Loki Takes on the Rocks Pirates Alone 2

Bang! Bang, bang, bang!

At the enormous harbor, numerous pirates had gathered to watch the battle underway.

At first, no one took it seriously.

A member of the Giant Tribe? So what? Wasn't he still a kid? And who was his opponent? Blood Sword Mad Demon, a ruthless pirate who had been famous on the seas for years!

The man was said to be famous for torturing his enemies to death. When a battle ended, it was often not that his enemy had died, but that he had played with the corpse until it fell apart.

He had one defining trait: the sight of blood drove him mad. The madder he got, the more he wanted to cut people, and the more he cut, the more blood sprayed... until he went completely insane!

"Haaah!"

Mad Demon wielded his greatsword and tore savagely into Loki.

And "tore" wasn't just a figure of speech. The man really did use his mouth in battle!

Their weapons clashed for who knew how many times, and this time, Mad Demon opened his mouth wide and bit at the hand Loki held his iron club with.

As those excessively sharpened teeth sank into one of Loki's fingers, Loki's eyes bulged.

Even though he still wore his bandages, his eerie, devilish eyes seemed to show through the gaps.

"Bastard!" Loki roared. A burst of power suddenly surged through his body, and he grabbed Mad Demon and hurled him away.

Then he raised his hand to inspect it and found a piece of flesh missing from his right index finger, leaving it bloody.

The sight made him even angrier.

"So this is what giant meat tastes like? It's no different from ordinary human meat~"

Mad Demon got to his feet, seemingly none the worse for wear. His mouth was full of blood, and he was still chewing, his eyes glowing red and his face vicious.

Loki charged him, and they began fighting again.

Everyone else could tell that Loki had no technique to speak of. He was just swinging an iron club around like a madman.

That made sense. Growing up, most of Loki's fights had come from leading the Underworld's beasts to destroy villages. He had always fought using his natural brute strength.

Even so, when Loki was a newborn, he had survived falling from Elbaf's Sun World into the Underworld. On that first fall, he had even been able to kill the Underworld's beasts.

By the time Loki was ten, he had tamed the Underworld's beasts, and as a child, he had already been able to defeat adult members of the Giant Tribe.

Loki was now about twenty-three or twenty-four, basically still a child by the standards of the long-lived Giant Tribe...

"Die, die, die, die!"

In the blink of an eye, the battle changed dramatically.

At some point, Loki had knocked Mad Demon down. He planted a foot on him and raised and lowered his big iron club, repeating the motion over and over.

As the crater beneath his foot grew larger and larger, the crowd gradually fell silent.

Blood seeped out from the broken stone, forming a pool.

Where was Mad Demon? He was nowhere to be found. Even after Loki stopped, his opponent had already become a carpet of blood and flesh, one with the earth.

"He actually did it," someone said quietly.

"Looks like he still hasn't had enough. He's glaring at us," someone said with a derisive laugh.

"Who's going to avenge Mad Demon?" someone asked.

"Give me a break. Who'd do that? We're all just here to watch the show!"

The crowd had grown at some point. Perhaps word of what was happening had spread, bringing more people over.

"What are you doing?"

"Oh? You're here too? Come take a look!"

A tall man wearing glasses with an X over each lens walked over. His shirt and trousers bore axe emblems, and he carried an enormous axe on his back.

At the sight of him, Shiki visibly curled his lip and moved a little farther away, clearly not welcoming him.

Kyo, the man who would later be known as Silver Axe.

"So? Want to go up and give it a try? That guy's calling for strong opponents!" Ochoku egged him on.

"Maybe not. What if this guy goes up and gets himself killed by accident? The whole pirate crew would be laid out by a kid," Shiki mocked.

"Shut up, you balding yellow chicken!" Kyo shot back without hesitation. "Quit trying to stir things up!"

"What? You bastard, got a problem with my super cool, super badass, lion-like, Haki hairstyle?"

"No, I've got a problem with you!"

They had barely exchanged a few words before they started arguing, true to form as a pair of pirate enemies.

Just then, John suddenly put down his bottle.

Huh?!

Several people immediately turned to look. Even Shiki and Kyo stopped trading insults for a moment.

"Hey, hey, no way..."

"Are you serious? Careful, Kaya might kill you!"

"Huh? What's that supposed to mean? Who's killing who?"

"I just think it looks fun." John spread his hands, a pair of narrow eyes partly visible beneath his long, light-purple bangs.

He looked at Rocks and Kaya... or more precisely, at Kaya. "You don't mind, do you?"

"Do as you like." Kaya's expression didn't change.

"Then I won't hold back." John grinned, stuck both hands in his pockets, and staggered forward like a drunk.

A collective gasp suddenly rose from the crowd. The pirates who had packed the area so tightly opened a path of their own accord.

They said the shortest distance between two points was a straight line. John walked down the open path and soon approached Loki.

"Hm? Are you next?"

Loki flung a pirate who had been impaled on his iron club at John, his tone challenging.

John stopped, and the pirate's corpse landed at his feet. He glanced down and seemed to see something that made him recognize the man.

"Oh? This guy was one of that bastard Ganzui's men, wasn't he? Hasn't he come yet?"

John made the remark in passing, then stepped over the pirate's corpse and stood facing Loki.

Loki looked down at John from above. He was no fool, and he could sense the obvious change in the people around them after John appeared.

He took a closer look and asked uncertainly, "Have you been to Elbaf before? With Rocks?"

"Now, now, don't worry about that!" John spread his arms, his smile widening. "I only came out to play with you for a bit. Don't worry, let's just call it a way to pass the time. I won't kill you!"

"Damn it! Another person looking down on me!" Loki wasted no more words and attacked.

Bang, bang, bang!

But after Loki had brought his club down a few times, even he sensed something was wrong. Why didn't it feel like he had hit anyone?

Only when the dust kicked up by the iron club settled did he see John standing right beside it...

No! The man was leaning against the club, dozing off!

"Ah~ hah~" John yawned and lifted his eyelids. "Little Loki, did you just do something?"

"Bastard!" Loki pulled back his club and leaped into the air, using his weight to bring it crashing down again.

The ground itself burst apart under the blow!

Many of the watching pirates were secretly astonished by Loki's strength, and some noticed that he seemed to have grown stronger.

But it was still useless. Loki couldn't hit John.

"That idiot John is even using his Devil Fruit ability to play with a kid," Newgate said from the sidelines, having seen through it.

"Will Loki figure it out?" Rocks said with interest, though for no apparent reason, his thoughts turned to the wife and child he had sent back to their homeland.

At the thought, his fierce face softened a little, though he didn't notice it himself.

As John toyed with Loki, Kaya frowned slightly. He didn't particularly mind, but why was Loki still holding back?

"Loki, are you still not going to use your power...?"