Lafitte (Extra Chapter Thanks to a Big-Supporter Reward)

West Blue, Gerra Island, Karth Kingdom.

"Don't... stop! Let go of me!"

"Scream, scream all you want."

In the dim alley, a shifty-eyed man grabbed a woman's wrist and pressed her against the wall, a lewd smile plastered across his face.

"Crying out won't do you any good."

The woman's strength was worthless in front of an absolute difference in power, and tears rolled down her cheeks as despair tightened around her heart bit by bit.

"Heh-heh-heh!"

A chilling laugh drifted out from the shadows, and the perpetrator, on the verge of committing a crime, froze abruptly, every hair on his body standing on end.

He slowly turned his head to see an extremely tall man standing behind him at some unknown point.

A face so pale it was almost devoid of color, a black top hat pressing down over his brow and eyes, holding a cane in his hand, looking entirely like a ghost crawled up from a graveyard, tilting his head to look at him.

"My dear sir, you've broken the law, you know?"

"La, Lafitte..."

The criminal's teeth chattered; this name was synonymous with nightmare in Karth Kingdom.

This sheriff's law enforcement methods were shockingly brutal—those who stole had their hands broken, those who robbed had their legs broken, and even a mere verbal dispute would result in getting the skin stripped off one's back.

The criminals who died under his hands were too numerous to count.

"Knowing me, and you still dare to do something like this?"

The smile on Lafitte's face faded. "Knowingly breaking the law, and the crime is doubled, oh."

The cane whipped down with a whistling sound of wind.

"Crack!"

A crisp sound of bone fracturing rang out, and the criminal clutched his wrist, squatting on the ground, sucking in cold breaths from the pain as that single blow had actually snapped his wrist bone clean in half.

Lafitte leveraged his height advantage to kick out, striking the opponent square in the chest, and the criminal flew off the ground, crashing heavily against the wall.

Immediately following that, the cane sank downward, smashing fiercely right between the legs.

"Ugh!"

The criminal didn't even manage to finish his scream before his eyes rolled back and he passed out from the pain on the spot, blood rapidly soaking through his pants.

Lafitte disgustedly shook the bloodstains off his cane, turned to look at the woman standing dazed to the side, and stepped aside to clear the path.

"It's fine now. Go ahead."

"Th-thank you, milord!"

As if granted a pardon from heaven, the woman bowed deeply, lifted her skirt, and ran out of the alley without looking back.

Lafitte nodded slightly with satisfaction, treading the moonlight toward the residence outside the city. His leather shoes tapped against the stone path, making a monotonous clacking sound.

As he walked into the oak grove at the city gate, a chilling aura abruptly enveloped him.

"An enemy?"

Lafitte's thoughts raced as he instantly gripped his cane.

The number of people he had beaten and crippled was countless, and pooling money together to hire someone for revenge was entirely normal.

The black mist in the forest slowly dissipated, and moonlight pierced through the gaps in the branches and leaves, spilling onto the newcomer.

Silver hair, blue eyes, a tall and upright figure, wreathed in a faint aura of blood.

"Any interest in changing jobs and working for me?"

"Heh-heh-heh, Your Excellency jests."

Lafitte held his cane horizontally across his chest, muscles tensing. "I'm doing just fine as a sheriff, why should I leave with you?"

"You don't need to be so tense; this is a measure that only works on someone of the same rank."

The moment Lucas finished speaking, he vanished from his spot, reappeared in front of Lafitte, and flicked a finger.

Lafitte's pupils contracted sharply; just as he tried to raise his hands to block, an indescribable colossal force slammed directly into the middle of his cane.

The cane vibrated violently, the webbing between his thumb and index finger instantly split open, and fresh blood trickled down along the gaps of his fingers. Lafitte's tall physique staggered backward seven or eight steps before he barely managed to disperse the momentum.

His heart beat wildly; thin as he was, his strength had never been weak, or else it would have been impossible to break an adult's bones with a single cane strike.

Yet this person before him had nearly forced his weapon out of his hands using just a single finger.

This was simply not an opponent of the same caliber.

"Just how much longer can you keep being this sheriff? The people of this island are reaching the limit of their patience with you, aren't they?"

