord of Fear's name to scare people. You truly are a complete and utter waste. The Poison Smoke Fruit is truly wasted on you, like casting pearls before swine," Bege sneered. With another casual slash, he severed Taku's other leg, followed by two more slashes that removed his arms.
He had turned Taku into a human torso, lying in a pool of blood, wailing miserably, his life force rapidly fading.
"There's no use in you keeping this eye either. Might as well be blind," Bege said, and the Cursed Sword Hannya directly poked into Taku's remaining eye, effortlessly gouging it out.
"If it weren't for the fact that your Poison Smoke Fruit is useful, I'd really like to have you executed by a thousand cuts," Bege said coldly, taking Taku into his internal castle and ordering his doctors to keep him alive.
But Taku would certainly not have an easy time. Those interrogation experts at the Black Ice Platform were masters of inflicting pain that made one wish for death, a suffering worse than death itself. Before the "fusion," he intended to make Taku experience the cruelest agony in the world.
Bege's men were slaughtering in all directions. The Marine Rear Admiral also immediately led his remaining Marines to intercept and kill the pirates.
With Bege's intervention, the hundreds of pirates were all wiped out within a few short minutes.
The Marine Rear Admiral and his remaining men huddled together, staring at Bege with expressions of tension and terror.
Bege ignored the Marines and walked towards the young boy who had collapsed on the ground, trembling in pain.
"Boy, you're braver than anyone else here. I admire you. How about becoming one of my men?"
"Is… is that one-eyed bad man dead?" the boy asked, his face filled with hatred, his resentful gaze enough to make one's heart tremble.
"He's not dead yet. Letting him die so easily would be too lenient. I intend to make him taste the cruelest suffering in the world, and in the end, I'll obliterate his soul as well," Bege stated calmly.
"You hate him, don't you? Become one of my men, and I'll let you torture him every day, watch him suffer a fate worse than death."
"Okay! I'll be one of your men!" the boy agreed without hesitation.
"Do you have any family left?" Bege asked.
The boy's face contorted with even greater pain. He struggled to his feet, stumbled over to the group of violated female corpses, and clung to the body of a woman who had been tortured beyond recognition. Then he embraced another young female corpse beside her, similarly tormented beyond human resemblance—his mother and his sister. He began to wail, a heart-wrenching, bitter cry.
Bege fell silent, quietly smoking his cigarillo.
The boy cried until he fainted. Bege had his men pick up the boy and collect the bodies of his mother and sister.
"Let's go."
Bege brought the boy back to the ship and had his men loot Taku's pirate vessel. Unexpectedly, it was laden with enormous treasures, all plundered from his rampages of slaughtering towns and islands. There was also a group of women on board, tortured beyond human form.
Bege took the treasure and the women as well.
On the third day, aboard the ship, a plain-faced boy squatted in a dark corner, completely out of place with everyone else. His eyes were vacant and numb. He squatted there, motionless. This was Jeffries, the boy Bege had brought back from Cliton Island.
It had been three days, and Jeffries hardly spoke, remaining silent most of the time. Only when Bege questioned him would he occasionally utter a word or two.
If others tried to talk to him, he never opened his mouth.
Bege, true to his word, allowed him to torture Taku for an hour each day. Only during those times would his numb, vacant eyes fill with hatred and pain. On several occasions, if Bege's men hadn't intervened in time, Jeffries would have nearly killed Taku.
"Bege, I can feel that his pain and hatred haven't diminished; instead, they're growing stronger. If you don't find a way to help him soon, he'll truly be broken," Taylor said, her face filled with pity. Every time she listened to Jeffries' inner thoughts, she was affected and felt immense sympathy for him.
"I can also see that his heart is filled with pain. If this continues, his mind will become twisted," Viola said, a frightened look on her face. Her Glare-Glare Fruit also had the ability to see into people's hearts.