"Blood Spear" Logot

At Ashport's eastern harbor, a pirate ship lay moored by the shore, the flag of the Blood Spear Pirates snapping in the wind.

The flag depicted a blood-dripping spear piercing a skull, its crimson background looking as though it had been dyed with blood.

On the open ground beside the harbor, pirates sat around a bonfire, roasting unidentified meat on a grill. Fat dripped into the flames with a sizzling hiss.

A strange mixture of charred meat and blood hung in the air.

"Captain, we made a good haul this time!" a pirate said with a broad grin, scraps of meat stuck between his teeth.

"Those Marines should be here soon. Let's pull off another big one!"

"Hmph, the Marines of the West Blue..." A tall, lean figure, towering like an iron spire, sat on a reef rock. Old scars on his pale skin looked particularly hideous in the firelight.

He slowly raised a hand and stroked Blood Beak, the spear beside him that could be dismantled and reassembled. The barbs on its tip gleamed coldly.

"Nothing but a bunch of trash."

"Blood Spear" Logot wore a cloak pieced together from plundered Marine officers' uniforms. The rank insignia he had deliberately left intact glittered in the firelight.

A cruel smile curled his lips. "When they get here, I'll hang their leader's head on Blood Beak.

"Then the Marines of the West Blue will know I'm back! Hahaha..."

Suddenly, his laughter cut off.

For an instant, even the sea breeze went still.

The pirates around the bonfire sensed something amiss and looked up.

At the harbor entrance, a figure was slowly approaching.

It was a boy in a Marine uniform, a long blade wrapped in white bandages slung diagonally across his back.

When "Blood Spear" Logot saw the approaching Marine in the distance, a savage grin spread across his face.

"Heh... finally here!" But when his gaze fell on Gern's shoulder insignia, his smile abruptly froze.

"A w-warrant officer?! From a branch, at that?!

Seeing Gern's rank, Logot's expression instantly darkened, veins bulging on his forehead.

"Are you kidding me?!" He stamped his foot, cracking the reef rock beneath him.

"I'm 'Blood Spear' Logot, the man who fought his way back from the Grand Line!

"A great pirate with a sixty-nine-million-Beli bounty! And the Marines send a warrant officer to deal with me?!"

He laughed in fury, jabbing his spear toward Gern, his voice thick with outrage at the insult.

"Have the Marines run out of men?! Or..." His single eye narrowed, murderous intent boiling within it. "Do you think I'm not even a match for a warrant officer?!"

Hearing their captain's self-mocking words, the pirates burst into laughter, jeers rising one after another.

"Hahaha! Captain, looks like the Marines don't think much of you!"

"A mere warrant officer wouldn't even fill the gaps between our teeth!"

"Hey, Marine brat, did you come to the wrong place? This isn't a recruit training camp!"

Gern did not respond. He simply kept walking.

As Gern drew closer, a tall, thin pirate suddenly widened his eyes.

He stared hard at Gern's face, then abruptly grabbed the arm of the companion beside him, his voice trembling.

"Wait... that guy... on his back... a blade wrapped in white bandages!"

Logot shot him an impatient glance. "What? Scared out of your wits?"

The pirate swallowed, his voice shaking. "Captain! Th-that guy is 'Pirate Hunter' Gern!!"

"What?! What the hell is a Pirate Hunter?" Logot frowned.

The tall, thin pirate hurried closer and explained rapidly in a lowered voice. "Captain, this guy might have a low rank, but over the past year,

"He's wiped out sixteen pirate crews in the West Blue all by himself! He's an absolute Marine monster!"

"Last month, he took out the Golden Blade Pirates and 'Gold Tooth' Hawk, who had a twenty-three-million-Beli bounty!"

"And... I heard he actually received special training at Marine Headquarters, but his rank was held back because his methods were 'too extreme'!"

After listening to his subordinate's explanation, Logot narrowed his eye slightly and sized Gern up again.

