Race Against Time!

"Fools like you deserve to die!"

Greed was not the original sin. Ignorance was.

Lowett shot Mouse's corpse a disgusted glance, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes in thought.

What should he do?

Call it off?

The situation had changed. Momonga had already noticed something was wrong here, so Arlong was surely under surveillance. Going there now might mean walking straight into a trap.

When the time came, a Headquarters vice admiral could lead an army to surround them. Even if he joined forces with Arlong, he still...

No, wait.

There was still a chance!

Lowett's eyes suddenly lit up.

A large army could not possibly surround them!

Mouse's soul memories clearly showed that Momonga was still drifting at sea.

He had nearly fallen into a mental trap.

Distance—this was an unavoidable problem on the sea!

The Pirate World was not the Mage World. They had no teleportation technology. Knowing the intelligence did not mean they could arrive immediately.

"Knowing about Klar Village only proves that Momonga's spies have been nearby. He himself was being led around and is far from here."

Without evidence, Momonga had no reason to bypass Branch 16 and force an investigation. The Outsiders would immediately realize something was wrong with Branch 16, stirring up discussion.

The Navy could not tolerate exposing its dark side to the public.

"And Mouse even hid his true location from Momonga. His actual arrival time here was outside Momonga's knowledge. As long as they have not contacted each other, he will not notice anything abnormal for now."

"Even if he does notice, a warship can accelerate..."

Lowett glanced at the warship stained red with blood and curled his lips.

It was not like I did not have one!

By that calculation, he should actually thank Mouse.

Not only had Mouse provided transportation, but he had also bought him precious time to destroy Arlong's Territory before Momonga arrived.

"Black Knight, bring every Zombie Puppet aboard. Depart immediately!"

Having figured out the key point, Lowett abruptly turned and gave the order.

"Roar!"

It would only take a few hours to reach Arlong's Territory from here.

As long as he moved quickly enough, Momonga could do nothing to him.

That crafty Headquarters vice admiral had created a wonderful intelligence gap for him. If Lowett had followed the original plan and attacked at an unhurried pace, Momonga would have happily watched the tigers fight from the mountain, then reaped the benefits.

The Navy had a long record of doing that.

But Momonga would never have imagined that Lowett could use Soul Search to obtain intelligence and find the key to breaking the deadlock.

"For some reason, I feel like I am getting more familiar with my identity."

Standing on the warship's deck, Lowett wore an amused expression.

Was fighting wits with the Navy and evading pursuit not simply a pirate's daily life?

Three hours later, aboard the Navy warship.

"What did you say?!"

Behind his desk, Momonga's eyes widened as he shot to his feet in fury.

"Something happened to Mouse?"

The lieutenant colonel reporting to him broke out in a cold sweat and lowered his head, not daring to look at him. "Y-Yes... By all logic, the colonel should have arrived long ago, but he has not sent back any message even now."

Even if he had encountered a battle, three hours was far too long.

"Bastard!!"

Momonga was enraged, his Haki spreading outward.

He was not angry at Mouse. He was angry at these subordinates.

He had always thought Mouse was hiding far away and that it would take at least a day to reach him. Who would have thought it had taken only a few hours, from afternoon until dusk?

Such crucial intelligence had been delayed until now. Momonga knew the reason well—they did not want him to learn what Mouse had done, fearing they would be implicated.

But now that Mouse had gone missing, the lieutenant colonel and the others immediately panicked...

"It really is a big fish!"

Momonga's face darkened.

If the enemy could prevent over a hundred soldiers from even sending a distress signal, their purpose in hiding at Klar Village was obvious.

If not for him, they and the fish-men would surely have fought!

"Vice Admiral, should we head over now?"

The adjutant asked.

At a pirate ship's usual speed, three hours was not that long. They could still catch up.

No matter how serious Mouse's problems were, he still represented the Navy. Doing something like this was a slap in the Navy's face!

However, after a brief moment of thought, Momonga decisively shook his head.

"No, there is no need! Do not forget our true objective."

They only had one warship and could not split up. Compared to pursuing that unknown group of criminals, rescuing the thousands of civilians in Arlong's Territory was the highest priority.

It was a difficult choice.

What mattered more—the Navy's authority, or the lives of the people?

The adjutant gave a wry smile, then saluted respectfully.

"Understood!"

Then Momonga glanced at the terrified Branch 16 lieutenant colonel in front of him and snorted coldly.

"How far is it from here to Arlong's Territory?"

Thud!

The lieutenant colonel dropped to his knees, trembling violently.

A dark and windy night was perfect for murder.

The world was pitch-black. Even the stars overhead had slipped behind the clouds at some point, unable to understand, watching in fear as people slaughtered each other on the sea.

Standing before Arlong, Kuroobi and the others barely dared to breathe.

