A Plan to Take Over the Nest

The smarter a person was, the more they disliked "accidents." The more important the matter, the more so.

"Hundred Schemes" Kuro undoubtedly belonged in that category.

The sky gradually darkened, and the sea was pitch-black. Yet without Kuro's order, no one dared leave the deck to light the lamps.

Below them, the severely injured, unconscious unknown Marine and the unlucky stand-in would soon awaken. There was no time left to rearrange things.

The Nyaban Brothers told him what had happened in the cabin. No one had expected the rookie who had recently set sail, the "Triangle Spellbreaker," to be a Devil Fruit user with the ability to control corpses.

What was even more unexpected was that he had happened to be aboard this ship and had been detained by the Marines.

He had even witnessed everything...

And he might not be dead!

Splash...

Buchi, drenched from head to toe, climbed onto the deck with his companion's support and panted, "Cap... Captain, we didn't find a body. He was probably swept away by the seawater."

"If he was cut in half, even an undead creature should have been destroyed, right? And he was a Devil Fruit user. Falling into the sea means certain death."

That answer was far from reassuring. Sam carefully asked in a low voice.

Kuro's icy gaze turned toward him. "What proof do you have?"

Gulp...!

Sam swallowed and dropped to his knees in a dogeza.

"My deepest apologies, Captain!"

Kuro ignored him and sat by the railing, his head lowered.

"No proof of certain death means there's a chance he survived... Zango, this is the Black Cat Pirates' top priority. Understand?"

"Captain Kuro..."

After hesitating for a moment, Zango asked, "How about waiting for another opportunity? This is too risky."

Every additional person who knew the truth meant another threat of exposure to Kuro's plan to fake his death and escape.

He knew what Kuro wanted. As vice-captain, both publicly and personally, he did not want Kuro to take such a risk.

At that, Kuro raised his head. His eyes behind his glasses were bloodshot.

"There won't be another opportunity!"

He gritted his teeth and spoke each word distinctly.

"...Branch 153's main force was wiped out here. For the next few years, every branch in the East Blue will strengthen its defenses! Do you want me to wait several more years under those conditions?!"

As his bounty increased, more and more Marines and Bounty Hunters joined this game of pursuit. Kuro was not afraid of death, but he had long grown tired of this life as a pirate, constantly hiding and running.

Not to mention that after this slaughter, the enraged Marines would certainly intensify their pursuit of the Black Cat Pirates. The situation was even more dire than before!

A few years from now, would there really still be an opportunity?

Zango had no answer. It was the truth.

"He'll definitely expose himself somehow. As a fugitive, the Marines won't let him go either..."

Kuro took a deep breath and stood.

"Let's go. Marine reinforcements will be here soon. If we're putting on an act, we might as well see it through."

He had decided to gamble!

As a pirate, Kuro had a bit of a gambler's mentality too.

Zango nodded respectfully.

"Yes!"

When they reached the bow to board a small boat, Kuro suddenly remembered something. He turned and fixed the Nyaban Brothers with a cold stare.

"You two know what I want, don't you?"

Once this matter was exposed, whether Lowett lived or died, they would have to be buried with him!

The Nyaban Brothers shuddered and nodded repeatedly. "Understood, Captain!"

"It had better be..."

Kuro said nothing more. He turned and tugged at his coat. The skull epaulets glimmered coldly beneath the moonlight, but a dark cloud soon drifted overhead and swallowed him in darkness.

Zango felt a chill run through him as he watched, because he knew perfectly well that the Nyaban Brothers were as good as dead!

With a captain like Kuro, being punished on the spot was proof that you could still survive.

Other than that, there was no luck to speak of!

When the clouds drifted away and the moonlight returned, the sea had settled into stillness.

The slaughter had ended, leaving only corpses strewn across the deck.

Splash, splash...

Suddenly, ripples spread across the water, and a pale face surfaced.

Blood loss and cold made Lowett tremble from head to toe, but he had still clenched his teeth and endured for so long. Using his weak Mental Power, he had controlled the Undead Navy soldier whose body was reduced to half a torso, forcing it to hook itself onto the warship's rudder and remain hidden as it waited.

Calculating the time of death for a body was a Necromancer's basic skill.

He knew that in his current condition, even with undead assistance, his odds of dying while escaping through the water exceeded ninety-nine percent!

Waiting behind instead gave him a chance to survive.

After confirming what world he was in, Lowett knew clearly from his extraordinary memory that "Hundred Schemes" Kuro could not remain for long.

The most dangerous place was the safest.

"What terrifying speed!"

Remembering that flash of black light when Kuro had attacked, Lowett still felt lingering fear.

That speed was absolutely beyond that of an ordinary human!

It was practically comparable to the Transcendent Knight King of the human kingdoms in his previous world!

Even in a world dominated by mages, where martial arts had declined, a kingdom's Knight King was still not to be underestimated. Just as mages elevated and evolved their souls, they had elevated their bodies in every aspect. To Necromancers, they were...

One of their favorite experimental materials.

And through his memories, Lowett knew that this world was full of beings far more terrifying than Kuro!

"So even if undead magic excels at battle, it isn't absolutely invincible in this world. I'll have to be more careful in the future..."

Having set the tone for his future actions, Lowett laughed at himself. "But then again, mages in that world were never combat professions to begin with. Fighting was only a convenient means."

