You Have No Standing to Negotiate with Me

Danger was a relative concept. Depending on what one faced, the definition of danger changed as well.

There were many Bounty criminals on these seas. Even before Roger ushered in the Great Pirate Era, Pirates already numbered like the hairs on an ox.

Among all these Bounty criminals, Nereus's Bounty was undoubtedly among the highest tiers.

As agents trained by the World Government system, they were not Pirates who had just set sail and knew nothing of the outside world. It was impossible for them not to know about someone with a massive Bounty like Nereus.

Yet among all these Pirates, Nereus was the one the Marines and CP agents least wanted to face.

If they encountered a Pirate like Rocks during a mission, he would most likely casually destroy the ship they were riding with a single slash, then ignore whatever happened afterward. Whether they survived would depend on luck.

Though the chances of surviving after falling into the sea were low, they were not zero.

Meeting a Pirate like Roger was even considered lucky. If he was not in too bad a mood, he might not even take the initiative to fight them. He would quickly disengage and flee instead.

Pirates running from Marines was the logic some Pirates followed.

But if it was Nereus...

He would most likely wipe out every enemy, then either destroy the ship depending on the situation or take it away as spoils of war.

If Marines had only a slim chance of survival when encountering Nereus, World Government agents had it even worse.

Since Nereus's first attack on a slave ship, the survival rate of CP agents involved in operations against him had been zero.

And every corpse had either been drained of blood or aged beyond measure, as though they had entered some bizarre nightmare.

"Nereus... Nereus... we don't want to be your enemy this time. We were only passing through. How about we pretend we never saw each other?"

At that moment, the CP9 commander finally understood why he had been unable to see his opponent all along.

CP9 members were not required to possess Haki. As long as they were proficient in Rokushiki, they could be selected. If they also mastered the two forms of Haki and earned some merit, they could be promoted directly to CP0.

As CP9's commander, he was not trash like Spandam, whose Doriki Value was only 9 and who was weaker than an ordinary soldier. He was the strongest member of this group.

Not only was he a Devil Fruit user, he had also roughly mastered a little Observation Haki. Yet even so, he could not detect Nereus standing right beside him.

But if the enemy was Nereus, that was no longer strange.

For an enemy of that level, concealing his presence from him was far too easy.

The essence of Haki clashes was similar to mutual cancellation. Roger and Garp working together could break through Rocks's Conqueror's Haki defense.

Observation Haki was different, but the principle was much the same.

In a clash of Observation Haki, it was not an endless nesting doll of you predicting me, then me predicting that you predicted me and changing my actions accordingly.

If that were the case, the theoretical outcome of a battle would be two people standing there blankly until one suddenly surrendered or ran away.

The person with stronger Observation Haki could cancel out the other person's perception, rendering their Observation Haki ineffective.

The CP9 commander's Haki and Nereus's were clearly not on the same level.

And that was bad news as well. According to the few surviving Marine soldiers, Nereus sometimes became playful and toyed with his enemies like a cat playing with a mouse.

"Never seen each other?"

"That's right. Our target is only that Lunarian. We can give you the Bounty for capturing her as well.

"You must know that simply providing the Lunarian's exact location earns one hundred million Beli. Capturing one alive is worth far more than one hundred million..."

CP department commanders were never simple-minded. On the contrary, they were all quick thinkers.

Within the World Government, embezzlement and corruption were common occurrences.

Those who could only fight and did not know how to adapt either had to become powerful enough to attract Imu's interest and be recruited into the Holy Knights, or remain miserable frontline laborers. Administrative positions were simply impossible.

"That does sound like quite a bargain."

"Right? Then..."

"But I'm not interested. You have no standing to negotiate with me."

As he spoke, Nereus's finger suddenly swept across the CP9 commander's carotid artery. What was unusual was that the damaged artery did not send blood spurting out. Instead, the blood seemed to vanish into thin air.

The CP9 commander's face gradually turned a sickly blue-white. There was even a smile of relief at surviving the ordeal on his lips, but in an instant, the blood was drained from him before he could react.

"Run!!"

The other CP9 members had only one thought at that moment. They never should have watched their boss negotiate with him. The instant Nereus appeared, they should have run.

However, the agent who shouted for them to run discovered that he was actually the slowest one. The others had already dashed off in different directions, unwilling to waste even a second.

"What kind of joke is this? How did we run into this guy? Why is this monster still in the West Blue..."

The CP9 agents used Soru and Geppo with all their strength, fleeing into the distance.

They occasionally glanced behind them. Only when they saw that Nereus was not making any move to pursue them did they relax slightly, but not a single one dared stop running.

At the very least... they had to run faster than everyone else.

After all, there was only one enemy. No matter what, he should not be able to split himself apart. It was like encountering Kuma in the mountains: as long as you ran faster than your companions, you had a better chance of surviving.

"You people from Cipher Pol really never learn any manners. Finding you took me quite some time, yet you started running the moment we met. That's not good."

Nereus looked at the agents who had begun fleeing the instant they saw him and casually raised a hand toward their backs.

[Uchimizu: Blood Shark.]

Several droplets of blood appeared on Nereus's fingertips. With a seemingly careless wave of his hand, each droplet transformed into a bloody arrow and chased after the fleeing CP9 agents.

Whether they could run a little faster meant nothing before Nereus. The final result would be the same.

Even after fleeing far enough away, they still failed to escape Nereus's attack range. In the end, they became nothing more than black dots falling into the sea, gradually swallowed by the dark ocean floor.

The ship that had brought the agents there was also sunk, vanishing from these seas along with them.

But at that moment, Amphitrite, who had already been somewhat unsteady on her feet, suddenly stiffened as well.

The drug developed by Saturn that CP9 had mentioned seemed to be taking effect. It made her unable to control her body, and she fell toward the sea as well. However, Nereus caught her before she hit the water.

Given Nereus's slaughter of CP9 just now, along with the undisguised terror of those Cipher Pol members, Amphitrite was temporarily relieved. At the very least, Nereus was not on the World Government's side.

"The... bottle... in the sea..."

Because of the drug, Amphitrite could no longer speak clearly, but she still forced out a few words, her gaze drifting toward the sea below.