Without turning around, he already heard the hushed cries:
"Where did he come from..."
"One touch and they drop... is he a monster..."
His right arm hung limply, and half his body still felt numb.
Yet an unprecedented clarity was seeping out of his marrow-the flow of air, the shifting of footsteps, even the rhythm of breathing had all become patterns he could touch.
So this was...
"Surround him-"
"Don't give him a chance to breathe!"
They had no idea who this one-armed boy was, but his act of dropping a whole swath of men the moment he landed had made his allegiance clear.
Besides, in chaos like this, even if he was a fighter from another ship, taking the opportunity to eliminate him would be no loss.
Several leaders shouted from among the crowd, and more figures closed in from every direction.
A few gazes among them were particularly sinister, their fingers quietly reaching for the weapons behind their waists.
The boy tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Pirates. Wasn't this just how they were?
Enemies surged into his vision like a tide, the figures with ten-million-Beli bounties standing out among the crowd.
Rossi leaned against the ruined wall, the corners of his mouth lifting.
In the past, this would have been the moment to figure out how to escape.
But now-
His figure blurred without warning.
Every pirate lunging at him froze at once.
Their fluid encirclement stiffened halfway through, as though an invisible hand had seized its joints.
Where was he?
Shhk.
The faint sound of something sharp piercing flesh came from behind one flank of the crowd.
At some point, Rossi had slipped behind a burly man, the broken blade he had casually picked up sinking precisely into the junction of the man's waist