Batto Batto no Mi, Model: Vampire

Lucas stood before the temple gates, his fingertips brushing over the cold stone.

He had decided long ago which Devil Fruit he would eat in the future.

Either the Tori Tori no Mi, Model: Nue, or the Batto Batto no Mi, Model: Vampire sleeping within the temple before him.

The reason was simple: at this stage, there were only three unclaimed Mythical Zoans whose locations he knew for certain.

With the Nika Fruit excluded—since only Joy Boy's chosen inheritor could wield its full power, while anyone else who ate it would at most become an ordinary rubber person—he did not really have a choice.

Under normal circumstances, finding this place would require deciphering Ancient Poneglyphs scattered across the Grand Line, piecing together fragmented clues, and surviving layer upon layer of mechanisms and traps.

Who could have expected Golden Lion's attack to smash him straight to the finish line?

Sometimes, luck itself was a form of strength.

Suppressing the stir in his heart, Lucas stepped into the temple.

A thousand years of silence were shattered by his footsteps, hollow echoes reverberating through the corridor.

Unexpectedly, there were no mechanisms here, nor were there any guards.

Deep within the temple lay an enormous circular hall.

At the center of the hall stood a solitary black stone sarcophagus. There were no carvings or words on it. Its surface was smooth as a mirror, radiating an icy chill.

Lucas walked over and felt around the sarcophagus, but found neither a switch nor a seam.

He pushed hard with both hands, yet the stone lid did not budge.

Raising an eyebrow, Lucas planted his feet deep into the hard stone floor. The muscles in his arms bulged, veins twisting beneath his skin like furious dragons.

"Crack—"

A dull sound echoed through the hall. The impossibly heavy stone lid was forced open by a narrow crack.

Lucas exerted himself and shoved the stone lid aside.

At the bottom of the sarcophagus lay a strange fruit in silence.

Its skin was a deep purple like congealed blood, covered in rings of spiraling black patterns. Even from several meters away, he could sense its cold, sinister, yet vibrant aura.

Zoan: Batto Batto no Mi, Model: Vampire.

Lucas picked up the fruit, blew away the dust, and took a huge bite.

As the sun set, golden afterglow cast a warm golden rim over Toransu Town.

Lucas returned to the inn.

During dinner, he asked casually:

"I saw quite a few outsiders coming and going on this island. Why has that temple remained so well preserved?"

Adoya bit down on her fork and said as if it were only natural:

"There's just a broken stone coffin inside. The lid is heavy as hell—more than a dozen people couldn't move it. There's nothing there but rocks, so who would bother going there?"

Lucas decisively shut his mouth.

Only then did he realize what a stupid question he had asked.

The stone lid he had only barely managed to push open with all his strength was an insurmountable gulf to ordinary people.

Fortunately, that was the case.

Kaido, Big Mom, Whitebeard, Loki, Harald... any one of those monsters possessed strength that could crush the current him, yet none of them had happened upon this remote little town.

Otherwise, a Mythical Zoan Fruit capable of driving the entire sea mad would never have fallen into his hands.

After dinner, the two wished each other good night.

Lucas returned to his room, sat cross-legged on the bed, and felt the brand-new power within him.

He could clearly hear a cockroach crawling across the floor a hundred meters away.

This was a bat's gift: hearing sharper than that of humans.

He spent some time learning how to filter out the useless noise.

Just as he was about to sleep, the sound of chaotic footsteps and clashing weapons came clearly to his ears from an alley several hundred meters away.

"Revenge the boss!"

"Chop that meddling pretty boy into mincemeat!"

"Hehe, that chick with glasses is pretty hot. We'll grab her and bring her back so the brothers can have some fun!"

Obscene words drifted over on the wind.

Lucas opened his eyes, a trace of icy killing intent flashing through them.

They really didn't know what was good for them.

He casually grabbed his pants and put them on, then walked bare-chested to the window.

His ears lengthened, his teeth sharpened, and his pupils turned blood-red. A pair of enormous black bat wings unfurled from his back. With a gentle flap, he flew out the window and vanished into the thick night.

Under the moonlight, over fifty pirates carrying steel blades were sneaking through the alleys toward the inn.

Savage grins covered their faces as they fantasized about the revenge and pleasure to come.

No one noticed the black figure silently watching them from the rooftops overhead.

Lucas hovered in midair, faint black mist swirling around him.

He opened his mouth and emitted a high-frequency ultrasonic wave completely inaudible to human ears.

Silent death descended in an instant.

The pirates at the front suddenly let out shrill screams, their steel blades clattering to the ground.

They clutched their stomachs and collapsed, their bodies convulsing wildly. Blood seeped from their seven orifices and every pore, quickly turning them into bloody figures.

In the blink of an eye, another dozen or so pirates fell in the same manner.

The rest were scared out of their wits. They wildly slashed in every direction with their blades, yet could not even see a shadow of their enemy.

"Ultrasound is really useful."

On the rooftop, Lucas stopped the sound, a wicked smile appearing on his face.

"I just wonder whether Busoshoku Haki can block this kind of attack."

There would be plenty of chances to test that in the future.

"Next, let's try the true power of a Mythical Zoan."

He spread his palm. Black mist churned above it and condensed into dozens of blood-red bats no bigger than fingernails. Like arrows, they shot toward the pirates below.

Screams rose one after another.

The blood-red bats landed on the pirates and frantically tore at their skin.

As the bats fed, the struggling pirates' hair rapidly turned gray before the naked eye, their skin shriveled and wrinkled, their muscles atrophied, and their eyeballs sank deep into their sockets.

Within a few breaths, living people became nothing but desiccated corpses wrapped around bones.

The blood and Life Energy within them turned into streams of red light that continuously flowed into Lucas's body.

A warm force spread through his entire body.

Lucas froze, then an incredulous ecstasy appeared on his face.

What those bloods contained was actually the purest Life Energy!

Based on his research over the past few years, his special physique was less about absorbing nutrients from food to strengthen his body and accelerate his recovery—

And more about Life Energy.

After all, vegetarian food had no effect on him.

This fruit had practically been made for him!

Lucas guided the Life Energy pouring into his body toward the hidden injuries that had yet to heal. His broken ribs made faint cracking sounds as his damaged organs repaired themselves at a staggering speed.

Before long, the injuries that had tormented him for days were completely healed.

Even his physique had faintly improved.

"What an unexpected bonus."

Feeling the unprecedented fullness of power within his body, Lucas's smile grew increasingly unrestrained.

After cleaning up the battlefield, he lightly flapped his bat wings and turned into a black streak of light, flying back to the inn.

TO BE CONTINUED

(PS: Let me explain the Vampire-Vampire Fruit's basic abilities in the game: blood-sucking, draining lifespan, generating black mist, and controlling bats.)

Those were its only abilities. The game did not even explicitly state whether Earl's transformation was a Hybrid Form or a Beast Form.

After all, vampires were generally imagined as humanoid creatures.

Thus, like Nika, the Vampire's Beast Form was vague. Nika was also a humanoid mythical creature.

This book additionally gave the Vampire-Vampire Fruit ultrasonic waves, super hearing, and blood manipulation. In any case, this thing probably would not appear in the manga's official canon, so its settings did not really matter.)