The pirate grunts trembled inwardly, but it was already too late to react.
The pirates in the front row had yet to pull back their swung blades when the grunts in the rear surged forward aggressively, packing this violent crime scene as tightly as a train station waiting hall during the holiday rush.
Such a dense formation was exactly what every hero with an AOE skill dreamed of seeing.
With enemies this cooperative, getting twenty-nine kills in one go was no problem at all.
"Judgment!"
Garen gripped his greatsword tightly and began spinning through the crowd like a meat grinder.
In the game, Judgment looked extremely ridiculous. Combined with Garen's character model, he resembled a spinning iron top.
But when this skill was brought into reality, the cruelty behind the word "Judgment" truly revealed itself.
The rapidly spinning B. F. Sword lived up to its name. Once unleashed at full force, it instantly stirred up an inescapable storm of death among the crowd.
As long as frail human bodies so much as brushed against those whirling blades, they burst into grotesque crimson mists of blood in the blink of an eye, their intact bodies quickly shredded into pieces.
This style had nothing to do with righteousness or justice. It looked more like a vampire had wandered onto the wrong set.
But Demacia's justice had never shown mercy to evil enemies.
Those young Peacekeepers on Samwell Island had nearly been left with indelible psychological trauma just from helping collect the corpses of the Steel Cutlass Pirates.
Judgment lasted three seconds. That might not have sounded like much, but it was more than enough to deal with those densely packed pirate lackeys rushing in to surround him.
By the time Garen stopped spinning and slowly sheathed his sword, not a single enemy remained standing before him.
The remaining pirate grunts immediately turned pale. Without caring how Captain Buggy might punish them, they fled backward like madmen.
Captain Buggy, Cabaji, and Mohji also instantly lost their relaxed confidence. Their expressions became as ugly as if they had eaten two pounds of shit.
"M-Mohji?"
Cold sweat poured down Buggy's face, and his prominent red nose began trembling uncontrollably.
"Why don't you go test his strength again?"
"Huh?"
The beast tamer Mohji froze briefly, then forced an ugly smile at Buggy.
"M-My pet lion is losing its teeth these past few days..."
"Roar, roar, roar~"
The intelligent lion Richie cooperatively covered his bloody maw, then rolled around on the deck with a pained expression.
As he rolled, the enormous lion somehow rolled more than ten meters away from the battlefield, and he continued rolling farther and farther away.
Buggy turned to his other capable subordinate, the acrobatic swordsman Cabaji.
"Th-This..."
Cabaji's facial muscles twitched violently, and he could barely keep hold of his katana.
"It's better if Lord Buggy handles him personally."
"You're a Devil Fruit user who isn't afraid of blades!"
"Mm..."
Buggy looked at the heavily armored swordsman in the distance, drenched in streaming blood and terrifying like a demon god, and his heart began to pound.
He was a Chop-Chop Fruit user. He could split his body into floating pieces at will. Logically speaking, he had no reason to fear a swordsman like Garen, who merely hacked at people with a sword.
But Garen's highly efficient, meat-grinder-like method of harvesting lives still made Buggy, who had never been a cold-blooded tough guy, instinctively feel terrified.
"Lord Buggy?"
Cabaji quietly retreated while tremblingly calling out to his captain.
"Wait a little longer..."
Buggy wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and forced himself to speak.
"I'll show him how formidable I am any moment now..."
Buggy did not dare attack for the moment, which happened to give Garen time to study the system's new changes—
After Garen had spun through the crowd of grunts with his greatsword, his experience bar had rapidly risen from those gains, barely reaching the threshold for level 4.
Garen's level had jumped from level 3 to level 4.
According to the game's progression, level 4 was when a character received an extra Skill Point and could upgrade one basic skill.
But Garen's three basic skills had possessed their max-level effects from the very beginning, so there was no need to upgrade them further.
Thus, Garen had always wondered what use the Skill Point he received at level 4 would have.
The system gave Garen the answer:
"You have reached level 4." "Random reward drawing in progress." "Additional new skill obtained: Mirror Image."
The next second, an extra slot appeared out of nowhere in Garen's Skill Bar on the system interface.
After a brief daze, Garen became excited.
After leveling up... he could actually receive additional random rewards?
That meant the benefits of leveling up went far beyond simply strengthening his body and skills. It could be said to bring endless possibilities for the future growth of Garen's strength.
