God’s Country, Asura’s Death

Bai Cangshu noticed that the Marine whose nasal bridge had been broken by a punch did not pursue him. The man merely hunched over dejectedly, and upon hearing the little girl mention Captain Corey, he slumped into the sewage in despair.

Following the little girl who called herself Cindy, the two wound through the dark underground tunnels for several minutes before arriving at a relatively dry, spacious passage.

The terrain here was higher, and something blocked the area above, preventing sewage from flowing down. Quite a few people were hiding in this passage.

Cindy said to Bai Cangshu,

"Big guy, we can talk here. The market is above us, and it’s usually really noisy. That person won’t be able to hear us here!"

Then, still somewhat frightened, she raised a finger and added,

"But you’d better not mention that person’s name, just in case… Heh."

Bai Cangshu tested his carbonized right hand and found that it was beginning to hurt. That was a good thing; it meant his bloodline was taking effect.

The bloodline adjustment from Secret Treasure: Cursed Blood Homology was not yet complete. He had not fully gained that rapid regeneration and immortality, but Bai Cangshu’s body was still not so easily killed.

Even if he took a full blast of Enel’s lightning head-on, so long as he was not dealt with afterward in some targeted manner, Bai Cangshu would most likely revive once the bloodline adjustment was complete. Even if he were chopped into pieces, as long as he was not completely carbonized and all his cellular tissue was not destroyed, Bai Cangshu would be difficult to kill.

At this moment, among all the abilities within Bai Cangshu, his survivability was actually the strongest.

The charred state of his right arm immediately drew the attention of the others in the passage.

"Ah, did another unlucky bastard piss that guy off?"

"Luckily, it’s only his right hand that got burned. He can still use his left hand to wipe himself from now on, unlike Old Hank."

One person spoke, and everyone else burst into laughter.

Almost everyone in this group was missing some part of their body. Some had lost hands, some legs, and some had part of their heads blackened.

It was hard to imagine how people like this had managed to survive.

It seemed that in the One Piece World, there was no shortage of people with extraordinary vitality and physiques.

The man being mocked had lost both hands. His hair and beard were a tangled mess, he was barely recognizable as human, and his clothes were in tatters. Standing at the bottom of the passage, he rose upon hearing their teasing, stepped into the filthy water, and shook his ass.

"No hands means no wiping. Just wash it!"

The crowd once again laughed so hard they slapped the floor.

This chaotic, foul-smelling environment seemed to have no effect on their moods at all.

The little girl laughed along with them. Clutching her stomach, she patted Bai Cangshu’s leg and said through tears,

"See, big guy? Be more optimistic. Don’t keep such a stiff face."

Bai Cangshu took a disgusted step back. The girl was covered in quite a bit of sewage, and even now, he was still not used to this kind of unprovoked kindness.

After everyone joked around for a while, the man sitting atop the enormous two-meter-square sewage outlet stood and walked toward Bai Cangshu.

The girl seemed somewhat afraid of him. Standing by Bai Cangshu’s feet, she covered her mouth with one hand and whispered,

"That’s Captain Olgins. They say he used to be a bounty criminal with a bounty of over eighty million Beli. He’s very strong… and very fierce…"

"Very smelly too…"

Cindy muttered under her breath. Bai Cangshu clearly saw the man with the messy blond hair twitch his brow.

"Cindy, if you want to talk badly about someone, you really ought to… keep your voice down."

Olgins’s voice was deep, like two stones grinding against each other.

His right hand was gone from the wrist down, and the end of his forearm still bore charred marks. He had probably been hit by one of Enel’s attack waves, though the injury was not too serious.

Cindy jumped in fright and instinctively hid behind Bai Cangshu. Her petite frame stood in stark contrast to Olgins’s nearly three-meter-tall body.

The moment Olgins stood up, the underground space immediately felt cramped.

"Kid, who are you? A Marine, or a One Piece?"

"Marine?"

"One Piece?"

