Hunting

Shipyard.

Squeak! Squeak! Squeak!...

Suddenly!

A huge swarm of black bats rushed into the coating workshop from outside. Waves of black mist appeared out of nowhere, swiftly filling the entire factory.

After over twenty pirates were plunged into darkness so complete they could not see their hands before their faces, they could not help but panic. Some of the more timid ones even screamed.

"Don't panic!

Who has a lighter or anything that can provide light? Get some light going, now!"

Gray Wolf Bello roared. His body began to swell as sharp fangs and claws rapidly grew out.

In the blink of an eye, he had turned into a werewolf over three meters tall.

Prompted by his words, the pirates who smoked immediately pulled out their lighters. With a click, flames sprang to life.

Within three or four seconds, four faint flames had been lit inside the factory. Yet, blocked by the thick black fog, their illumination was extremely limited—not even enough to reveal a person's face.

In the pitch-black fog, a figure swiftly darted through the crowd!

Under the dim light provided by those lighters, a flash of crimson blade light appeared.

"Ahhh!!!"

"Ahhh!!!"

"Ahhh!!!"

"Ahhh!!!"

In an instant, a chilling gust swept through. The four pirates holding lighters let out agonized cries as blood sprayed from their necks, and they fell to the ground one after another.

Within the black mist, it was as though a savage beast that preyed upon men was constantly reaping the pirates' lives, making them scream again and again.

Bang! Bang! Bang!...

In their panic, the pirates instinctively fired wildly into the black fog. Friendly fire and accidental killings occurred one after another, throwing the scene into even greater chaos.

Squeak! Squeak! Squeak!...

Amid the bats' cries, Gray Wolf Bello bellowed furiously:

"Stop shooting!!!"

"All of you, stop fucking shooting!!"

"Calm down!!!"

All of a sudden!

The surroundings abruptly fell silent...

Terrifyingly silent!

Gray Wolf Bello swiftly switched his gun to his left hand and drew the large saber hanging at his waist with his right. His face was full of vigilance as he looked around at the thick black fog, trying to find the enemy.

As the creator of the black mist, Sephiroth's vision was unaffected. In a sense, the black mist was even an extension of his senses, allowing him to better perceive his opponents' movements.

Thus, he was completely at home in the darkness!

Sephiroth shot forward. As he neared his enemy, his right hand clenched the hilt and drew the long blade from its sheath at incredible speed.

His extreme movement speed combined with his lightning-fast draw, the two stacking together to unleash an utterly terrifying slashing force.

Suddenly, Gray Wolf Bello only felt a cold gust brush past his side. Before he could react...

"One-Sword Style: Instant Slash!"

As Sephiroth's words fell, blood immediately gushed from Gray Wolf Bello's neck. He threw away his weapons and desperately covered his throat with both hands, trying to stop the blood from spurting out.

Unfortunately...

It was all futile!

Thud!

Gray Wolf Bello's body crashed heavily onto the ground...

As his vision blurred, the black mist dispersed, gradually revealing a figure clad in a black hooded cloak. The person wore a smiling face mask split half black and half white, with a white tear on one side and a black tear on the other, making it look inexplicably eerie.

Gray Wolf Bello gradually lost all signs of life, and his body reverted from its beastman form.

However...

His endless resentment and unwillingness kept his eyes open even in death. He continued glaring at the man in black!

Looking at the more than twenty pirate corpses on the ground, the five shipwrights all wore uncertain expressions.

The brown-haired man endured the pain in his thigh and struggled to stand. Looking at the black-robed figure in the eerie smiling mask, he tentatively asked:

"Who... are you?"

"I'm merely a bounty hunter acting on a whim!"

"No matter what, thank you very much for saving us."

"No need to thank me. I just saved you while earning money."

As they spoke, the five men saw the black-cloaked figure place a Black Cloth Bag beside Gray Wolf Bello's corpse and open it. Inside was... a pile of different kinds of fruit!?

Immediately afterward, Sephiroth took out a stack of bounty posters and began cleaning up the battlefield, finishing off those who had not yet fully died by slitting their throats.

"Gray Wolf Bello, 76 million Beli. Dual-Gun Post, 23 million Beli. Iron Claw Halka, 26 million Beli...

Their bounties were so high, yet they were so weak..."

This group of pirates had little combat experience and were practically all amateurs. If they had stood tightly back-to-back after being plunged into darkness, Sephiroth would probably have needed to put in some effort to take them down.

Unexpectedly, they had thrown themselves into disarray first and battered their own comrades, making Sephiroth's harvesting of lives incredibly easy.

After counting the wanted criminals, he began searching through the pirates' belongings for valuables.

Aside from food and water, he only found two small locked wooden chests.

Sephiroth crouched down and searched Gray Wolf Bello's body, but he could not find the keys.

Left with no choice, he picked up the Python Revolver from Gray Wolf Bello's corpse and fired two shots—"Bang! Bang!"—at the chests, shattering their iron locks.

After firing two shots in succession, Sephiroth found the pistol strangely comfortable to use, and its power was quite impressive as well!

So, after engaging the safety, he returned to Gray Wolf Bello's corpse and stripped off the belt used to hold the revolver, along with the spare ammunition.

After this period of Military Academy theory classes, his understanding of firearms had changed greatly.

As long as someone possessed a sufficient amount of Armament Haki, they could coat bullets fired in single shots with Armament Haki, greatly increasing their attack power and penetration.

What was more, if their Haki was strong enough, they could even increase the bullet's muzzle velocity.

If paired with powerful Observation Haki, they could even lock down the opponent's escape routes in advance, leaving them nowhere to run.

Even a Haki expert would be injured, crippled, or even killed if struck at close range by a Haki-coated bullet. A large enough number of them could be fatal.

Of course, whether the theories old man Zephyr taught in class could truly harm Haki experts at the level of the Four Emperors remained unknown...

Still, after thinking it over, Sephiroth felt that old man Zephyr's theories seemed somewhat useful.

In Pirate King, pistols were practically tools for harvesting lives. Whitebeard Edward Newgate, Kozuki Oden, Fisher Tiger—these powerful figures had all been shot.

Even among the crew of the Red Hair Pirates, who were known as the "strongest iron-walled pirate crew," quite a few fought with guns...

In addition, he had discovered something interesting. During Vampiric Transformation, the ultrasonic waves he emitted could interfere with objects and alter their trajectories.

That reminded him of Bat-Man, the artificial Devil Fruit user jokingly called the "Sixth Emperor" in Pirate King, who used sound waves to alter the direction of arrows. He must have mixed Armament Haki into his ultrasonic waves to achieve that effect.

As the Vampire Form of the Mythical Zoan Bat Fruit, Sephiroth's fruit was, no matter how one looked at it, a higher-tier fruit than an artificial Bat Fruit. If that guy could do it, then Sephiroth should be able to as well...

Once he learned Armament Haki and mastered that technique for making thrown objects turn, allowing bullets fired from a pistol to curve... just thinking about it was fucking awesome!

(

Also, I write with an outline. If you think something is unreasonable, a lot of it is actually groundwork and foreshadowing for later plot developments. But I can't exactly explain everything in advance, can I?

( ﾟཀﾟ;)

This is a no-system story, so a lot of things need buildup. It isn't simply mindless wish-fulfillment...

Ahem, ahem, ahem!... Of course, when it comes to certain mindless wish-fulfillment elements and some plotlines... I really can't control myself either...

Guilty.JPG)