More precisely, mages were all scholars with their own research goals.

For example, the Ultimate Mystery for the Necromancers he represented was defining death and explaining life!

In that world, because they could control the undead, manipulate souls, and even communicate with the underworld to awaken ancient heroic spirits that had slept for tens of thousands of years, coupled with the fact that the unkillable Star Spirit truly existed in the mortal world, they instead could not define the boundary between life and death.

Every Necromancer had asked himself: Was the death we understood now truly death?

No one knew the answer.

Over tens of thousands of years, the meaning of "death" had been defined and overturned countless times, even triggering wars within the Mage World. It was not until Holy Ten Necromancer Great Mage Anthony Musk wrote the Necronomicon that this academic debate ended, establishing it as the ultimate goal of Necromancers.

This was the Ultimate Mystery of Necromancers. Lowett was no exception; he also wanted to know the truth.

As an aside, the Necromancers' reputation for being skilled in battle had also been earned during those millennia-long wars.

Within academic circles, we were the best fighters!

It was probably something like the six arts expected of a gentleman...

"But I can think about that later. The priority now is healing my wounds... then finding somewhere to rest and recover!"

Carried onto the deck by the undead, Lowett tore the clothes from a nearby corpse and draped them over his shoulders. His eyes gleamed as he looked toward the distance.

There, the unlucky man serving as Kuro's stand-in and the lucky man playing the leading role were still unconscious. "Axe-Hand" Monka, who would later chop Garp with an axe, had his jaw crushed beneath a foot. He was a bloody mess, utterly miserable.

"If I remember correctly, he should have been deeply hypnotized by Zan... Go? I think that was his name... It even caused a drastic change in personality."

Thud!

Lowett withdrew the Mental Power spread across the Undead Navy soldiers and let the tools stiffen completely in death. Holding a Soul Light Orb before his nose, he took a deep breath.

You were what you ate. In a mage world where soul strength was the standard, this was probably the Necromancers' most unreasonable ability.

Soul Devouring!

"Cough, cough... I inhaled too much!"

Clutching his swollen, throbbing forehead, Lowett gripped the remaining Soul Light Orb and gasped for breath.

"Changing one's personality? Zango doesn't have that ability. It was the result of the soul correcting itself. If the severed memory fragments cannot recover after outside interference, and not enough blank space remains, then false memories can only be used to fill the gaps. And memories determine personality..."

Then his eyes flashed as he looked at Monka.

"But... even if a wound heals, it still leaves a scar."

"Patching up a soul is no easy task... Ordinarily speaking, that is."

"Seaman Second Class Monka? Seaman Second Class Monka?!"

The world was dark. Faintly, a familiar call sounded by his ear.

"Ugh..."

Monka slowly woke. The moment he opened his mouth, the piercing pain from his jaw jolted him fully awake.

"Great, he's alive!"

Joyful cheers erupted beside him. Monka remembered that voice; it belonged to a colleague stationed at the branch.

Opening his eyes, he looked at the soldiers gathered around him and abruptly sat up.

"Ku... Kuro?"

Enduring the intense pain, Monka grabbed a colleague's hand and asked excitedly.

That colleague was equally emotional, tears streaming down his face. He clasped Monka's hand in return and nodded. "Don't worry. We caught him!"

What a good man!

How had I ever thought he was too rigid?

"Even after passing out, you never let go of him, Monka... Well done!"

Was... was that me?

Monka's eyes froze. His thoughts stopped for an instant, but under the influence of two unknown forces, an image appeared in his mind.

That was right!

The crimson setting sun shone over the deck, and the warship was littered with corpses. The colonel was dead. His comrades were dead. Seeing so many fellow soldiers die, he had fought alone until his eyes turned red, charged forward, and luckily stabbed Kuro.

So I succeeded?!

Suddenly, pain shot through Monka's head, and he clutched his forehead.

"Lo... Lowett! How is he?"

The people around him fell silent for a moment. That familiar colleague asked, "Who is Lowett?"

There did not seem to be anyone by that name among the comrades who had gone out this time.

"He's that pirate!"

Monka raised his head, tears in his fierce eyes. "If he hadn't sacrificed an arm to block that fatal blow for me, Kuro would have escaped long ago! He... cough, cough, cough!"

"Lie down and get some rest first!"

Persuaded by those around him, Monka lay back on the deck and let the doctor examine him. Yet his eyes kept sweeping across the deck, trying to find someone.

Not far away, several soldiers exchanged glances and saw the helplessness in each other's eyes.

"So... that pirate also rendered merit? I've never seen a situation like this!"

"Leave it to the higher-ups to decide! As the battle hero who captured Kuro, Monka's words still carry some weight."

"That's all we can do... But then again, why did Lowett go to sea?"

"I heard he discovered that the town's new sheriff was colluding with pirates, so he killed his way out. It should have been the serious crime of attacking an official, but the subsequent investigation found that the sheriff really did have problems, so they only symbolically set his bounty at one million."

Attacking a World Government official normally started at a bounty of at least five million!

Setting it at only one million Beli was probably already generous, considering they could not kill everyone in the town to silence them.

The World Government's authority could not be challenged, so even if there was a reason, they could not possibly declare you innocent.

The Marine speaking immediately shared the same indignation and said angrily, "That's far too unfair!"

At that, the other two exchanged glances, shrugged, and did not dare continue the conversation.