Bai Cangshu raised his tone, his words dripping with mockery. He merely glanced at the people present and found that aside from Olgins, everyone else had fairly ordinary muscle development.

By Bai Cangshu’s estimate, they were only around two to three times stronger than ordinary people in the real world. In other words, they were even a little weaker than Bai Cangshu had been when he first entered the space.

Put more directly, if Bai Cangshu wished, he could kill everyone here except Olgins within ten seconds.

Bai Cangshu’s lowered gaze and faint killing intent were instantly caught by Olgins. He sneered and took another step forward, slightly raising his left hand.

"Lost an arm, and you still haven’t recognized reality?"

Cindy sensed the tense hostility between them and hurriedly set aside her fear, stepping between the two.

"No fighting here!"

"This is the secret base of Cindy, temporary special operations member of the G-51 Branch. No one is allowed to fight here!"

The girl glared at Bai Cangshu. When she saw that he did not react, she turned and glared at Olgins.

Seeing the girl force herself to stand in front of him despite her fear, Olgins caught sight of the Marines and One Pieces he had disciplined before watching him from the corner of his eye.

At last, he sighed and turned to sit back down.

Cindy let out a breath of relief. She had firmly remembered Captain Corey’s instructions before he left: save as many people as possible, rescue more people from that guy’s hands.

That way, one day, when he arrived with reinforcements, everyone could swarm together and defeat that… god…

Bai Cangshu was somewhat disappointed that Olgins had not fought him, but the girl seemed not to notice his terrifying thoughts. Instead, she relaxed and pulled Bai Cangshu over to the wall on the other side.

"Good thing Captain Olgins didn’t go crazy today. Big guy, you’re pretty lucky."

She then introduced Bai Cangshu one by one to the people hiding in her base.

There were formerly famous Bounty Criminals like Olgins, petty thieves like Old Hank, and Marines from different branches, like Chief Petty Officer Leo and Corporal Barnaby.

Yes, whenever Cindy spoke, she always defined herself as a marine soldier.

Bai Cangshu had actually already figured it out. The Captain Corey she spoke of most likely had not met a good end. Judging from the dejected Marine’s reaction upon hearing that name, Bai Cangshu believed that Corey had already died in some operation unknown to the girl.

But faced with that outcome, some had lost their courage and will, while others had begun laughing, cursing, and muddling through their days. Among everyone present, only the bounty criminal Olgins and the little girl Cindy still wanted to resist.

The difference was that Cindy pinned her hopes on the reinforcements Captain Corey would bring. She had secretly brought people who had survived lightning strikes here and hidden them away, while Olgins probably wanted to rely more on himself.

Amid the girl’s constant chatter, Bai Cangshu learned roughly how this world had developed.

At some point two years ago, islands fell from the sky, causing a terrible tsunami that killed more than several thousand people.

Then a Golden Ark descended from the heavens, and this place, originally named Skuld Island, was forcibly renamed God’s Country from that day onward.

During the first month, the island’s Public Order Officers, along with One Pieces passing through, were all killed.

After that, terrifying lightning could be seen descending from the sky almost every day. Spurred by the mounting death toll, the islanders began accepting their identity as citizens of God’s Country and treating those people with white wings on their backs as divine envoys.

The entire country fell under a reign of terror.

Some secretly contacted nearby Marines, but as warships sank one after another in the surrounding waters, everything here became shrouded in mystery. No one knew when higher-ranking Marines would arrive.

But poor Skuld Island had never been a member nation of the World Government, and now it was even less likely to become one. Even merchant ships coming to this region were few and far between.

Most citizens fell silent.

But a year ago, a new Marine force infiltrated the island in batches using small boats. After Captain Corey learned of the local situation, he promised to return with reinforcements and granted Cindy, who had lost all her family to Divine Punishment, the status of temporary special operations member.

Over the past year, Cindy had saved more than ten lives. She secretly hid these people in the sewers and cleverly used the fact that the market above overlapped with the underground space in terms of coordinates to truly conceal them.

