Among Criminals, There Was a Hierarchy of Contempt

From the very beginning, the "Ouroboros" slave-catching group had never intended to pay for the information.

They had even planned to capture the "informant" and sell him for another profit after putting bounties on "Big Mom" and "Golden Lion."

After all, they had done too many businesses with nothing but profit. Asking them to suddenly spend money on intelligence was harder than killing them.

"When the informant arrives, don't make a move yet. Let me get close while he's paying during the transaction and use my Devil Fruit ability to affect his emotions."

"Once he falls into extreme inferiority and despair, you can move in and subdue him."

"Understand?"

"Yeah."

Parker nodded, agreeing to Misa's plan.

As an old colleague, he naturally knew that the Emotion-Emotion Fruit could be activated silently and without warning, but it had the obvious flaw of being limited by distance.

Its effective range was only within three meters of the target. The closer she was, the better the effect. Physical contact could even double it.

Boom—

The warehouse's heavy steel doors suddenly caved inward, sent flying inside by a terrifying force.

Parker and Misa's pupils constricted sharply. They hurriedly crouched down as the two twisted iron doors swept over their heads, whipping up their hair and making their scalps sting.

Only after the steel doors flew to the other end of the warehouse, smashing through the wall with a thunderous crash, did the two finally come back to their senses.

Parker and Misa exchanged a glance, each seeing the shock in the other's eyes.

What kind of monster was that?!

Should they still attack?

Before Parker could voice the question in his heart, the dust ahead gradually dispersed, revealing a slender figure.

The newcomer stepped lightly, accompanied by a faint, high-frequency hum, and appeared before Parker and Misa as if teleporting.

Parker felt an eerie chill wash over him. It was as though the "person" before him was a killing machine devoid of all emotion. The sweet, rusty scent unique to steel made his body tremble uncontrollably.

"Who gave you permission to speak to me in that tone?"

A hoarse, electromagnetic voice like a broken radio rang out, impossible to tell whether it belonged to a man or woman.

The voice was utterly flat, without the slightest emotional fluctuation, yet Parker could clearly feel the arrogance and supreme disdain within it.

It felt just like facing a Celestial Dragon.

No, this thing was even more arrogant than a Celestial Dragon!

"I..."

Parker raised his head, intending to explain that this was a misunderstanding.

But all he saw was the sole of a raised leather shoe filling his vision, followed by searing pain.

Parker's nose bridge was crushed flat beneath the stomp, his face caved in beyond recognition as blood and broken front teeth sprayed from his mouth.

"Who gave you permission to raise your head, you half-evolved wild monkey?!"

Parker was kicked into a roll across the dust-covered floor. An unprecedented sense of helplessness made him feel like a tiny grain of sand in the sea, able only to drift with the waves, incapable of forming even the slightest thought of resistance.

Misa witnessed the entire scene from the side. Her mind had gone blank, leaving only her body's instinctive resistance to fear.

She rose to her feet, and the hands hanging at her sides emitted a faint glow as she activated her Devil Fruit power.

"Hm?"

At the same time, John, far away in an inn in town, raised an eyebrow. Mantra allowed him to hear the strange energy fluctuations filling the surrounding air.

"A boring ability."

John immediately controlled the Steel Puppet to raise its right hand, holding it upright like a blade as it thrust toward Misa's chest.

Splurt—

Blood sprayed. The hand-blade tore through Misa's chest, its entire forearm piercing through her body, shattering her spine and emerging from her back.

The pain was so intense that Misa instead lost all sensation of it. Her eyes were vacant, blood spilling from the corner of her lips as she only felt herself growing colder and colder.

The world before her eyes also grew grayer and grayer, until it sank into complete darkness. She lost consciousness, and all life left her body.

"Misa!"

Seeing the body fall limply to the ground after the hand-blade was casually withdrawn drove Parker's fear to its peak.

Yet that instead gave Parker a sliver of courage, and he roared with all his strength.

"You damned bastard! What are you doing? It was only a minor verbal dispute. You didn't have to kill her!"

"Huh?"

The Steel Puppet seemed to have heard some kind of joke and tilted its head at Parker.

"Do you think I'm playing some childish game with you? That after losing, all you need to do is say 'I lost' or 'I was wrong,' and everything can be forgotten?"

"Stupid wild monkey, the world is cruel. Losers are worth less than dogs!"

"Of course..."

Suddenly, the Steel Puppet changed its tone.

"Not everything can be judged the same way. If you can fail ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times, and still survive, that is also a kind of ability."

"A person can lose countless times while alive, but they absolutely, absolutely must win the final time!"

"But the problem is..."

The Steel Puppet paused, then flashed before Parker and grabbed his hair, lifting him up.

"Can you survive until next time?"

"No! Please, don't kill me!"

Parker ignored the pain of his hair roots tearing at his scalp. Crying and sobbing, he begged for mercy.

"My wife and children are still waiting for me to return. Please don't kill me. I'll do anything you ask!"

"Right! Money! I brought money! I'll give it all to you! Don't kill me!"

"Shut up! Trash!"

The Steel Puppet suddenly raised its hand and gripped Parker's jaw, leaving him completely unable to speak.

"I won't lecture you about how you have a family and so do other people. I'll only say one simple thing."

As it spoke, the Steel Puppet released Parker's hair and lifted him before itself using only its left hand gripping his jaw.

An eerie purple light emanated from its faceless mask, reflected in Parker's violently constricted pupils.

"Those who steal a hook are executed; those who steal a nation become nobles. Garbage like you, who traffics people, ranks at the very bottom among all criminals."

"That's right. Even people like us, who make a living through filthy means, have a hierarchy of contempt among ourselves."

"Someone like me, who has taken countless lives and dares to covet supreme power, can despise you and trample on you as I please, simply because you are the most pathetic kind of 'thief of a hook'!"

"So stop saying things like 'we're just pirates' or 'we're all criminals.' I am naturally superior to you!"

"..."

As those words fell, Parker froze.

Even the pain became faint at that moment, allowing his mind to gradually clear and comprehend the gap between them more deeply.

It was not a gap in strength, but a gap in thought and awareness.

This monster before him was fundamentally not on the same level as a slave trader like him, who took pride in petty slave-catching schemes!

"Get lost."

The Steel Puppet stuffed several transparent sealed bags into Parker's pocket, then violently flung him toward the warehouse entrance.

"Use the power behind you to capture Pete and those greedy bastards. Show your value and make them all slaves."

"If you can't do that, then you slave traders can jump into the sea and kill yourselves to feed the fish."