Ghost Princess

Yota sucked in a breath, then realized he had been a little too loud. Turning his head, he saw that Page One and Kyros wore much the same expressions. The three exchanged glances, their faces filled with mutual dread.

"This really is especially effective against men." Yota felt a chill between his legs, and his decision to reject Violet back then suddenly seemed wiser than ever.

"Scary, so scary, Miss Violet is terrifying. Come to think of it, I once wanted to see Miss Violet’s panties… She wouldn’t castrate me too, would she? Though I don’t have anything left to castrate. Yohohoho!"

After delivering that terrible joke, Brook only found the atmosphere growing even heavier.

In truth, let alone the three men present, even Ulti and Charlotte Pudding looked somewhat uneasy after seeing that slash.

Both of them were now wondering whether they had ever offended the seemingly gentle Sister Violet. If they had, they would need to be more careful in the future.

"Alright, leave this guy here," Yota said, barely suppressing his lingering fear. "Let’s continue looking for Gecko Moria and his subordinates."

"Violet, you saw the direction those Negative Hollows came from just now, right? Let’s capture that Hollow-Hollow Fruit user first."

Violet casually tossed away the knife in her hand, nodded calmly, and took the lead.

Yota and the others followed her toward a gloomy old castle.

"Strange, why has one Negative Hollow disappeared?" Inside the castle, a gothic girl with strangely contrasting black-and-white eyes, both adorable and eerie in appearance, counted the Hollows under her command and muttered curiously with her head tilted.

Just then, a swarm of bats flew in through her window. The lead bat began chittering as it reported the situation to her.

"Hmm, enemies have arrived?" Perona’s face lit up with delight.

"Horohorohorohoro! Are there new toys again?" Just like her appearance, Perona’s laughter fell somewhere between cute and creepy. Clearly, she still had no idea what sort of formidable opponents had arrived. She still thought they were fools like the pirates she had encountered before, playthings for her amusement.

"Hide my body first, horohorohoro! Then I’ll go play with them."

As she spoke, Perona found a secret room within her castle and lay down on a rather luxurious bed. Then, a Hollow identical to her emerged from her body and drifted through the wall.

Perona wanted to find Yota’s group and "play" with them, while Yota’s group wanted to find Perona. At that moment, they pushed open the castle gates and entered.

With a flutter, a swarm of bats flew out, but the increasingly irritated Ulti casually slapped several of them dead. The remaining bats immediately scattered in terror.

"Seriously. Other than bats and those weird animals, is there nothing that can come out and fight me head-on?"

The strange animals Ulti mentioned were all stitched-together creatures. According to Yota’s memories, they seemed to have been made by a genius surgeon under Moria’s command.

Naturally, such bizarre stitched creatures could not possibly frighten Ulti, who had grown up in Kaido’s zoo. Instead, she took an interest in them and gave them a brutal beating. Some of the weaker stitched animals had nearly been torn apart alive by her.

Unfortunately, Ulti soon discovered that these stitched animals only looked scary and were pitifully weak. Only then did she stop bullying the "little animals."

"Isn’t one coming now?" Yota raised his head and looked at a mass of white floating toward them in the distance. "That should be the Hollow-Hollow Fruit user’s Hollow."

"Hah! This time, I’ll blow them all apart!" Ulti immediately perked up, cracking her knuckles as she prepared to attack.

But before Ulti could make a move, the Hollows burst apart with a boom amid their giggling, sending the unprepared Ulti flying.

Fortunately, Ulti had covered herself in Haki to guard against the Negative Hollows. Even so, the blast left her dusty and disheveled.

"You damn bastard, all you know are these weird tricks! If you’ve got the guts, come out and fight me face-to-face!"

"Horohorohorohorohoro! Haven’t I come out?"

Accompanied by a burst of ethereal, eerie laughter, Perona emerged from the wall. Chuckling, she floated in the air and looked down at Ulti with a mocking expression.

"You bastard, die!" The moment Perona appeared, Ulti leaped into the air and transformed into her half-dragon form. Black Armament Haki covered her head as she viciously slammed toward Perona.

However, when Ulti’s Ulti Headbutt struck Perona, it passed through her as though she were an illusion, causing no harm at all. Instead, it smashed the wall behind Perona to pieces, showering Ulti with rocks and dust and making her look even more bedraggled.

"Damn it, what’s going on? Is she an illusion?" Ulti frowned slightly, then slashed several times in succession, but still failed to harm Perona.

"That isn’t her real body. It should be something like a soul," Violet said as she watched Perona. "Physical attacks and Haki don’t seem to have any effect on her."

"Hehehe, leave it to me." Charlotte Pudding stepped forward. Red light shone from her three eyes as they turned blood-red, and three tomoe appeared within them.

"How strange, three eyes. Are you trying to glare me to death?" Perona asked Charlotte Pudding with a giggle.

"Demonic Illusion—Sharingan!"

"Waaah!" Faced with the Sharingan’s genjutsu, Perona, who had been smiling just moments ago, let out a shriek. Blood streamed from all seven of her orifices, and her soul form then seemed to explode into a wisp of green smoke before vanishing.

Yota had not made a move. He had been quietly assessing the Hollow-Hollow Fruit’s power.

"Perona’s own spirit body differs from ordinary Hollows. It isn’t afraid of Armament Haki."

"But perhaps because it has no physical body to protect it, its resistance to mental attacks is much lower? She was severely injured by a single move."

Under normal circumstances, even if Perona had been struck by Charlotte Pudding’s Sharingan genjutsu, she would at most have been mentally weakened for a while and dazed for a dozen seconds.

But because Perona had foolishly used Soul Extraction and faced the Sharingan genjutsu without the protection of her physical body, her soul should have suffered grievous damage this time. She had probably already fallen unconscious.