"Oh? Interesting..." His lips curled once more, but this time, his smile held bloodthirsty excitement rather than contempt.

"Pirate Hunter Gern?" Logot narrowed his eye, his gaze settling on the warrant officer insignia on the boy's shoulders before he gave a mocking smile.

In the first half of the Grand Line, there were countless men with reputations like Gern's!

He was not afraid in the slightest.

Logot rose to his feet, his towering figure casting a broad shadow.

"Kid, you might have a bit of a reputation, but have the Marines run out of men? Sending a brat like you here to die?"

Gern did not answer.

His gaze swept over the pirates beside the bonfire, passed over the bloodstains on the harbor ground that had yet to dry, and finally settled on Logot.

"You're 'Blood Spear' Logot?" His voice was calm, yet sharp as a blade of ice.

Logot scoffed and lifted Blood Beak, pointing its tip at Gern. "What, you've heard of me?"

"So it looks like the Marines aren't looking down on me..." He slowly raised his spear, turning its tip as his voice sank low.

"They think you alone are enough to kill me?"

At their captain's fearless demeanor, the pirates roared with laughter. Some even whistled.

Faced with the Blood Spear Pirates' mockery, Gern remained expressionless. He slowly raised a hand, spreading his fingers with his palm facing upward.

"You massacred Ashport." His voice was quiet, as though he were stating an insignificant fact.

Logot froze for a moment, then burst into wild laughter, sweeping Blood Beak through the air in a crimson arc.

"Hahaha! Killing those lowlifes counts as a massacre?" He grinned, exposing stark white teeth, a sick excitement gleaming in his single eye.

"I was teaching them..." His spear stopped abruptly, its tip pointing straight at Gern.

"Out on the sea, the lives of the weak... aren't worth a damn!"

The chill in Gern's eyes sharpened at once.

"Then your life..." The air above his palm suddenly distorted.

Bzzzz!!! A mass of pure-white vibration particles danced, collapsed, and condensed in Gern's palm.

Blinding light burst from the surface of the glowing sphere, like a star compressed to its absolute limit.

Logot's laughter abruptly stopped.

"How much could it be worth?!" As the words left his lips, the muscles in Gern's arm tensed. In the next instant, he slammed his fist into the air beside him!

BOOM!!!!

Crack! Space shattered.

Centered on his fist, the air fractured like a mirror. Web-like cracks spread instantly, and a terrifying shock wave erupted in a fan, sweeping across everything in its path.

Crack! Crack! Crack!

The Blood Spear Pirates' ship moored beside the shore shattered into countless fragments in a thousandth of a second!

Planks, masts, nails, sails-everything was ground to dust. Even the seawater beneath the hull was blasted away, leaving an enormous hollow vacuum!

Whoosh! Seawater rushed back in, throwing up towering waves. The shattered wreckage was swept into the whirlpool and vanished in the blink of an eye.

The pirates' clamor instantly died.

A terrifying silence fell over the entire eastern harbor.

Logot's pupil shrank to a pinprick.

His ship and all his treasure... had been erased with a single blow.

Gern slowly raised his head. The blast tossed his black hair, revealing eyes cold enough to chill the bone.

"And..." His voice was soft, yet it struck Logot's heart like a heavy hammer.

"What you just said was wrong." Gern raised his hand and, for the first time, grasped the hilt of Black Blade: Eight Desolations on his back.

"It should be..." In an instant, the blade trembled, its high-frequency vibrations tearing through the air with a piercing buzz.

The bandages around Black Blade: Eight Desolations unraveled on their own, spiraling apart from hilt to tip. They turned into gray-white fragments suspended in the air, their edges flashing with arcs of high-frequency vibration.

Fully unleashed, the blade lay completely bare. Dark-red cracks blazed with dazzling light, and the entire weapon seemed like a savage beast awakening.

"I think you alone aren't enough for me to kill."