A man wearing a headscarf and sporting a pencil mustache charged through the gaps he had cut open, each step landing precisely on clean ground cleared of mucus.
The long blade in his hand kept swinging, its slashes plowing open the sticky road ahead.
His target was clear-the bloated figure hiding behind the mucus, feigning panic.
"D-don't come over here... I'm just a useless Devil Fruit user..."
Trebol cried out in a shrill voice as he squirmed backward, secreting more translucent mucus in an attempt to block his attacker.
At the last moment, the mustached captain abruptly stopped and leaped sideways.
Almost simultaneously, a great mass of mucus erupted like a fountain from the spot where he had been about to step.
Had he been half a step slower, that gelatinous mass would have engulfed him.
There really was a trap.
Without stopping, he slid along the edge of the newly risen mucus wall, a layer of deep black already coating his blade.
Behind the wall, Trebol's face, filled with "astonishment,"
faced him directly.
Now!
The long blade thrust forward with resolute force, aimed at his opponent's heart.
Whatever strange ability he had, a blade coated in Armament Haki could pierce any defense.
The tip sank unimpeded into the chest beneath that gaudy coat.
But the mustached captain's expression instantly changed.
It felt wrong.
Too light, too soft. There was none of the resistance or jarring sensation of piercing flesh.
He had fought in the New World for years and killed countless people with his blade. He could never mistake that sensation-he had not stabbed a human body at all!
He tried to withdraw his blade, but something seemed to have clamped down on it, holding it completely still.
That single instant of hesitation was all it took.
The mucus