"Outliers will always be squeezed out; this is human nature. The day they feel they no longer need you to maintain order, you will be kicked out without hesitation. When that time comes, where will you even go?"

Lafitte fell silent. What the other party spoke of was the thought hidden deep within his heart; he wasn't born naturally so prone to violence.

When he was young, because of his pale skin and strange appearance, he was bullied, cursed at, beaten, and pelted with stones by all his peers—it was an everyday occurrence.

He had endured it, hidden from people, but what he got in return was only aggravated abuse.

Until one day, he reached his limit.

That day, he grabbed a wooden stick and broke the legs of every single child who had bullied him.

From then on, no one dared to curse at him anymore, and no one dared to touch him.

In everyone's eyes when looking at him, nothing remained except fear.

From that day onward, he understood a principle: if you didn't want to be bullied, you had to be more ruthless and more violent than everyone else.

Lafitte raised his eyes to look at Lucas, the initial vigilance in his gaze gone, replaced by a hint of scrutiny.

"What do you want me to do?"

"I heard you are proficient in hypnosis. Use your ability to help me integrate the criminal underworld of West Blue."

Acquiring money through mere robbery was ultimately a one-time deal that couldn't go far.

Lucas had long since set his sights on that fat piece of meat known as the God of Fortune Financial Group; Du Feld was old and crafty, and making him willingly spit out all his industrial secrets meant hypnosis was the most effortless method.

It was just that whether Lafitte's current standard was sufficient still remained a question mark.

Integrating West Blue would serve as a test.

If he couldn't even handle the small-time bosses of the Four Blues, there was no need to even mention the old foxes of the New World.

He had no interest in personally stepping down to play in such a low-tier game, so handing it over to Lafitte happened to fit.

"Heh-heh-heh, so that's how it is."

Lafitte tapped his palm lightly with his cane.

"Can you let me witness Your Excellency's full strength? Once I've witnessed it, I will naturally give you a satisfying answer."

"You might die."

"I've always had pretty good luck."

Lucas fished a special Rumble Ball out of his pocket and swallowed it.

The next second, his pupils abruptly transformed into a demonic, blood-red hue. His physique expanded and grew taller at a speed visible to the naked eye, his muscle lines rapidly turning fierce and smooth, sharp fangs piercing through his lips, and a pair of massive, blood-colored bat wings unfolded and spread from his back.

There was no excess bat fur on the surface of his body, only wisps of blood-colored mist lingering and churning.

This was the modified Vampire-Vampire Fruit · Hybrid Form.

Looking at Lucas, who now stood seven meters tall, Lafitte unconsciously took two steps back, his complexion finally changing.

The massive bat wings beat fiercely, and a violent wind rose from the ground, blowing Lafitte along with several thick trees around him into the air.

A pair of pristine white wings abruptly unfolded behind his back, flapping vigorously.

Just as Lafitte steadied his body, a streak of blood-red lightning flashed across his retina.

Lucas appeared before him, his index finger curved, and gently flicked it against him.

"Poof!"

A searing pain hit Lafitte's chest, and a mouthful of fresh blood spewed wildly outward.

His entire body, like a cannonball that had been blasted away, plummeted diagonally toward the ground.

"Boom!"

The earth shook violently, and dust shot into the sky. A massive crater more than ten meters in radius was smashed into the ground, spiderweb-like cracks spreading outward in all directions.

The guards at the city gate were alerted, running toward the area one after another with rifles in hand.

Lucas canceled his transformation, dropped back down to the edge of the pit, and lowered his gaze to look at the battered figure at the bottom.

"Give me your answer."

Lafitte propped himself up against his fractured ribs and climbed up unsteadily.

He raised his head, blood flowing from the corner of his mouth, yet his gaze held not a shred of malice, only a near-fanatical adoration and excitement.

He had searched for so many years, and he had finally found it.

Absolute violence worth following.

Lafitte pressed a hand to his chest, bowed slightly, and propped his cane against the ground, executing a standard salute of allegiance.

"Gladly at your service."

TO BE CONTINUED

(PS: Simply put, without eating the Rumble Ball, the protagonist's Hybrid Form will grow bat fur; eating it makes it disappear. Additionally, speaking of which, the "blue" in Rumble Ball isn't actually a color—no matter how you look at it, the one Chopper eats isn't blue.)