Spoon

Kuro moved with light steps across the ground, using Silent Step to evade the dagger darts flying at him. He stared coldly at Duen, deeply displeased by the latter's declaration of war.

"That bounty hunter..." A bead of cold sweat rolled down Jango's temple. All by himself, he had effortlessly killed nearly half of the Black Cat Pirates' fighting force...

Kuro pushed up his glasses with his palm and said darkly, "You've truly disappointed me. A bunch of trash, unable to deal with a mere bounty hunter..."

Feeling that he had been included in the scolding, Jango hurriedly explained, "But, Captain Kuro, he isn't an ordinary bounty hunter..."

Kuro said coldly, "Have you learned to make excuses too, Jango?"

Jango's breath caught, sweat streaming down his forehead. He was instantly too terrified to say another word.

"You all return to the ship first... As for this brat, I'll send him to hell myself."

After Kuro spoke coldly, the remaining pirates rushed back onto the deck of the Black Cat, which had pulled alongside, as though they had been granted a pardon. Jango, walking at the rear, looked back at Kuro, held his black top hat with one hand, and muttered, "The captain is getting serious. No monster could possibly survive..."

Once the deck had been cleared, only Kuro and Duen remained... along with corpses scattered everywhere.

The sea breeze howled, making Kuro's black captain's cloak flap loudly. He stroked the nearly meter-long blades on his ten fingers and looked at Duen. "This sea is becoming more and more restless. More and more Marines, more and more bounty hunters, constantly stopping me, interfering with me. One troublesome matter after another... Can't you all just die quietly?"

Duen was in no hurry to attack. "I really didn't come here specifically to kill you. I was just passing by and thought I'd earn a little pocket money for daily expenses."

Negative Emotion Points from Kuro +1...

Veins bulged across Kuro's forehead. His sinister gaze pierced through his lenses and landed squarely on Duen. "I'll make that mouth of yours shut for good!"

The moment he finished speaking, his figure vanished from where he stood, and the sea wind around them grew even fiercer.

Though Duen's eyes could barely keep up with Kuro's movements, the flow of air could not lie. Even if Kuro's footsteps blended into the sea breeze, as long as Duen calmed down, he could still hear the slightest difference.

Paper Arts!

Like a boneless creature, Duen twisted at an unbelievable angle to evade the sharp blade from his right, then suddenly thrust out the broadsword in his hand.

Riiip!

The blade tore a fifty-centimeter gash through Kuro's captain's cloak, but Kuro merely shifted backward like a ghost before closing in again. The Cat Claws suddenly stabbed toward Duen's chest.

Duen swiftly drew back his broadsword and blocked, stopping Kuro's Cat Claws once more. As they attacked, parried, and retreated, the Red Nightmare coiled around the blade reflected a strange image into Kuro's pupils, causing his movements to stall involuntarily.

Seizing the chance, Duen slashed at Kuro without hesitation, as though he intended to sever his entire wrist. Yet the instincts Kuro had forged through years of combat made his body veer aside on its own. Once he snapped back to his senses, he leaned even farther away, but his left arm was still cut.

Shredded cloth and a strip of flesh flew through the air.

Kuro staggered back repeatedly, lowering his eyes with a cold expression to look at the exposed flesh on his arm. Chaotic images had suddenly appeared in his mind, as though his soul had been dragged out of his body...

No, that was an exaggeration. But he truly had lost focus. Even after years of battle, this was the first time he had encountered such a situation...

"That magic from earlier... came from the blade in your hand, didn't it?"

Kuro looked at Duen. Although he was certain of his guess, he still wanted to probe for information from him.

Duen looked at the Red Nightmare wrapped around his broadsword, now much dimmer than before, and shook his head. "No."

"Hmph. Forget it. I never expected you to tell the truth..."

Kuro pushed up his glasses with his palm. It had been a long time since he had felt such pressure threatening his life. Against an enemy like this, the wisest choice was to end the battle quickly with his strongest offense.

His body began swaying in a highly rhythmic manner. "No matter what kind of power you possess, none of it matters anymore. Because you're about to die..."

His voice grew lower and lower. In an instant, a cloud of nearly purple smoke rose from beneath Kuro's feet, and his figure completely vanished from the deck!

Kuro's strongest technique, Spoon, possessed speed comparable to Shave from the Six Powers. But because that speed was too fast, even he himself did not know what he would cut.

