Chapter 4

Amid the pirates' disbelieving stares, Monroe's head separated from his body. A savage grin still hung on his face, as if he had not even realized that he had been defeated and killed.

Although the recovery abilities of Zoan Devil Fruits were absurdly powerful, an injury on the level of losing one's head was impossible to recover from—not just for Monroe, but even for those awakened Warden Beasts.

"No, impossible! This is all an illusion! Nothing can deceive me!"

"The captain's body can withstand bullets and survive cannon fire! How could it possibly be cut apart by a sword?"

The pirates had already gone mad and failed to notice the approaching danger. It was the Vice Captain, who had spoken earlier, who spotted Roy's path. Terrified out of his wits, he immediately shouted.

"Quick! Focus fire and kill that monster! If he gets aboard, none of us will survive!"

The others shuddered back to their senses and hastily raised their firearms, opening fire. In an instant, the fan-shaped area before the three ships became a sea of gunfire.

But it was all pointless. Having comprehended the realm of Iron Cutting, Roy could already be considered among the very strongest in the North Blue. After all, once Zoro had comprehended Iron Cutting, he had instantly killed Mr. 1, who had a bounty of 55 million Beli. Even though the North Blue was far stronger than the East Blue, that was still an incredibly terrifying bounty. Before entering the Grand Line, few could reach that level.

Not a single bullet came close to Roy. In the blink of an eye, he broke through the pirates' encirclement of firepower and arrived aboard the main ship.

When Roy appeared on deck, everyone froze for a moment. They clearly had not expected him to charge through such ferocious firepower, much less do so without seeming to expend any effort at all.

"What are you all standing around for? Charge him! There are over a thousand of us—we can bury him under sheer numbers! And he must be nearly exhausted by now! Don't be fooled by his appearance!" the Vice Captain screamed with a twisted expression. He knew that even if everyone else could escape, he could not, so he simply incited the other pirates to fight Roy to the death.

The other pirates did not have such complicated thoughts. Earlier, Violent Wolf's death had left them utterly lost, but now that someone had stepped forward to lead them, they charged at Roy without a second thought.

Hearing that, Roy curled his lips. True, he was no longer at his peak, but against a pack of trash like this, even one-tenth of his strength was more than enough.

"Have you ever seen hell?" Roy murmured.

The approaching pirates seemed to blank out, not understanding what Roy meant. Then Roy suddenly appeared amidst them. Every time he appeared, dozens of lives were taken, and their screams sounded like the call of the god of death.

In just a few breaths, more than half the people on the main ship were gone. Even for a regular army, a casualty rate of thirty percent was enough to make continued fighting impossible, while sixty percent would bring any army to the brink of collapse. These were merely pirates; their willpower naturally could not compare to that of soldiers.

The remaining pirates had lost all courage and began to flee. Shouting about a demon, they leaped into the sea one after another, as though the boundless ocean could offer them greater safety.

The people on the other two ships did not dare offer any aid and fled for their lives. Roy had no interest in chasing such trash. More importantly, although a swordsman's close-range attacks were extraordinarily powerful, their long-range capabilities were somewhat lacking. Killing people was one thing, but destroying ships from afar was difficult unless one had reached the level of a Sword Master.

Of course, the Sword Masters mentioned here were not the so-called Sword Masters of a small place like the North Blue. In the eyes of many North Blue natives, Roy himself already counted as a legendary Great Sword Master. Only those capable of unleashing Flying Slashes, whose Sword Qi was condensed to an extreme degree and could retain the power to cut through everything even a hundred yards from their bodies, could be considered true Sword Masters. Even on the Grand Line, figures of that level were powerful forces in their own right.

Looking at the corpses covering the ship, Roy felt rather bored. He went into the sea and retrieved Monroe's body. After all, Monroe's bounty was considerable—enough for Roy to live lavishly for quite some time.

As he looked at Monroe's corpse, Roy's expression suddenly shifted. Slightly excited, he headed toward the captain's quarters.

Perhaps Monroe had been overly confident in his own strength and prestige, because he had not hidden his treasures anywhere secret. Roy found Monroe's valuables in a compartment without much effort.

There were countless gold coins, antiques, and famous weapons, but none of them attracted Roy as much as the purple-black, cantaloupe-shaped fruit beside them. Its spiral patterns seemed to possess a strange allure that drew one's mind completely into them.

Roy clenched his fists. What a stroke of luck—he had searched everywhere without finding one, only for it to fall into his hands without effort. Though he did not know what ability this fruit possessed, there was no doubt that it was a Paramecia Devil Fruit.

Paramecia Fruits were not nearly invincible in the early stages like Logia Fruits, nor did they directly multiply one's strength several times over like Zoan Fruits. But they were undoubtedly the most suitable type for Roy.

That was because Paramecia abilities depended most heavily on the user's development of the fruit. Take Doflamingo and Tyrant Kuma, for example. In the hands of ordinary people, their String-String Fruit and Paw-Paw Fruit would never have been considered particularly powerful. Yet in their hands, they created two Shichibukai who struck fear into countless pirates.

The most terrifying example was Big Mom. In the hands of its previous owner, the Soul-Soul Fruit had merely made her a human trafficker, but in Big Mom's hands, it had created a Four Emperor-level powerhouse capable of destroying the heavens and earth.

And since Roy had lived two lives, what he lacked least was imagination. Thus, Paramecia Fruits held even greater appeal for him than Logia Fruits.

Staring at the Devil Fruit, Roy truly did not know where to start. After all, the taste of Devil Fruits had an infamously terrible reputation, both in his previous life and in this world.

Closing his eyes, Roy stuffed the entire fruit into his mouth. Though it was said that eating just one bite of a Devil Fruit was enough to gain its ability, Roy decided to swallow it whole just in case. If he ended up with an inherently incomplete ability because of that, he would have nowhere to cry.

An extremely disgusting, choking flavor rose within him. Roy's features twisted into an utterly exaggerated expression, and only by viciously clutching his throat with both hands did he barely stop himself from vomiting.

Even after the nauseating sensation faded, Roy could not help dry-heaving several times. He truly felt as though he had survived a disaster.

As a treasure of the seas, once a Devil Fruit was eaten, its user would naturally know what ability they had obtained. Roy was no exception.

"The Dream-Dream Fruit... the power of Dream Control? What an excellent ability. Ahahaha."