And this additional skill, Mirror Image, was the signature ability of the hero Sun Wukong in the game.
"You enter stealth for 1.5 seconds, leaving behind an uncontrollable decoy. After 1.5 seconds, the decoy disappears."
The skill's effect differed slightly from the game, but it was still powerful and practical.
After fully figuring out the system's new changes, Garen eagerly tried out his new skill.
"Mirror Image!"
In an instant, Garen felt his entire body become illusory and intangible, like an invisible man.
Garen quietly took two steps forward and discovered that a clone identical to himself was still standing where he had originally stood, attracting the enemy's attention in place of his quietly departed self.
Captain Buggy, whose face was full of conflict, was currently staring intently at that fake Garen clone.
Garen was briefly surprised by the skill's effect, but he immediately realized the power of this stealth skill. It was extremely useful for both sneak attacks and escape.
Before the stealth state ended, Garen immediately raised his greatsword. "Fatal Strike!"
The blade suddenly emitted a golden light of justice, yet no outsider could see it.
Garen's figure suddenly became thirty percent faster, causing his powerful level-4 body to vanish from the spot like an arrow loosed from a bow. Like a starving tiger pouncing on prey, he charged at the seated clown Buggy in the distance.
Just as the edge of Garen's greatsword was about to touch Clown Buggy, his stealth state suddenly ended, and the clone left behind in place dissolved into a cloud of smoke.
I wasted too much time just now.
Garen silently criticized himself, while also feeling a little regretful.
If this stealth effect lasted longer, I could use this skill like I had eaten the Suke Suke no Mi—turning a military tool into one for civilian use and making it shine in everyday life...
Even so, Buggy, with the greatsword pointed at him, was frightened into a violent shudder.
He had originally been staring tightly at the distant "Garen," unable to make up his mind.
But in the very next instant, that guy had suddenly "teleported" in front of him?
Seeing that bloodstained greatsword about to slash into him, Buggy hurriedly used his signature move. "Chop-Chop Fruit!"
Buggy's body suddenly split in a bizarre fashion into several pieces with smooth, black cross-sections, which then flew in all directions.
The Devil Fruit Ability was indeed strange and extraordinary. Even after splitting into several floating pieces, Buggy remained full of life.
"Ha ha ha!"
Buggy laughed fiercely despite his inner fear.
"I'm a terrifying pirate with a bounty of fifteen million Beli, a legendary Devil Fruit user!"
"You can never hurt me!"
As soon as he finished speaking—
A dull impact of blade striking flesh echoed across the deck, and Buggy's head, floating alone in the air, twisted into an expression of pain.
"It can still hit?"
Garen was somewhat surprised as well.
At the instant Buggy split his body apart, the greatsword Garen had swung also rapidly changed its trajectory, smashing toward the largest piece of Buggy's separated body.
It seemed that Buggy's splitting ability, which still left behind large physical pieces, did not meet the system's requirement for an "untargetable" target. He could still be struck by Garen's Normal Attack, which possessed a guaranteed-hit property.
The damage from that Fatal Strike landed squarely on Buggy, making his entire body tremble violently in pain.
But a great pirate was still a great pirate. His body was extraordinarily tough.
That attack, which would have killed ordinary grunts on the spot, only inflicted a certain degree of minor injury on Buggy.
However—
The effect of Garen's attack went far beyond mere physical damage.
All the pieces of Buggy's body suddenly froze.
Including Buggy's head, every part of his scattered body fell from midair like hailstones, finally landing helplessly across the deck.
Although the splitting effect brought on by his Devil Fruit Ability remained, Buggy discovered in terror—
He had completely lost control over his Devil Fruit Ability. He could neither make his split body parts float nor freely combine and split them again.
Buggy instantly became an incomprehensible pile of motionless fragments scattered across the ground.
"How is this possible?"
Using his unresponsive head, Buggy finally managed to shout out the words of shock he had not had time to say before.
Garen looked at Buggy, whom he had chopped into pieces all over the deck with a single Q Skill, and asked calmly.
"So, Captain Buggy?"
"What was that bounty of yours again? How many ten-thousands of Beli did you say it was?"
"Mm..."
Buggy's head, sprawled on the ground, immediately showed an extremely comical, fawning expression.
"Slip of the tongue, slip of the tongue."
"Fifteen million, no ten-thousand..."
Before you continue