The flow of air around them became violent. In an instant, deep, lengthy claw marks appeared strangely across the deck's mast, railings, sideboards, and floorboards.

Duen's expression turned wary. His body shifted like a sheet of thin paper, constantly changing as it sensed the surrounding airflow.

His current Paper Arts could detect air movement within roughly four meters. In other words, only when Kuro entered that four-meter radius could he predict the direction of the attack.

That range was still too small. At full speed, Kuro needed only an instant to cross those four meters and leave wounds on Duen with his Cat Claws. However, Paper Arts did more than simply sense the movement of air. It allowed the body to follow the airflow and instinctively dodge without any need for thought.

Likewise, Kuro's indiscriminate attacks were suited for clearing out weak enemies. But when there was only one opponent, they instead created many ineffective strikes and wasted stamina for nothing.

Duen swung his broadsword, attempting to sense the airflow and intercept Kuro with fierce blade techniques. Yet whenever he felt the air surge, Kuro was already upon him. In the end, he could only defend and evade.

For a moment, he could do nothing to his opponent...

There has to be a way to break this offense.

Duen used Paper Arts to evade Kuro's attacks. Frustration rose in his heart, but then something occurred to him. His eyes suddenly lit up, and he tossed his sword onto the deck.

Though the broadsword weighed only twenty kilograms, once it was removed, Duen's evasive movements became much smoother, allowing him to switch between all sorts of incredible postures more freely.

The bright moon hung high in the sky, spilling down silvery light.

Duen stood in place without the slightest intention of attacking, merely using Paper Arts to evade. Gradually, amid the deck now covered in destruction, a shadow appeared out of nowhere.

Catching a fleeting opportunity, Duen suddenly lifted his leg and kicked the air in front of him, accompanied by a sharp crackling explosion!

An afterimage hidden within the wind solidified, instantly flying backward like a cannonball and crashing into the sideboard, kicking up countless wood chips and clouds of dust!

Duen looked toward the dust cloud as if victory were already in his grasp. He picked up the broadsword from the deck and sneered. "Not bad. You're pretty good at parkour. Tired from running around yet?"

Since taking the initiative was too difficult, Duen simply chose to drain his opponent's stamina instead. If Kuro clawed at him, he would dodge. If Kuro did not claw at him, he would stand still. They would see whose stamina ran out first.

After all, Kuro was launching indiscriminate attacks across the entire ship. When facing Duen alone, his stamina consumption would be far greater than Duen's. After using a high-intensity technique like Spoon for so long, his steps would inevitably grow heavier, and his speed would surely slow.

With Paper Arts to rely on, Duen was not afraid. But across the East Blue, almost no one would dare fight this way. Smoker and Buggy aside, if Arlong tried it, he would probably be torn apart by Kuro's Spoon unless he fled into the sea.

Negative Emotion Points from Kuro +...

Blood trickled from Kuro's temple. He staggered to his feet and stared at the completely uninjured Duen. His face had become so complex that it was impossible to tell what expression he wore—savagery, embarrassment, rage, resentment, fear; it had everything.

For the first time in all his years as a pirate, Kuro felt powerless. He had thought that beneath his ferocious barrage, his opponent should have at least suffered dozens of bloody wounds and been on the verge of death.

But the truth was the exact opposite. His opponent was completely unharmed... After dominating the East Blue for so many years, no one had ever emerged unscathed from the full force of his Spoon. Yet everything had been shattered by the appearance of this bounty hunter. Just who was he?!

"My turn now..."

Feeling Kuro's Negative Emotion Points continuing to rise in his mind, Duen took a deep breath. Repeatedly using Paper Arts was no easy task. In truth, more than half of his stamina had already been spent.

He could not give this infamous pirate another chance to catch his breath. Otherwise, an endless barrage of slashes would follow, and the situation would become uncertain again.

Duen raised the broadsword wrapped in Red Nightmare, planted his foot, and charged forward.

Kuro bent his knees slightly, intending to use Silent Step to evade. But the extreme exertion from earlier made his legs, which had yet to recover, hesitate slightly. The instant he looked up, the mental shock created by the Nightmare invaded his pupils.

In an instant, Kuro, clad in black butler's attire, was sent flying by the enormous force of the broadsword. After falling five or six meters through the air, he crashed into the pointed deck at the bow. His head hung motionless, while the long, narrow wound that nearly pierced his upper body spewed blood like a spring.