Terrifying killing intent coldly licked at their necks, making sweat stream down their backs.

After an unknown amount of time, Arlong moved his stiff neck and sneered.

"It seems I have behaved myself for too long..."

"Boss!"

Choo could not help raising his head. "Now..."

"This is not the time to act on impulse... I know."

Arlong cut him off. "Mouse's entire force has been wiped out. Momonga will surely be too impatient to wait and launch a full-scale attack. If we do not leave tonight, we will never get away again."

Arlong knew just as well how far Momonga was from Arlong's Territory.

"But are you willing to accept that?"

With beast-like eyes, Arlong bared a mouthful of sharp teeth. "If we run into him at sea later, are we supposed to give way?!"

"Why should we?!"

"The sea belongs to us fish-men! We are naturally stronger and superior to humans—we are the true higher race!"

"Why should humans be allowed to stand over us? Have you forgotten the slave market at Sabaody?"

Fish-Man Island was the fish-men's homeland. Most of those who had followed Arlong to the East Blue had witnessed the bloody, dark, humiliating reality of the Sabaody Archipelago.

There was no love without reason, and no hate without reason.

Arlong's cruelty toward humans was the result of what humanity had created with its own hands.

After saying that, Arlong turned his head.

"You said that from over ten meters away, he turned every soldier aboard Mouse's warship into flesh-and-blood black crows?"

Kuroobi took a deep breath and stepped forward.

"Yes. I suspect it is some kind of Devil Fruit ability capable of being released from a distance... Besides that, the black-robed man beside him was so fast that he could even run across the sea. He cannot be underestimated either."

Since they were no longer preparing to leave, there was only one option left: fight!

Devil Fruit users were unquestionably powerful, and the speed displayed by that black-robed man was even more unbelievable. They could not be careless.

"Black Count Lowett... Is that it? I have underestimated him all this time."

Arlong tapped his fingers against the table, then raised his head after a moment.

"Go back and sleep. Rest up."

"If he dares provoke fish-men, then he had better be prepared to die!"

"Yes!!"

Fueled by intense hatred and racial pride, the fish-men answered loudly.

The long night would eventually end.

When the first ray of dawn illuminated the earth, all things awakened. Brilliant light dyed the horizon gold, like gold reflected across the sky, breathtakingly beautiful.

Splash!

The blue warship sailed straight toward Cocoyasi Village's modest harbor, breaking the morning silence.

Clang!!

The gangplank was violently thrown onto the stone steps by the shore as Lowett tucked his cane beneath his arm and slowly walked down.

"Barren land."

Cocoyasi Village was not wealthy. It had the feel of a Western film set in America, where the yellow dirt in the streets turned to sludge whenever it rained, displaying its poverty.

"You stay here and wait. Understood?"

"Yes, my lord!"

Wallace bowed respectfully and returned to the ship.

The Black Knight brushed past him, and the dense Death Aura made him shudder.

Hundred Schemes Kuro—what a powerful tyrant he had once been!

Even repeated Navy encirclements had failed to stop him; he had fought his way out every time. He was one of the East Blue's foremost Great Pirates.

Yet he had been killed by that lord, and even his corpse was now controlled by him.

Wallace stood with his hands at his sides on the left side of the road, trembling.

Splash!

As the Black Knight descended the gangplank, more zombies emerged from the seawater and climbed ashore one after another.

It was also through the efforts of these disposable workers that the severely overloaded warship had made an all-night dash and arrived here at dawn.

"Let's go!"

Lowett peeled an orange segment and chewed it, his gaze sweeping over the houses lining both sides of the street.

The entire village was on edge. Even a Navy warship did not dare show itself.

Being weak was not a sin. It was merely a tragedy.

Living in troubled times without the strength to protect oneself made suffering inevitable.

Lowett had not come here to play savior, so he ignored the villagers peeking at him from behind their doors.

He led the Black Knight and the Undead Army toward Arlong's Territory.

This battle was a race against time!

"The direction they are heading... is Arlong's Territory!"

Inside the dark room, Nojiko peered through a crack in the door. Her eyes widened as she cried out and rushed toward the entrance.

"Stop!"

Kensuke quickly grabbed her and lowered his voice. "Are you trying to get yourself killed? Did you not see that they are all monsters?"

"But..."

Nojiko clenched her fists. "Nami is there!"

Last night, Arlong's group had spent the night moving weapons and preparing for battle. Something like that could not be hidden from Cocoyasi Village, which was so close by.

Now that the enemy had arrived, as a member of the Arlong Pirates, Nami was also an "enemy."

"I..."

Kensuke's voice caught. He glanced back at the villagers cowering in the room, then said, "I'll go with you!"

"Kensuke!"

"Do not try to persuade me. As the village chief, how can I abandon Nami?"

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