Invincibility Written All Over His Face

Ling Donglai reached land before any other fish-men realized what had happened and came looking for trouble.

A pirate crew was a loose organization with little in the way of strict discipline. Most of the time, fish-man pirate crews relied on their noses to tell whether one of their kind had been hurt.

Those creatures who lived underwater could hardly use communication tools like Den Den Mushi. Thus, Ling Donglai and the merchant caravan made landfall safely.

"Thank you so much for this..." The caravan leader smiled even more horribly than if he were crying, yet still handed Ling Donglai a bag of Beli in thanks.

Honestly, he would rather those fish-men had not died, even if it meant taking a loss and abandoning his ship.

Unfortunately, as a weak man, he had no power to choose his fate. He could only passively accept the cruelty known as reality.

"Here's some advice: head back inland while those fish-men haven't caught on yet. Also, don't throw the fish-men's bodies into the sea just yet..."

Splash~

Before he had even finished speaking, a sailor happened to toss a dead fish-man's body into the sea.

These sailors were used to handling corpses. They casually threw even fish-men's bodies into the ocean for a sea burial.

"Forget it. Good luck to you. Run for your lives." Ling Donglai patted the leader on the shoulder.

"Is it too late if I fish the body back up now?" The leader turned to look at the fish-man corpse floating in the sea, his face pale.

"Who knows? These underwater creatures might have incredibly sharp senses. Of course, I have one more suggestion. If you can survive this initial period, those fish-men probably won't come looking for trouble anymore." Ling Donglai flashed a row of gleaming white teeth.

"Why?" the leader asked instinctively.

But Ling Donglai had already walked away with the Beli.

"Could it be that man will..." Realization finally dawned on him.

"I'm so hungry. This Beli is probably only enough to feed me for three days." Ling Donglai rubbed his stomach and weighed the money bag in his hand.

In the hands of an ordinary family, this amount of Beli could last a month if they were frugal. But for a Devil Fruit user like him, it was far from enough—especially since Ling Donglai had to generate electricity through love. That was an extremely energy-consuming form of training.

Everything was relative. Ability users made money quickly, and naturally spent it quickly too.

He found a random restaurant, then carried his Beli inside and began stuffing himself. Back in the old days, eating like this would have made him fat for sure. But here, a little exercise after a meal and he slimmed right back down.

While Ling Donglai was feasting, news of the two fish-men's deaths reached Arlong's ears.

"Boss, this is bad! While we were patrolling the seabed today, we suddenly caught the scent of our brothers' blood. We followed the smell and found two fish-man corpses that had been dead for quite some time."

As he spoke, the Sea Patrol Yaksha placed the fish-men's bodies before Arlong.

"Damn it, those were my two brothers!!"

Arlong was a dyed-in-the-wool racist. If he heard that two human underlings had died, he would probably treat it as entertainment, perhaps even clap and celebrate. But when his own fish-man brothers had died, his fury naturally erupted like thunder.

"They were both killed in a single blow. Arlong, this was an expert!" An octopus fish-man stepped forward to inspect the bodies, then spoke to Arlong gravely.

"What expert could there be in the East Blue... Could it be some bounty hunters who don't know their place?" Arlong's face darkened.

He had connections on both sides of the law. Even bounty hunters would not dare come directly to cause him trouble, since they still had to collect their rewards at Marine branches.

He had already taken care of the nearby branches. Any bounty hunter with a little strength would not come looking for trouble with him.

That left only some hotheaded fools.

"Which area were those two responsible for? Surround the entire place! I'll show them the price of offending Arlong!"

A flash of killing intent crossed Arlong's eyes.

Having already come to see himself as a local emperor, Arlong had no intention of showing mercy. He would teach this person who had offended him a lesson.

It had been a long time since any human in the East Blue dared offend him.

"Oh, right. Ask the Marines too, see what they have to say." Arlong suddenly thought of something and issued another order.

He was not a completely brainless fish-man. He had at least a little brains, enough to know that he had to bribe the local Marine branch before he could calmly establish his Arlong Empire in the sea hailed as the safest.

By the time Arlong's pirates fully mobilized, two days had already passed. Ling Donglai was still constantly stimulating his cells to discharge electricity when he heard someone shouting that pirates had arrived.

The villagers fled in panic or hid in their homes, trembling. The once-lively village fell silent.

"This power of mine..." Ling Donglai clenched his fists. A hard battle lay ahead.

This power...

Electric light flickered across Ling Donglai's body. "It should be enough for me to go fifty-fifty with the newbie village boss, right?"

Perhaps because every increase in his strength began with training at the cellular level, his growth speed was astonishing—so astonishing that even he found it unbelievable. The clearest proof was the increasingly solid contours of his body.

Who would know that before he began using Current Drive, he had merely been a frail young man?

Now, he stood a full 1.9 meters tall, with the rugged lines of an Araki character.

"Old man, you're the village chief here, right? Tell me, where are all the unfamiliar people who showed up in this village?"

In a village with poor transportation, even one or two strangers were easy to spot, since the flow of people was relatively stable.

That was also why Arlong only dared run wild in villages.

He did not dare touch territory at the town level.

That meant Marine eyes were more concentrated, and the flow of people was more complicated. There might even be a few hidden bosses who would pin a little fish-man like him to the ground and beat him senseless.

But villages? They could not pay much tax to the Marines, and the countryside had few Marine eyes. They were so much easier to rule.

That was also why he could easily bribe the nearby Marine branches.

There was no way the Marine branches managing towns would care about Arlong's measly Beli bribes. They would simply arrest him and count it as an achievement.

"No need to look. I'm right here." Ling Donglai jumped down from the building, landing firmly before Arlong.

"You're the one who killed my two subordinates?" Arlong looked at the man who had descended from above and instinctively took a step back.

This was too strange. How could a man like this appear in the East Blue? Just meeting his gaze brought Arlong immense pressure.

It was as if they were not even in the same dimension, as though the word invincible was written right across his face!!

"I did kill two fish a couple days ago. Do you have something to say?"

Ling Donglai crossed his arms and looked at the purple-skinned fish-man before him.

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