Strange

The five hid behind wooden barrels. Given Arlong's height, it took two barrels stacked together to conceal him while crouching... Behind them was the ship's side, so they could jump into the sea at once if anything went wrong. At that moment, they faced the cabin exit and stared at it intently.

In the lingering light of the sunrise filtering through the mist, a group of men with vacant expressions and blank faces, yet neatly dressed, filed out of the cabin. Then... they began running laps in perfect formation.

Sig:???

"What are they doing?" Hachi asked doubtfully as he watched the people running in a line around the deck.

"They're coming!" As soon as Chuu spoke, he puckered his lips. He had already gathered Water Power in his mouth, ready to fire a water cannon at any moment.

Sig and the others also went on guard. Even Arlong tightened his grip on his serrated blade. However...

The group passed by the barrels in front of them without noticing the five Fish-Men hiding behind them at all.

They also turned a blind eye to the deck, which had been wrecked by the storm.

"Pfft." Hachi spotted Arlong's hand tightly gripping the hilt, realized that Brother Long was nervous too, and suddenly laughed.

Sig:...

Were you scared or not, exactly?

Hearing this, Arlong looked at Hachi. Though Hachi immediately turned his head away, Arlong keenly noticed what he was laughing about!

A vein popped on Arlong's forehead. He immediately leaped out, and before Sig could stop him, Arlong roughly dragged one of the men at the back of the line out of formation...

"What the hell are you doing?" Arlong pressed his serrated blade against the man's neck.

Sig felt a little distressed. If Arlong and Hachi were in a Cthulhu-esque or supernatural world, they would absolutely be the crouching dragon and fledgling phoenix!

Just then, Sig heard another bout of murmured whispers...

At the same time, the running group stopped in perfect unison and turned their heads toward them together.

Their eyes were vacant, their faces ashen, and their expressions completely blank. Only the man Arlong had grabbed slowly revealed a look of terror, as though moving in slow motion.

Cold sweat was already trickling down Sig's face...

Not because of the strangeness before him, but because he had heard those murmured whispers again!

And this time, he had been prepared. He had kept paying attention to "listening," so the moment he heard the whispers coming from some indistinguishable place, Sig immediately realized... the acting progress of the Listener had increased!

Previously, Sig had felt lost and conflicted because he had never been able to act as the Listener and take that first step.

But now that the Listener had truly heard something, Sig lost his nerve in an instant...

After all, in Lord of the Mysteries, what the Listener heard were the whispers of evil gods that could twist and mutate people!

While Sig was dazed, the man Arlong had seized gradually regained his senses. But after realizing something, he immediately screamed, "Let go! Let go of me!"

The man's laughable struggling emboldened Arlong somewhat and further drained his patience. "You wanna die? Talk! What the hell are you doing here—"

Before he could say "ghost," the man's struggles gradually weakened. Then, just like that, he died on the spot.

His body rapidly withered, as if he had starved to death from prolonged malnutrition.

"Hey... hey!" Arlong shook him, then disgustedly tossed him onto the ground and looked at the others. "You saw that... I didn't kill him!"

He especially glanced at Sig, always feeling like this guy might tattle to Boss Tiger!

"B-Brother Long!" Hachi's voice trembled, and he was nearly crying.

"Hm?" Arlong noticed the sound too and looked around.

The shattered planks and broken ropes on the deck were rapidly gathering together, writhing restlessly like living things.

As he watched the things aboard the ship twist and combine into humanoid monsters three to four meters tall, Arlong became calmer instead.

The bizarre reactions of those humans had made even Arlong's skin crawl somewhat, but now that visible, tangible "monsters" had appeared, their terror factor dropped drastically—he just had to fight them!

"I don't know what you are, but... die!" Arlong swung his serrated blade and slashed at the "monster" before him.

The monsters each looked roughly humanoid and exceptionally burly, their bodies made from random debris scattered across the deck. Though there were seven or eight of them, each was composed differently.

What they shared was that, whether made from splintered wood or steel, after forming into monsters, their shapes had not only become distorted, but their textures also seemed strangely alive, as if they pulsed with every breath.

They had something else in common: each held iron chains or thick ropes, or else their arms themselves were made of ropes and chains!

They were like "abominations" pieced together from inorganic matter, except abominations wielded iron hooks and sickles, while these "inorganic abominations" wielded chains.

As Arlong brought his blade down, a layer of blue-black spread across the serrated blade—Arlong had already mastered Armament Haki and could use "Hardening," coating it over his weapon.

Aside from Haki with special properties, Haki could not be seen with the naked eye. Only someone with Observation Haki could "see" that layer of color...

Moreover, as a sawshark Fish-Man, Arlong possessed stronger racial advantages. He did not specialize in Fish-Man Karate or rely on Water Power. Instead, he specialized in Life Return, which stimulated the body's potential!

His teeth and saw-like nose could rapidly regenerate, and his serrated blade was pieced together from the saw teeth on his nose. He also trained in Armament Haki, further increasing the threat posed by his body and weapons.

Armament Haki could "nurture" a blade. Shusui, wielded by the great swordsman Ryuma, and Yoru, wielded by the world's greatest swordsman Hawk Eyes Mihawk, were both known as Black Blades, having been nurtured by Armament Haki.

Arlong's path was to take shortcuts—or rather, to maximize the advantages of a sawshark Fish-Man. After cultivating Life Return, he used his own saws to forge his blade, then strengthened them with his own Armament Haki...

Since they were originally part of his own body, he naturally wielded them with ease and achieved twice the result with half the effort!

There were countless types within the Fish-Man Race. For some species that were naturally highly aggressive, cultivating themselves was also a good choice—to a certain extent, this was closer to "developing a Devil Fruit ability." The physique of a sawfish Fish-Man was equivalent to that of an ordinary person who had eaten a normal Zoan Devil Fruit.

Of course, having Armament Haki did not necessarily make one stronger than a fighter without Haki. Some brats with no Haki at all, but exceptional martial arts or Devil Fruit abilities, might already be capable of sending Arlong flying without even realizing what Haki was.

But at this moment, Arlong's serrated blade easily tore through the monster's body...

The inorganic abomination before him had one arm, along with nearly half its body, cleaved off by Arlong and sent falling away. Though no blood flowed from the "wound," wood chips flew everywhere, and Arlong could even genuinely feel as though he were sawing through flesh!