Is There a Proper Doctor Here?

Xiluo watched the sky-blue Flying Slash sweep across the twilight, obliterating the bloody blade, and sighed in amazement.

"Come on, show me your true strength! It's useless to say anything if you can't beat me!" Wude turned around, holding his blade horizontally before him, his gaze as sharp and intimidating as steel.

"As long as my blood doesn't run dry, my blade will not stop," Xiluo said, pulling another gourd from his waist and releasing blood.

The red liquid flowed out, eerily transforming into a long sword.

Without pausing, Xiluo opened yet another gourd and manipulated the blood into a saber.

Wielding a sword in one hand and a saber in the other, he hurled the weapons straight at Wude.

Swish! Swish!

The blade and saber tore through the air, and Wude swung his sword, fiercely unleashing a sky-blue Flying Slash.

The sky-blue Flying Slash was about to meet the blood sword and blood saber when the bloody weapons suddenly burst, transforming into scattered volleys of blood arrows.

Some of the blood arrows were obliterated by the slashing wave, but a portion evaded it and shot forward.

Wude stood his ground, and Kuroh's figure materialized, stepping in front of him.

The black wings beat fiercely, whipping up a violent gale that batted away the incoming blood arrows.

Xiluo looked warily at Wude and the empty space in front of him. "What was that? You actually have a helper, how despicable!"

"You can think of it as a part of me, and also my ability; it doesn't count as a helper." Wude stood alongside Kuroh, smiling as he watched his opponent.

"I see. Then let's call it a draw." Xiluo's eyes widened, though he still could not see any entity beside Wude.

Under intense emotional distress, ordinary people might indeed see an IBM, but clearly Xiluo's emotions were not as intense as someone facing death.

Finding nothing, Xiluo hurriedly retreated, turned around, and left.

He hadn't had the upper hand against just Wude; fighting an invisible entity on top of that made him feel that winning wasn't even the question—he would likely lose his life.

He had originally thought his own ability was bizarre and terrifying enough, only to run into an even weirder fellow.

"Don't leave! Didn't you have that ability where whoever you glare at kneels?" Wude quickly chased after him. "Let me witness it."

"Another day!" Xiluo glanced back at Wude with an ugly expression and ran away without looking back.

Beneath the night sky, two grown men ran one after the other, one fleeing and one pursuing.

Wude was far too curious about the glare-and-kneel ability; he really wanted to witness it.

Yet Xiluo seemed to be avoiding the matter entirely, refusing to mention the "glare-and-kneel" trick and desperately trying to shake Wude off.

"I have no interest in your sister. Is it really that hard to just have a fight with me?"

"You..." Xiluo's expression changed drastically. "Goodbye!"

He felt that if he didn't run now, his life would be forfeit. This guy was a sword maniac.

"Don't run!"

"Stop chasing me!"

Midnight.

Xiluo leaned against a wall, clutching his chest as he panted wildly, coughing up blood incessantly.

Because of a problem with his ability research years ago, his body already harbored hidden ailments, and being chased for half the night by that sword maniac had nearly cost him half his life.

"Th-this bastard, cough, cough..." Sweat poured down Xiluo's face like rain, his clothes drenched through, and he coughed up so much blood that his hands were stained completely red. He slumped exhaustedly next to a pile of garbage.

"Oh my, what's wrong with my dear brother?"

At the end of the alley, a slender figure strode over. Daisis squatted down, reached out, and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe the blood from her brother's face.

"Sister, I don't think he's right for you," Xiluo said, looking up. "He's dangerous. That's my intuition."

"My brother's intuition is usually accurate, but I'm not listening." Daisis covered her mouth with a light chuckle. "He's handsome, and he's stronger than my brother, too."

"There are plenty of people in this world who meet those criteria." Xiluo sank his face in displeasure.

"Yet, he's such a gentleman—not a flirt, considerate of girls, and harbors a gentle heart beneath his cold and aloof appearance..." Daisis's hair fluttered as she tilted her head, propped her chin in her hand, and smiled brilliantly.

"You've lost your mind. He's a marine; it's completely impossible for him to associate with scum like us," Xiluo frowned, trying to persuade his sister.

"Ah, wasn't it you, brother, who led me down this path? I lost my mind long ago, I don't care anymore." Daisis rubbed her blushing cheeks. She had spent the entire day secretly observing that man's every word and action.

Wude's views on women, shared with the courtesan and Xiluo, were all engraved in her heart. Every time she heard one, her heart thumped and accelerated its rhythm.

Daisis felt that she had fallen in love.

"I want so badly to possess that perfect man, mm..." Daisis bit her lips tightly, sinking morbidly into bashful infatuation.

"This is a sickness," Xiluo wiped his sweat.

Meanwhile, Wude had returned to the ship and whipped up a simple portion of fried noodles to replenish his energy.

Simple indeed, considering it was a small basin's worth of fried noodles...

Little did he know that at this moment, a female criminal suspected of being a lunatic had already set her sights on him.

The next day.

As the sky grew faintly bright, Wude yawned and rubbed his sleepy eyelids as he walked out of the cabin. Overnight, those tools of his hadn't returned.

"That fellow named Xiluo definitely doesn't have Conqueror's Haki."

"Moreover, this island is strange."

Wude sat on the beach to rest, looking up at the sun in the sky.

It wasn't until noon that those henchmen swaggered back, claiming the pleasure district had treated them for free.

Wude nodded on the surface, but suspicion was already rising in his heart.

A free night at the pleasure district? The excuse was absurd.

Because he saw a hesitation in his henchmen's eyes that hadn't been there before.

"Go investigate and find out what's really going on." Wude stood up, left the beach alone, and headed toward the town.

Earlier, when he casually asked his henchmen a few questions, these fellows had stammered and stuttered. Something fishy was going on.

Walking along, Wude suddenly recalled the absurd scene from yesterday.

Pirates abandoning their captain without any reason.

"Beneath the gentleness lies a trap that stabs people to death. It seems my worry wasn't redundant."

Arriving in town, Wude waved away the "skilled" women who swarmed around him, surveying the red-light district and observing what felt wrong.

He wandered around the town in circles, observing carefully.

"I haven't gone crazy, I'm telling the truth! Don't eat this food, whoever eats it is doomed sooner or later, ahahaha!"

Just at that moment.

A disheveled, haggard man with mud all over his face and tattered clothes came running all the way. He grabbed meat from a vendor's stall and slammed it onto the ground with a slap.

The wind blew his ragged clothes, revealing a gaunt frame of protruding bones.

"Friend, run! Hahaha, you can only survive by eating grass roots!" The madman laughed crazily at Wude as two doctors dragged him away.

"Apologies, this fellow is utterly dissolute and has contracted that kind of disease, causing you trouble." A female doctor stood before the stall owner to apologize, then turned and left.

Wude lowered his head to look at the meat on the ground, deep in thought.

He followed right behind them.

What a joke. He had scoured this entire island, and besides the pleasure district, there was nothing else—not even a medical room or clinic. How could there be a proper doctor here?

Wasn't the suspicion painfully obvious!