Black Beast and Strangling Ghost

"Arrived too late?"

He let out a soft sigh.

A flicker of regret and sorrow passed through Eschbach's gray-brown eyes, then, as if fueled by that very regret and sorrow, sparks ignited into a blazing fury. He stared at the pitch-black, blood-soaked figure standing before the watchtower, the rage in his eyes nearly incinerating the man opposite him.

Though in terms of sheer size, he was the largest of Aleus's four Aides.

Standing three hundred and fifty centimeters tall, just staying still was enough to intimidate many timid souls into keeping their distance. Add to that his imposing expression and thick, powerful fists... he hardly looked like a good person.

Yet in truth, Eschbach had the softest heart among the four Aides.

No matter how many times he saw it, he could never get used to scenes of people suffering. What he hated most was torture and interrogation; the interrogation room was the place he least wanted to go near. But that didn't mean he would show mercy when facing an enemy.

When dealing with villains stained with blood debts, he could put two hundred percent of his strength into a hundred percent blow.

Right now, that was exactly the case.

"Black Beast, Tadra, bounty one hundred and ten million, from West Blue, former commander of a mafia army, once slaughtered an entire town of a rival family to intimidate them..." Reciting the dossier word for word, Eschbach's killing intent climbed steadily toward its peak.

"You know quite a bit... but no matter how much food knows, it's still just food."

Having heard Eschbach's 'nonsense,' Tadra grinned, revealing two rows of bloodstained fangs.

Then, a distance of over ten meters, crossed in the blink of an eye.

Moving on all fours like a beast, the Black Beast charged before Eschbach. Still crouched low, he didn't stand up; instead, he clenched his right hand into a fist and slammed it viciously toward Eschbach's right ankle.

"Boom!!!"

There was no crisp, clean sound of bones breaking.

Tadra felt as if his fist had slammed into a massive iron pillar. The shock from the unimaginable hardness sent a jolt of pain through him—a sensation he hadn't felt in a long time. Ever since learning Armament Haki in the New World, he'd almost forgotten what such bone-deep agony was like.

"You hit me."

Eschbach looked down at Tadra, who was crouched on the ground like a wild beast.

He lifted his right foot.

"I'll return the favor with a kick."

As the words fell, so did his foot.

A thunderous "boom" echoed, as if a meteor had struck the earth. The sea cliff beneath them seemed to tremble from the impact. Dust billowed up like mist, only to be swept away by the sea breeze, revealing a deep crater in the ground.

"Cough!!"

Tadra knelt at the edge of the pit, hunched over, coughing up a pool of blood—whether his own or from his stomach, it was unclear.

"You..."

The man, more beast than human, opened his mouth as if to say something.

But, "Shut up, trash."

Eschbach had no desire for further conversation. His thick, powerful fist, wrapped in Armament Haki, replaced all words. In ancient times, humans used their fists to tame the wildness and savagery of beasts, turning them into livestock.

Fists collided, shoulders clashed and parted, legs whipped back and forth like steel chains. It was like stepping into a blacksmith's forge—the clanging, banging noise was so rapid and dense.

Tadra was an unrepentant villain, no doubt about it, but his bounty of one hundred and ten million was also the Navy's recognition of his strength.

He was no weakling.

As it happened, both Eschbach and Tadra excelled at bare-handed brawling.

So, from the very start, their fight entered a white-hot phase. No unnecessary flourishes, only the most primal, bloodiest, most direct violence. Fists were humanity's original weapons of brutality, and at this moment, both men pushed that most primitive tool to its limit.

Even when the Den Den Mushi on Eschbach's body suddenly rang, it didn't cause either of them to let up in the slightest.

"Your companion is really something!"

The man wearing nothing but a blue swimsuit clicked his tongue in admiration. "Tadra may be a beast in human skin, but his fists are genuinely tough. To be able to hold him off... are you reinforcements from the Ekmondo Kingdom?"

"But the intelligence we gathered doesn't include your faces? I recall the Ekmondo Kingdom's strong fighters are [Beautiful Sword] and [Fighting Dog]?" The man stared at Dick standing across from him, a smile on his face, but inwardly he was cursing the intelligence gatherers to death.

He hadn't mastered Observation Haki, but he had a natural sharp intuition. The ponytailed man in front of him, and the big guy fighting Tadra—both were experts capable of threatening his life.

In other words, if measured by pirate standards, these two blocking the way were definitely at the level of bounties over a hundred million.

Yet there was no intelligence at all on such experts. The intelligence unit was nothing but trash. If he survived this time, he'd absolutely kill those useless bastards.

"To deal with you, there's no need for the two lords to act."

Dick lifted his chin slightly. His beautiful blond hair was tied into a ponytail, swaying briskly behind his head as he moved. His gaze at the swimsuit-clad man across from him was full of contempt. With just that one gesture, that one look, his pride was laid bare.

"Then, can you tell me your name?"

Swimsuit Man kept smiling, seemingly completely unaffected by Dick's arrogant attitude.

"Strangling Ghost, Farug... are you fishing for information?" The voice came from far to near, arriving at his ear in an instant. Swimsuit Man—Farug—felt a sudden warm breath on the back of his neck, and his hairs stood on end.

He lunged forward instinctively in a clumsy roll. The moment he threw himself out, a vicious wind swept past from behind.

A faint stinging pain on his back told him that if he hadn't reacted quickly, his spine would probably have been dug out and used as a whip.

"You... a ability user?"

Without bothering to check the wound on his back, Farug crouched on the ground, twisting around to look at where he had stood before. There, a massive cheetah stood, leisurely flicking its long tail, staring at Farug with a teasing gaze.

"A Zoan ability user?"

Farug felt his lips go dry and licked them with his tongue.

His mood grew heavy.

He wasn't an ability user, but that didn't stop him from understanding how troublesome they could be. Especially Zoan ability users—they didn't have the devastating destructive power of Logia types, nor the bizarre special abilities of Paramecia types. Yet, for any expert specializing in physical techniques, if they were asked to choose a Devil Fruit to consume...

Out of ten, at least nine would pick Zoan.

The vitality and recovery granted by Zoan Devil Fruits gave ability users greater strength, speed, endurance, recovery, and resistance to blows—it was an all-around enhancement and boost.

This meant his opponent had long stamina and was very tough to take down.

That was not good news for Farug.

The Strangling Ghost hated nothing more than a foe that was hard to kill in one choke.