Bloodsucking from Afar

Sea Circular Calendar 1521, July 7.

West Blue.

"Share some of your luck with me. I'm looking for someone."

With the Lineage Factor issue settled, it was naturally time to recruit companions. In Lucas's plan, there were only three people in all of West Blue worth recruiting.

Nico Robin.

Lafitte.

Daz Bonez.

Robin needed no explanation; the words "a member of the protagonist's crew" alone spoke for her potential.

Lafitte becoming a founding member of the Blackbeard Pirates also proved his potential.

Daz Bonez was not among the strongest, but he made up for it with unwavering loyalty.

The latter two were easy enough to find. One was a famous peace officer in West Blue, while the other was a known assassin in the underworld. With enough inquiries, they could always track them down.

Robin alone could not be found through inquiries. For that, they needed a little luck.

"Don't get your hopes up. Finding someone is much harder than gambling."

Baccarat rolled her eyes at him irritably, yet she still rose onto her toes, looped her arms around his neck, and kissed him.

Their soft lips met, and invisible luck passed through their contact.

In truth, sharing luck only required any kind of physical contact, but she had long grown used to doing it this way.

After a long while, their lips parted. Lucas brushed a finger over the corner of his mouth, chose a direction based on instinct, and sailed straight for the nearest island.

Half a day later, the ship reached shore.

The island's largest force was called the Black Claw Gang. It controlled the casino and brothels near the docks, having bullied the locals for years as the island's tyrant.

In a private room on the second floor, the gang leader was drinking with two prostitutes in his arms.

The moment Lucas entered, several thugs immediately surrounded him, malicious grins on their faces.

"Where did this pretty boy come from? Do you know the rules? Did you announce yourself before coming in?"

The burly man at the front weighed an iron club in his hand, his gaze lingering greedily over Baccarat without the slightest attempt at concealment.

Lucas raised a hand. An invisible force field spread out, and before the thugs' savage grins could fade, their movements suddenly froze.

They could clearly feel it: the blood in their veins seemed to have been seized by an invisible hand, violently surging against their bodies as it tried to burst free.

Thump, thump.

A series of dull impacts rang out. The hulking men collapsed in unison, their skin shriveling and sinking as wrinkles crawled across their faces. They became gaunt, mummified corpses.

All their blood was drawn out through their pores, gathering in the air into a thin crimson stream before slowly flowing into Lucas's fingertips.

Previously, controlling blood required either physical contact or a blood pool to serve as a conduit.

Now, however, he could combine manipulation of the trace iron elements in blood with blood control itself, allowing him to draw blood from afar. The efficiency had increased by more than double.

A deathly silence fell over the casino. Everyone stared wide-eyed at the scene beyond their comprehension.

The gang leader on the second floor violently shoved away the women in his arms and pulled out a flintlock pistol, aiming it downstairs.

"Who the fuck are you?! Do you know whose territory this is?!"

Splat, splat.

The gang leader's blood erupted uncontrollably from his body, spreading outward from his heart. It formed vicious blood spikes across his skin, making him look like a red sea urchin.

His body stiffened in place before he toppled straight off the second floor. He crashed onto a gambling table, rolled onto the floor, and the blood spikes turned into streams that completely left his body, reducing him to a mummy just like his subordinates.

Only then did the remaining lackeys come to their senses, screaming as they rushed for the exit.

Lucas did not move. He merely curled his five fingers slightly, and everyone who was running stopped at once. Blood flowed out through their pores, and clutching their chests, they fell stiffly to the ground.

Baccarat stepped over the mummified corpses and skillfully pried open the vault.

"See? I told you, finding someone isn't that easy. We came here for nothing."

Lucas looked around and shook his head. Let alone Robin, there was not even a little girl in sight.

For the next stretch of time, Lucas relied on the intuition enhanced by luck and swept through island after island.

The gangs, pirate crews, and human trafficking dens of West Blue were all targeted one by one.

Baccarat counted money every day until her hands went numb, and the smile on her lips never faded.

Robin's whereabouts remained a mystery.

Lucas even began to wonder whether Robin had already been adopted by some ordinary family at this point in time.

It was not until the twenty-third day of this somewhat mystical search that things finally took a turn.

Following his instincts, he landed on a prosperous island and wiped out the largest gang hideout there.

Only after clearing the place out did he discover that the trembling fat man kneeling on the ground was actually Gambino Jason, one of the five major figures of West Blue's underworld.

The five major figures sounded intimidating, but in reality, they were nothing special.

In the original timeline, Capone Bege had managed to unify West Blue's underworld, which was enough to show what the other four were worth.

Bege himself was a notable figure in the Four Blues, but he would have been nothing special in the New World, let alone those whom even he could not suppress.

Lucas had not even activated Haki. Using blood control alone, he slaughtered all of Jason's subordinates.

Before coming here, he had not even known this was Jason's headquarters.

Luck truly was something mysterious.

Jason knelt on the floor and kowtowed desperately, his forehead already bleeding. He covertly glanced at Baccarat, who was counting Beli nearby, then quickly lowered his head again, plastering an incomparably fawning smile across his face.

"Sir! Spare me, sir! I know where Nico Robin is! The Child of the Devil! I've seen her with my own eyes!"

Lucas raised an eyebrow and walked over to him.

"Is what you said true?"

"It's true! Absolutely true!" Jason said rapidly, as if he had grabbed hold of a lifeline.

"It's the Child of the Devil with the Navy's 79 million Beli bounty! I know where she's hiding! I'll tell you, and you can turn her in for the reward! I only beg you to spare my life!"

"Seventy-nine million... You really are willing to sell her out."

A deep sneer appeared on Lucas's face.

That amount of money was enough to buy an ordinary Devil Fruit at an auction in Sabaody.

"If I'm dead, all the money in the world is useless, sir!"

Jason forced a smile, humbling himself into the dust.

"At least you know what's good for you."

"Talk. Where is she?"

"She's in the old warehouse district at the southernmost end of this island! She's hiding in an abandoned little building! My men ran into her just yesterday!"

Having received the answer he wanted, Lucas did not spare him another glance and called out.

"Let's go."

Baccarat answered, shut the last treasure chest, and followed him toward the door.

Just as the pair's backs had moved several steps away, a vicious gleam of resentment suddenly flashed through Jason's eyes as he knelt on the floor.

He quietly reached for the flintlock pistol hidden at his waist and raised it toward the back of Baccarat's head.

Even if he survived today, without subordinates or money, his days as one of the major figures were over.

He had offended countless enemies in the past, and sooner or later, they would come seeking revenge.

Either way, he was dead. He might as well drag someone down with him.

That man was too strong for him to touch. This red-haired woman, however, looked like an easy target.

If he was going to die, he would take someone with him.

Boom!

The instant the gunshot rang out, the flintlock pistol in Jason's hand suddenly exploded. Scalding fragments of the barrel tore into his face, and the tremendous recoil violently flung him to the ground.

The back of his head slammed heavily into the hard edge of a table, and his vision went black.

The chandelier above him was shaken loose and came crashing down with a clang. Sharp crystal shards happened to slice through his throat. Blood gushed out, staining the carpet beneath him red.

Jason's eyes bulged wide, and ragged wheezing leaked from his throat. Until the moment he died, he could not understand how he had met such a humiliating end.

TO BE CONTINUED