Shadows from all directions followed the black lines resembling pipes and gathered beneath Moria's feet.
After absorbing the shadows into his body, Moria's body began swelling at a speed visible to the naked eye.
His height, which had already approached seven meters, shot up directly to over nine meters.
But after that, there was no further change.
This was completely different from what he had expected.
Moria's composure collapsed at once.
There were roughly nine hundred shadows on the island ship.
Yet after using Shadows' Gathering Ground, he had only reclaimed around a hundred shadows.
That alone would have been fine.
But the shadows he had reclaimed were basically all weaklings!
As for the higher-quality shadows, he had not even seen the slightest trace of them.
Why had this happened?
Moria did not know the reason, but that did not stop him from pinning the blame directly on Maud.
In an instant, his rising anger transformed into killing intent.
A full eight hundred high-quality shadows had been ruined by Maud just like that.
Those were the fruits of their hard work over many years!
"Bagard. Maud!!!"
Moria roared furiously.
He had only absorbed a hundred shadows of relatively poor quality, but Moria's strength and physique had still undergone a substantial improvement.
That was perhaps the allure of the Shadow-Shadow Fruit ability: by stacking shadows, it could greatly increase one's strength in a short period.
Skills like this, which resembled a sudden power-up, usually came with certain side effects.
But Shadows' Gathering Ground had no such flaw.
The only thing worth noting was the burden it placed on the body.
A hundred shadows was precisely the comfortable limit Moria could bear.
Once that number was exceeded, especially if the number of shadows reached nine hundred, Moria would only suffer the consequences.