My Great and Wise Lord, I Pray to You... / Wonderful, Praise My Lord!

Dimon: ???

I do care, I care a lot, you little brat!

Looks like I'll have to assign him an aide in the future, so he doesn't forget his actual job when I send him out on a mission.

He did not rush to stop him. This time, he would let Samael do as he pleased.

In front of the Gothic castle.

Moria's face was livid. His opponent was determined to hound him, but he was no pushover.

"Damn it, don't get carried away!"

With an angry shout, Moria's exposed onion-shaped head turned back into a black shadow and quickly slipped into the shadows.

Samael sneered. "What are you trying to do, hiding in my shadow? Tsk, tsk, shadows have nowhere to hide before divine fire!

"Face the light of day, idiot!"

Boom!

The flames around Samael blazed brilliantly, releasing boundless light like a scorching sun.

The shadow that should have been cast on the ground vanished in an instant, forcing the Doppelman hidden within it to reveal itself.

"Kyahahaha... That's a clone, isn't it? A shadow clone? One that can instantly swap places with the original?"

Samael burst out laughing, his voice dripping with contempt. "Don't think a move like that is your specialty. Flame clones!"

As a Logia, creating clones was a basic skill. Any Logia could do it.

If someone couldn't, it meant the person who ate the Logia Devil Fruit was too much of a good-for-nothing to reach Awakening.

At that very moment, Samael exploded.

It was an explosion in the literal sense. His body scattered into flames that filled the sky, each flame a clone. The countless flame clones covered nearly everything within a thousand meters.

Moria's real body hid among a forest of dead trees, his round form concealed by an enormous dead tree.

When he saw the flames spreading rapidly toward him, his expression sank.

"Damn it, this is definitely no ordinary Logia! The Seven Deadly Sins? I've never heard of that organization. A pirate crew? Or what? Where the hell did they come from?!"

He quickly recalled the unlucky people he had captured recently, but none of them had been worth special attention.

Still, it was too late to think about that now. That flame maniac had no intention of stopping.

At that thought, Moria began to consider retreating.

It seemed he couldn't beat his opponent, but if he fled and abandoned this lair, it would mean leaving behind the Zombie Army he had spent years creating. He would have to start all over again.

How could he allow that?!

He still had to gather enough strength to take revenge on Kaido of the Four Emperors!

"Damn bastard...!" Moria gritted his teeth. After thinking it over, he decided to retreat first. "I'll leave these zombies here for now. I don't believe you'll stay..."

Here forever.

A sudden development interrupted the rest of his thought.

At some point, a wisp of ghostly green fire, no bigger than a firefly, had appeared behind him.

"Found you, human!"

"What?!"

Moria's pupils contracted. He whipped around and saw a speck of ghostly green flame gradually swelling into a human face.

A mocking smile hung on its lips.

"Doppelman Exchange!"

Without the slightest hesitation, Moria activated his ability and swapped places with his clone.

His color faded, and he became a pitch-black shadow.

The next instant, the face of ghostly green flame exploded, and a towering blaze engulfed a stand of dead trees.

Meanwhile.

Near the Gothic castle.

The Doppelman turned into Moria. The first thing he saw was the enormous explosion rising in the distance, and a drop of cold sweat appeared on his forehead.

"What a nuisance! My attacks can't hit him, and he can find my real body..."

The moment he finished speaking, countless specks of ghostly green light appeared out of thin air around him.

Moria trembled, horrified.

The ghostly green specks twisted rapidly into grimacing faces. They all opened their mouths at once, laughing at him without restraint.

"Kyahahaha... Let's see where you run this time! Go on, run! Try it again! I'm only just starting to get excited, so hurry up and entertain me, you foolish human!"

"Wait... wait!"

Moria gritted his teeth. "You're looking for someone, and I'll give them to you. There's no grudge between me and your Seven Deadly Sins!"

Before today, he hadn't even known such an organization existed!

"That's true," the ghostly green faces said, nodding solemnly. Then their tone abruptly changed, and they snorted, "But you've annoyed me. Will-o'-the-Wisp Hellfire!"

Boom, boom, boom!

The ghostly green faces suddenly swelled into flame-wreathed fiends from hell. Dozens, even hundreds of them opened their enormous mouths and lunged with ferocious grins at Moria, who was surrounded at the center.

"Doppelman Exchange!"

Moria activated his ability again.

But he was still a fraction too slow.

After seeing the same move used repeatedly, Samael had seized that fleeting opportunity.

