Falkor, after spitting out the cake, coughed twice and then continued devouring it, making Creed both angry and amused: it turned out it had just choked from eating too fast. He thought there was something wrong with the cake.
Of course, even if there was a problem with the cake, he wouldn't be afraid— the Ope Ope no Mi (Operation Fruit) could handle everything.
He also tried a piece of the vanilla cake.
The cake had a faint greenish hue, crystal clear, fragrant and alluring, looking delicious.
"Mmm, delicate and smooth, fragrant and rich… the taste really is excellent."
Creed and Ain both gave it high praise.
Especially after finishing one piece, their spirits were immediately lifted.
This cake might be similar to coffee, containing something that refreshes the mind.
"If I had known it was this good, I would have bought more to bring back for Vice Commander Issho and the others."
Ain regretted a little.
The two of them and Falkor continued eating vanilla cake as they strolled down the street.
Vanilla Island seemed nice overall, but the pirates everywhere and the filth made Creed and Ain frown.
Aside from the area around the cake shop, order and law elsewhere were a mess.
But this was normal. Pirates rarely abided by rules, which explained the near absence of ordinary residents.
This Vanilla Island was clearly a pirate-dominated place.
So the two quickly lost interest, bought some supplies, and decided to head back to the port, fix the ship, and leave.
…
As they were walking back, sudden footsteps burst out from a nearby alley, and a red-haired girl wearing almost no clothes ran out.
The girl was tall, delicate-faced, full of panic, her disheveled appearance suggesting something terrible had happened.
"Pa! Pa!"
Immediately after, a young man rushed out, waving an iron rod to block the alley entrance, shouting: "Shirley, run!"
"Brother!"
The girl's eyes filled with tears, but she didn't dare stop.
Then—
Splat!
A flash of light shot out from the alley, striking the young man who was blocking the way to the port, knocking him to the ground!
It was a long sword.
"Ah! My leg!"
The young man tried to pull out the sword nailed into his thigh, but it had pierced deep into the concrete ground, impossible to remove. Blood gushed freely.
Several tattooed thugs then walked out of the alley. One threw a rope and tied up the fleeing red-haired girl, slamming her heavily onto the ground before Creed and Ain.
"You think you can run? The fact that the boss fancies you is your honor, yet you don't know what's good for you."
The leader was a huge man with a yellow rooster-like mohawk, sneering as he approached.
"Help me!"
The red-haired girl, her face bloody, looked at Ain and pleaded desperately.
Crackle— zap!
Lightning flickered in Ain's hand as she was about to strike.
"Bang!"
But unexpectedly, the red-haired girl triggered some kind of device, releasing a cloud of orange-red smoke that quickly enveloped Creed and Ain.
"Haha! Just as planned. The boss was right—Marines guard against everyone, but never against ordinary civilians."
"Foolish Marines. There are no civilians left on this island— we killed them all long ago."
"As long as you inhale the smoke made from Red Tangerine flowers, once it mixes with the vanilla essence in your body, even a Sea King will collapse!"
"We've done it! I heard the underworld bounty on this Creed is one billion berries!"
The rooster-headed brute and his men laughed wildly, pulling out ropes laced with seastone, preparing to bind Creed and Ain.
But then they noticed—inside the orange-red smoke, the two figures were still standing tall, not collapsing as expected.
"What's going on?!"
"Impossible!"
"Retreat!"
They panicked, trying to scatter in all directions.
For them, Creed's name was like thunder. He had crushed countless infamous pirate crews and defeated two Shichibukai. Facing him head-on was suicide.
Crackle!
Dozens of bolts of lightning shot out from Ain's hands, easily overtaking them and reducing them to charred corpses.
Even the acting red-haired girl and the "pinned" young man didn't escape the reckoning.
"Speak—where is the one who ordered you? Otherwise, you die."
Creed grabbed the rooster-head by the throat, lifting him into the air.
"…It's the factory boss! He's in the factory, entertaining Baron Tamago…"
The brute pointed weakly to a factory built behind the town.
Creed tossed him aside and drew the Sword.
"Don't be reckless! We're under the BIG MOM Pirates—"
The rooster-head tried to invoke Baron Tamago's name, but Creed had already locked onto the factory and swung his blade.
"Boom!"
A black crescent-shaped slash roared out, carrying destructive energy, slicing the distant factory in half in an instant!
The sword energy didn't stop, cutting through the mountain behind it as well.
Rumble!
The force of the strike devastated everything, collapsing the rest of the factory buildings into ruins.
The factory was destroyed!
This strike hadn't even used lightning or other powers—just Creed's sword intent and sword energy, testing the might of his newly advanced SSS+ swordsmanship.
The result satisfied him.
The power of this slash wasn't much weaker than Mihawk's strike at Marineford aimed at Whitebeard!
Since the island had no civilians, Creed didn't care about the destruction.
"You—you destroyed the factory! You're finished… you have no idea what kind of existence a Yonko is in the New World! You'll die soon, very soon! Not even the Marines can save you! Hahaha!"
The rooster-head howled, trembling between terror and crazed laughter.
Slice!
His head flew into the air.
"Whether I die or not remains to be seen. But you? You're already dead."
Creed's cold voice followed.
"No!"
The severed head screamed its last regretful word before silence.
Sheathing the Rinne Sword, Creed looked toward the factory ruins.
"Ain, you deal with the one with the egg shell."
Ain nodded, her body crackling with lightning.
From the ruins, several figures shot into the air, accompanied by a furious roar that shook the land for miles:
"Which bastard did this?! I'll tear him apart!"
(End of Chapter)
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