At Maud's level, killing a few pirate nobodies was nothing more than a casual wave of his hand.
After effortlessly taking out the members of the Broadcast Pirates, Maud glanced at Apu, whose spine was broken and limbs fractured, leaving him unable to move.
When Maud's gaze fell on him, Apu's face turned pale.
"Just as expected of a Warlord of the Sea. Even when dealing with a rookie pirate... you show no mercy at all. And I naively thought I could kill you..."
"A rookie pirate?"
Maud flipped his wrist, turning the back of Shusui toward Apu, and said indifferently, "You don't look like a 'rookie' to me."
"..."
Apu was filled with terror at his words.
Does this man know who I really am...
In that brief moment, Apu was left uncertain and alarmed.
But in his current predicament, he had no time to think about it. He decisively begged for mercy. "Don't kill me. Even if you put a 'slave collar' on me, that's fine... I'll be more valuable alive!"
Surrendering and pledging allegiance was fairly common in the pirate world, and there was no shortage of pirates who switched sides with the wind.
For most pirates, as long as they were well fed and well supplied, it made no difference who they followed.
Pirate captains who wanted to expand their crews quickly would sometimes choose to take a certain degree of risk and recruit powerful individuals under their command.
Maud's decision to restrict Apu's ability to move instead of killing him outright had given Apu a glimmer of hope.
Naturally assuming that Maud wanted him to submit, he lowered his stance as much as possible and begged Maud for mercy as a Supernova with a bounty of over 200 million.
Unfortunately, his assumption was wrong.
"You