An earth-shaking explosion erupted. Flames blotted out the sun, and green fire roared. Even the ground caught fire. The place seemed to have become the heart of a volcano, its scorching heat melting everything.

Boom!

A long while later, when the green flames gradually subsided, most of the Gothic castle was history, melted by the intense heat into magma.

Not only that, even the ground had turned crimson. Streams of magma lay exposed to the air like the earth's veins, refusing to dim for a long time.

Meanwhile, in the forest of dead trees.

Moria was covered in blood, half his body scalded to reveal raw, crimson skin.

He knelt on the ground, both hands planted before him as he gasped for breath, his eyes filled with terror.

He had nearly been killed!

"Tsk, you're pretty hard to kill, kid."

Suddenly, a wisp of ghostly fire appeared above his head and transformed into Samael in the blink of an eye.

He formed a pair of arms and folded them across his chest, completely at ease. "For a human, you're pretty strong. Get on your knees and be my dog, and I'll spare your life."

"Hee-hee-hee-hee... cough, cough, cough."

Moria tried to laugh, but it aggravated his wounds and sent him into a fit of coughing. He raised his head, not a trace of submission in his eyes, only mockery:

"Eat shit, idiot!"

Samael's mouth twitched, and he immediately struck out with one palm. His small hand grew as it swept forward, becoming the hand of a fire god in an instant.

The enormous palm slammed down, but at that very moment, Moria vanished again.

"He still had the strength to use his ability?"

Samael stopped his attack and instantly transferred his consciousness to a clone.

Near the ruined castle, a face of ghostly fire surveyed the scorching ground in every direction, but there was no sign of Moria.

The Doppelman clone that should have been there had also disappeared at some point.

"Where is he?"

Samael froze for a moment, then angrily formed a hand and slapped himself hard.

Smack!

The ghostly face scattered, then quickly reformed.

"He ran? I actually let a human get away!!"

Samael stared in disbelief and muttered, "Oh no, Master won't blame me, will he...?"

The wind howled.

Ain's voice rang out from nowhere. "Master's order was to find a pirate named Lola. It had nothing to do with Moria from beginning to end. You acted on your own the whole time."

"Ah... is that so?" Samael scratched his head with an embarrassed laugh. He coughed and said quietly, "Ain, you didn't transmit what happened here to Master, did you? You didn't, right? Surely you wouldn't?"

"Master's been watching the whole time."

Samael shuddered. He immediately dispelled all his clones, pressed his palms together, and prayed to the sky:

"My great and wise Lord, that was just a little accident. I absolutely haven't forgotten my mission!"

"I beg you, please don't lock me up again!"

Dimon, who had silently watched everything, was speechless.

It was bad enough that the brat had gotten carried away fighting, but he had even forgotten the work he was supposed to do. Dimon would have to assign him an aide in the future.

Just then, Ain spoke again:

"Master says Moria was rescued by one of his subordinates, a Paramecia Clear-Clear Fruit user."

"The Clear-Clear Fruit?" Samael sounded displeased. "I'll remember that. Next time, I'll kill him first."

"Let Moria go. Find the person first." Ain sounded helpless. "I hope she wasn't caught up in your fight."

Chapter 25: Wonderful, Praise My Lord!

Whatever happened to Moria had nothing to do with this operation. As far as Dimon was concerned, it didn't matter whether he lived or died.

After Moria was rescued by his subordinate, Samael and Ain split up to search for Lola.

Ain, who had neither form nor substance, raised a great wind that swept across the island, while Samael took charge of the castle's interior.

Most of the enormous Gothic castle had been destroyed in the two men's battle, and what remained was in a similarly battered state.

Deep inside the castle, Samael found many corpses.

They were not fresh corpses, still warm from recent deaths, but bodies that had been dead for a long time, covered in stitch marks.

One of the corpses also had a sword.

"This sword is actually fine?" Samael was surprised. It had survived the earlier explosion intact, so it didn't seem to be an ordinary weapon.

"Bring it back."

Suddenly, a voice reached his ears. It was Ain, relaying their master's order.

Samael hurriedly picked up the sword, then rushed to declare his loyalty. "Master, rest assured, I'll definitely find the target."

He waited a moment, but received no response, so he could only resume his work dejectedly.

Once he had left the corridor, the corpses lying quietly on the ground got up one after another.

"Lord Moria was defeated!"

"Lady Perona and the others ran away too!"

"We should hurry and run too. If we stay here, who knows what might happen..."

The zombies spoke cautiously among themselves as they headed away from Samael.

One zombie with an iron bucket on his head accidentally kicked an oil lamp by the wall, making it clatter.