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"Shuma, Victor—fall back! This guy's too dangerous right now."
Sensing the surge of Douglas's aura, Aaron's expression shifted. He immediately called out to Shuma and Victor, who were about to rush forward to help.
Victor, ever the loyal one, didn't want to look like a coward. He was just about to shout something bold when Shuma grabbed his arm and dragged him back.
When it came to Aaron, Shuma never questioned his orders. He trusted Aaron completely, knowing that if Aaron said something, there had to be a reason.
Douglas was already a towering hulk of a man, but after downing who knows how many pills just moments ago, his body swelled grotesquely. His muscles bulged to their limit, like a mountain of flesh radiating a violent, suffocating pressure. His eyes glowed blood-red.
At the same time, just like the three pirates before, his once-black hair began to turn streaked with white, and his face aged unnaturally.
"This phenomenon…"
Under the dim light, Aaron finally got a good look at Douglas's condition, and a thought flashed through his mind.
But there was no time to reflect—the enemy's attack was already coming.
"I'll kill you!"
Douglas roared, his voice echoing like thunder. In an instant, his massive frame blurred, appearing right before Aaron, and he swung a devastating punch straight for his head.
Aaron reacted instantly. Tilting his head, he narrowly dodged the blow and slashed at Douglas's side with his ordinary katana.
Yet the sensation through the blade shocked him. Douglas's muscles were as hard as stone. The strike only sank half an inch before being clamped tight by sheer muscle power. Aaron couldn't free his sword.
Without hesitation, Aaron released the hilt and twisted his body with a serpent-like motion—a maneuver from the Kuja Body Refinement Technique—barely avoiding Douglas's follow-up strike.
"Kuja Body Refinement—Serpent Fist!"
His right hand twisted unnaturally like a snake, darting up to strike Douglas's jaw from an impossible angle.
With the full force behind the blow, Douglas was sent flying.
But the giant immediately staggered back to his feet. His body seemed immune to pain now, and he charged again with frightening speed.
At the same time, the three pirates Aaron had cut down earlier also rushed forward. Their abdominal wounds had stopped bleeding, but their hair had gone even whiter, their faces older—like men who had aged decades in minutes.
And yet, their muscles only grew more terrifying, swelling with raw power.
"Sacrificing life itself for a temporary boost in strength, huh? Too bad… though your bodies are stronger, you can't truly master that power, nor awaken anything new."
A crimson glint flashed in Aaron's eyes as he activated Observation Haki. To him, the enemies' movements slowed as though time itself had bent. He sighed softly.
"Kuja Body Refinement—Power Reinforcement."
Aaron seized Douglas's massive spiked club from the ground. Channeling the Kuja technique, he forced a surge of strength into his right arm, muscles swelling to nearly double, flushed red from the strain. With a mighty swing, he spun the club in a deadly arc.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The impact of Aaron's strike, carrying at least 35 points of raw strength, sent Douglas and the three pirates flying like ragdolls.
The three lesser pirates were smashed into pulp, their bodies mangled beyond recognition. Their life force drained in seconds, and their once-bulging muscles shriveled away, leaving behind the withered husks of white-haired old men.
Douglas fared slightly better—his arms crossed in a desperate block—but the bones shattered, snapping like dry twigs. His hands dangled, broken and exposed, bits of flesh hanging from white bone.
"H-how… how can this be? I… I became stronger… stronger than ever…"
Douglas struggled to his feet, the agony forcing some clarity back into his mind. His face twisted with unwillingness as he glared at the far-too-young Aaron.
But Aaron's answer came not in words—only a bullet.
Bang!
The shot pierced Douglas squarely between the eyes. The pirate worth 20 million berries collapsed lifeless to the ground.
Aaron calmly pulled his blade free from Douglas's gut and severed his head. Looking down at the severed head, he muttered:
"That strength was nothing but an illusion."
From their symptoms, Aaron already knew what pills Douglas and his men had swallowed. They were almost certainly a crude version of the Energy Steroids—the same drugs used years later by Hody Jones and the New Fishman Pirates.
But the version Douglas had taken was far more flawed, its side effects catastrophic, draining away their life force in an instant. Compared to the perfected version that would appear over a decade later, this one was crude, unstable.
Even so, Aaron admitted their power boost was frightening. Without his mastery of Observation Haki, killing them would have been nearly impossible. For those without Haki, crossing paths with such enemies would almost certainly mean death.
After Douglas fell, Shuma and Victor quickly rushed to Aaron's side, faces alight with excitement. Victor, in particular, looked at Aaron with absolute awe.
They had seen it all—the brutal slaughter of Douglas and his men. Both knew that against those monsters, they wouldn't have stood a chance. Escaping alive would've been a miracle. Yet Aaron had utterly crushed them.
It confirmed to both of them—they had chosen the right man to follow.
"Big bro! Let me take it! I'll carry it!"
Victor eagerly stepped forward with a prepared sack, practically trembling with excitement.
Aaron nodded, handing Douglas's head over to him. Then he glanced toward the shadows, raising his revolver.
At once, several bounty hunters who had been watching from the dark slipped away, retreating beyond the range of Aaron's Observation Haki.
"Search their bodies. Then we're leaving."
Aaron's command was met with quick compliance. Shuma and Victor rifled through the corpses, tossing everything into a bag without inspection, before regrouping with Aaron to make their exit.
In the distance, the sound of gunfire still rattled through the night.
Aaron didn't interfere. Through Haki, he could clearly sense it was Horton and his men clashing with the Dar Gang—but he had no intention of getting involved. Instead, he led Shuma and Victor in the opposite direction.
All along the way, Aaron kept his Haki active, ensuring they weren't being followed while steering clear of any patrols.
Within minutes, they arrived safely at a large, well-kept house in the civilian district.
The three had firmly established themselves in Vilia Port. With the money they had earned, they purchased the property through an intermediary and set it up as their temporary base of operations.
Now, not only did Aaron, Shuma, and Williams live there, but also more than a dozen intelligence-gathering children trained personally by Shuma.
Inside, Williams and Dorak were already waiting. When they heard the coded knock at the door, they rushed out to welcome them.
"How did it go? Williams, did he talk?"
As Aaron entered the fire-lit house, he immediately questioned Williams.
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