Sure enough, he was wanted

A figure flashed into existence in the inn room. It was Dimon.

When Cracker attacked, he had used Close-Up Storyboard on his temporary lodging so he could teleport back if necessary.

The derived ability Close-Up Storyboard was actually easy to understand.

In some movies, at a critical moment in a duel between two people, someone always appeared in the fight out of nowhere to save the protagonist from an otherwise unavoidable injury. Their speed was practically indistinguishable from teleportation.

That was how Close-Up Storyboard worked.

"The ability is convenient, but it consumes quite a bit. I have to maintain a storyboard at all times."

Dimon snapped his fingers and dismissed the storyboard in the room.

Then he took off his cloak and mask and hid them under the bed again. Once he was done, he sensed something.

"Broken already? As expected of Garp."

Dimon looked southeast, his gaze seeming to pass through the walls of the room to the warship far out at sea.

He shook his head slightly, unconcerned.

Devil Fruit abilities had limits, and that was as far as the Storyboard Fruit could go. Even at one hundred percent development, it couldn't completely trap a top-tier powerhouse who had mastered Conqueror's Coating.

After all, sealing off space wasn't its core ability, just a derived one.

A Paramecia Barrier-Barrier Fruit, on the other hand, specialized in defense. Once its ability was fully developed, it could theoretically trap Garp until he died of old age.

But that didn't matter. He had already achieved his goal.

Garp wouldn't be able to land on the island for a while, giving Samael and the others enough time to get everyone away.

"Ain."

"I'm here, master."

"How are Samael and the others doing?"

The answer came in the form of an image in his mind.

In it, Ship Zuizui had already carried Samael away from the coast of the Sabaody Archipelago and was sailing toward the depths of the sea.

Samael threw the unconscious, gravely injured Cracker into the punishment room.

Inside, Lola, a fellow prisoner, was stunned to see someone she knew.

"Cracker! You... you defeated one of the Sweet Commanders?"

"This brat was weak. Some Four Emperors officer he was. I barely made a move, and that was already all he could handle."

Samael gave a strange laugh, took the form of a ghostly face, and moved close to Lola.

"Heh heh heh, woman, I'll unlock your shackles now. How about you do me a favor?"

"What do you want?"

Lola had spent several days with him and had already figured out his personality.

He had a terrible temper and had to be handled gently. The only one who could make this flame freak obey was probably the master she had never met.

"It's simple. There's a pair of seastone shackles on the ship. Help me put them on this guy."

"..."

For a moment, Lola didn't know what to say.

As his younger sister, she was supposed to put seastone shackles on her defeated older brother herself. After that, was she going to be told to tie herself up too?

Damn it, what a bastard!

"I can do that, but could you save him? Cracker's injuries look serious!"

"Don't worry. I'm kindhearted. Why would I let him die?"

Samael agreed readily. He still had to use his new captive to extort Big Mom, so of course he wouldn't let Cracker die.

Only then did Lola breathe a sigh of relief.

Though this bunch of religious freaks meant her no good, their objective was clear, and they hadn't mistreated her during her captivity. As long as she didn't try to escape, her safety was assured.

She just didn't know how Mama would react when she heard the news...

Chapter 41: Sure enough, he was wanted

In the end, Cracker's younger sister put the seastone shackles on him with her own hands, sealing his Devil Fruit ability.

Samael kept his word.

Even though he thought that, given Cracker's physical constitution, he wouldn't die so easily without treatment.

The treatment was simple. He went to the storeroom, poured half a glass of Longevity Wine, diluted it tenfold with water, and finally had Lola feed it to him.

Longevity Wine was essentially life force. It couldn't truly heal injuries, but replenishing a wounded person's life force allowed them to slowly heal on their own.

"Does this medicine really work?"

"Either way, he won't die."

Samael yawned and said lazily, "I'm going back to sleep. Tie yourself up. Ship Zuizui, keep an eye on her for me."

A mouth appeared on the wall and cursed angrily:

"Samael, you bastard! Do you know I almost died just now? It's all because you used your ability recklessly! I'm telling on you! I'm telling master!"

"Don't talk nonsense!!"

Like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, Samael bristled and shouted, "I controlled the blast radius and deliberately avoided you! It's one thing not to thank me for my kindness, but now you want to tell on me!?"

"You scared me, you know that? Hmph, you're dead, you stinking flame!"

"Great and wise master, I, Samael, beg you to forgive the tiny, insignificant mistake I have made..."

Thump.

Samael conjured a pair of long legs out of flames and dropped to his knees on the floor, clasping his hands in prayer toward the sky.

