"Phantom?"
Vladimir had no intention of admitting it openly. He simply scoffed coldly.
"I do know them well, that much is true — but I am not one of their members."
At least not for now… though perhaps in the future.
"Enough idle talk. Hand over the fruits."
"The fruits…" Yiba gritted his teeth.
"Because you smashed the land apart, my crew fell into the abyss, and most of them took their share down with them!"
Compared to his own life, the fruits were nothing more than loot they had gathered by raiding other pirate crews these past months.
In just one month, the Yiba Pirates had attacked six different crews, seizing nine fruits. Adding the four he already owned, their total had only been thirteen.
The reason they could bid sixty-one fruits at the auction was because the Yiba Pirates led eleven subordinate crews — and joining their alliance required a contribution of one fruit each.
So in truth, Yiba only controlled twenty-four fruits. The remaining thirty-seven had belonged to Panda Jin, the Sea Giant.
But none of this was something he planned to tell Vladimir.
"This is all I have left!"
Yiba quickly untied the pouch at his waist and hurled it over.
At the same moment, he pushed hard against the ground with both feet.
His body bounced like a rubber ball, rebounding repeatedly off the walls of the chasm, and in a few quick bounces, leaped up and back onto solid ground.
Vladimir ignored his attempt to escape. He caught the pouch easily, opened it, and counted the contents — seven Devil Fruits.
"Is that all?" Vladimir frowned, raising his eyes toward Yiba, who was already turning to flee. "Take one more step… and you may find your legs no longer belong to you."
Yiba froze mid-stride, his face turning grim.
He slowly turned back around. "The rest fell down below! I only have these seven on me. The other four were carried by my officers — and they all went down with the beast!"
"That still only adds up to eleven. And yet you dared bid sixty-one fruits at the auction? Do you take me for a fool?"
Vladimir's expression turned sharp and demanding.
"H-How did you know that…?"
Yiba's mouth fell open. Realizing just how terrifying this stranger's power was, he guessed that nothing they did at the auction could have escaped his notice.
"You misunderstand! We bid sixty-one because of the Bakin Alliance. Besides the Yiba Pirates and the Giant Gold Pirates, there are twenty-six other crews under our banner — each contributing one fruit as their entry fee."
Entry fees…
Vladimir nodded, finally understanding how the alliance operated.
In terms of raw strength, it probably could not compare to the alliance that challenged the Four Emperors — but it had far more members and a much wider reach.
"Scan everything below," Vladimir commanded silently in his mind.
Once he confirmed there were no more fruits left on Yiba, he dove straight down into the abyss.
He could sense four more fruits deep below — and he was not leaving without them.
Seeing him vanish downward, Yiba did not waste another second. He turned and ran for his life.
"Too dangerous! I have to get away! Thank goodness I ate the Rubber-Rubber Fruit — as long as I get a head start, no one can catch me!"
He crouched low, leaned forward, and shot off like a cannonball, disappearing into the distance in the blink of an eye.
---
Only a few minutes after Yiba fled, a large crowd began to gather from all directions.
There were pirates, bounty hunters, Marines, even two ruling kings along with their elite guards.
Before long, more than four thousand people had assembled along the edge of the great chasm, eyeing one another warily, each group on high alert.
"What on earth happened here?"
"Who could possibly wield such terrifying power?! It can't be Whitebeard — he's nowhere near this area!"
"I can feel it… if this person hadn't reined in their strength at the last second, the whole Sabaody Archipelago would have shattered into pieces, not just split in half like this…"
"Look! Something's rising from below!"
Someone shouted, and thousands of eyes snapped toward the depths of the abyss.
A brilliant golden light glowed upward, revealing a tall, imposing figure clad from head to toe in shining golden armor, slowly floating into view.
He had golden hair and piercing red eyes, his expression cold and stern. In one hand, he held several pouches — and peeking out from the openings were unmistakably Devil Fruits.
"State your identity!" A man wearing a royal crown spoke up firmly — he was the ruler of a kingdom in the New World.
His guards immediately stepped forward to form a protective circle, though none dared make a move.
The endless gash stretching across the land was proof enough of the danger standing before them.
Vladimir floated up and hovered above the abyss, sweeping his gaze across the crowd.
"Quite the gathering. I did not expect so many of you to arrive this quickly… and that saves me the trouble of searching one by one. I am Gilgamesh — The King of Heroes! Mortals, hand over all your Devil Fruits at once!"
...
"I am Gilgamesh — The King of Heroes!"
Vladimir looked down upon them with overwhelming pride. "Mortals, surrender your fruits!"
Everyone narrowed their eyes, trying to recall where they had heard such a name before — or if they ever had.
"Never heard of him… Gilgamesh? No record of this name exists in our intelligence files."
"I remember the title King of Heroes! It's said in legend that a great hero once saved his kingdom and was crowned ruler by his people… but that story is over a hundred years old, and this man doesn't look a day over twenty!"
"Regardless of who he is, we must not provoke him. Right now, the blueprint is still our main goal. Dammit — and the Queen of the Kamabakka Kingdom carrying it has vanished again!"
Whispers and discussions rippled through the crowd, yet no one truly recognized him.
The middle-aged king stepped forward. "King of Heroes… which nation do you rule? And was this destruction all your doing just now?"
He paused briefly, then introduced himself carefully. "I am Rinsen, ruler of the Kingdom of Armedia — a member nation of the World Government."
"Kingdom of Armedia?" Someone nearby blinked in surprise, then nodded in realization.
"Ah! So you are the infamous King of Destruction!"
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