Ship Zuizui cried out and hurriedly spoke to the air:

"Great and wise master, please don't listen to his excuses. He wanted to kill me! Boo-hoo-hoo, your most devout and loyal servant, Ship Zuizui, almost never got to see you again."

Beside them, Lola, who had been about to tie herself up, stared at the ridiculous scene in astonishment.

Just how terrifying was their "master" to make them this scared?

At the inn.

Dimon cut off the image without responding to the two fools.

Now that Charlotte Cracker had been captured, all he had to do was wait and let things play out.

He didn't believe Big Mom wouldn't be anxious. If she had what it took, she could keep sending people!

As long as he stayed in the Sabaody Archipelago, Big Mom herself wouldn't dare come over lightly. If she really did dare, the World Government probably wouldn't mind staging a new version of the Paramount War.

Dimon put himself in Charlotte Linlin's position and considered what she might be thinking.

"If she keeps sending people, the next one will probably be him..."

The Charlotte Family's greatest masterpiece, a man with a bounty of over one billion, the foremost of the Sweet Commanders, Charlotte Katakuri.

Katakuri alone would actually be manageable, but after this defeat, if there really was another clash, they would surely send more than one or two people. He would probably have to face many of the Charlotte Family's strongest members.

Still, it didn't matter. Everything was going according to plan.

"Big Mom can wait. First, let's check on Garp."

With that thought, Dimon strolled onto the balcony, poured himself a cup of coffee, and sat down comfortably in a chair.

"Ain, keep an eye on Garp."

"Yes, master."

Garp and Bogard eventually rescued all the marines who had been knocked unconscious by Conqueror's Haki.

After waking them, the warship resumed its journey to the Sabaody Archipelago.

Before long, the warship reached shore.

Leaving some marines to guard the ship, Garp took the rest straight to Area 3.

As the heart of the Lawless Zone, it was a place the marines never set foot in under normal circumstances. When the many pirates gathered there saw Garp, they scattered as far as they could, like cats seeing a mouse.

"What the hell? Why is the marine hero here?!"

"Shh! Run! If he sets his sights on you, you're finished!"

"I heard there was a huge commotion at the black market here last night. It might have something to do with that."

The pirates fled in all directions. At that moment, the Lawless Zone was more peaceful than the inn district.

Garp picked his nose, utterly uninterested in the small-time pirates and in no mood to bother with them.

Once he spread out his Observation Haki, he quickly located his target.

Near the No. 3 Yarukiman Mangrove, Garp and his group met the local marines.

"Vice Admiral Garp!" The squad leader immediately saluted and said excitedly, "You've finally arrived!"

"Where's Shuga?"

"Vice Admiral Hyuga is missing. We didn't dare approach the black market recklessly."

Only then did Garp look at Mammon. A cube sealed off the space, trapping Mammon and Ed inside.

Ed had already woken up. When he saw Garp, he waved his arms and shouted something excitedly.

Garp laughed. "This thing really is hard to break. I hear you can't even use Haki, so it's only natural you got trapped."

With that, he threw a punch.

The blow, wreathed in Conqueror's Haki, shattered the storyboard space in an instant.

Compared with the space that had sealed him in earlier, this one was much weaker.

"Vice Admiral Garp."

Once free, Mammon spoke gravely, following the rehearsal from the previous night:

"Vice Admiral Hyuga fought Evil Child Knox at the auction, and his whereabouts are currently unknown. As the rest of us were withdrawing, we were attacked by a mysterious man who called himself Big Eye.

"While protecting Colonel Ed, I was careless and got sealed in here by him. Before he left, he also killed two of our comrades."

As he spoke, he pointed to the place where Dimon had used his Awakening technique the previous night.

Garp followed his gaze. The ground in that area was deathly pale, and there was nothing there.

"Where are the bodies?" Bogard looked puzzled. "Even if they fell in battle, we need to take their bodies back for burial."

"They disappeared."

"Disappeared?"

Mammon nodded. "They were erased out of thin air."

Bogard wanted to ask more, but Garp waved a hand. "We can discuss the details when we get back. First, find Shuga."

On the inn balcony.

Dimon silently watched everything.

He had cleared the first hurdle. For now, Garp didn't suspect Mammon.

He had deliberately tried to stop Garp from landing earlier partly to buy Samael time to retreat, and partly to show his face and focus the marines' attention on the Seven Deadly Sins, clearing away some potential suspicion of Mammon in advance.

After all, even Garp had been trapped by him for a while. Wasn't it perfectly normal for Mammon, a rookie marine who hadn't yet mastered Haki, to be trapped?

"I'm probably going to be wanted next."