As long as no one was foolish enough to say key words such as God Enel here, they could most likely survive safely. And given Enel’s self-image as a god, he would not waste time seeking out such minor figures. He would most likely leave it to his priests or even lower-ranking soldiers.

Looking at Cindy, Bai Cangshu understood that she was probably the arrangement the space had made for the reincarnators.

The normal mission flow in this world should have been for the reincarnators, who had suddenly appeared near the island, to gather information in a short time and, after learning of the Main Mission, realize that they had to unite. They would then clash with God’s Guard.

In the end, they would successfully enter the town, receive help from Cindy, the girl who had been watching outsiders all along, and gain a hiding place.

Unfortunately, due to the actions of certain reincarnators, a group of them had unleashed their full firepower directly on the beach. High-powered weapons and abilities were activated at once, and the excessive noise immediately drew Enel’s attention, resulting in a brutal encounter. That batch of reincarnators was almost instantly wiped out.

"Alright, big guy, rest here. That arm… I’ll find a way to steal some medicine down here!"

Cindy clenched her fists, though it was unclear whether she was encouraging herself or comforting Bai Cangshu.

When Olgins and the others heard the girl’s words, none of them spoke. A group of men who had once held their own identities now relied on a girl barely over ten years old to steal things to keep them alive. It was both absurd and tragic.

After watching Cindy disappear into the far end of the sewer, Olgins stood up again.

Bai Cangshu likewise curled his lips into a smile. Leaning against the wall, he watched this man whose size and physique far surpassed that of ordinary humans.

The One Piece World produced many people with such abnormal physiques. In this world, a height of two meters was not considered particularly tall. Even non-giants could grow over three meters, and those with exceptional talent could even exceed six meters.

Special races were even more outrageous.

Furthermore, after training, the increase in this world’s people’s attributes was completely beyond what ordinary humans could compare with. Bai Cangshu guessed that, in the space’s judgment, the humans of this world were definitely not Native Species or Black Iron Species.

"Hey, forget it, Olgins. We’ve all ended up like this already…"

Former Marine Chief Petty Officer Leo spoke up to dissuade him. His right leg was completely gone from the root of his thigh down, and his condition was probably the worst among them. Corporal Barnaby, whose head was partly blackened, had remained protectively by his side.

Olgins turned his head, his eyes filled with ferocity.

"Idiots!"

"Have you people been hiding in these sewers for so long that you really can’t tell?!"

"This guy… the bloody aura around him is so strong that even I find it pungent."

His enormous body stepped forward. Bai Cangshu looked at the Rakshasa Ghost milestone he was currently wearing, then at the fierce-looking Olgins. He had not expected this man to be aligned with the orderly camp.

Rakshasa Ghost inherited the effects of both Evil Doer and Killer Seed, causing Bai Cangshu to emit killing intent and gain additional favor from evil factions.

Olgins was clearly a bounty criminal, yet he was the most sensitive to this.

Now it seemed that his earlier actions had also been motivated by a desire to protect Cindy and the others.

The others also noticed this young man, who had barely spoken. Before Olgins, he had never backed down. His gaze was arrogant and cold.

Leo, Barnaby, and the others sensed the danger as well and rose against the walls.

"Careful!"

A sharp warning rang out, followed by the girl’s pained cry. A long spear tore through the air. Old Hank, standing in the filthy water, cried out as the silver spear pierced his shoulder. The weapon continued onward without losing momentum, shooting straight toward Bai Cangshu’s back.

Olgins, standing before Bai Cangshu, shrank his pupils. Instinctively, he reached for Bai Cangshu’s shoulder, trying to shove him aside, but when he exerted force with his left hand, the other man did not budge at all.

Pfft!

Olgins’s pupils contracted. The young man radiating danger extended his arm behind him at an unbelievable angle and caught the silver spear flying through the air with one hand.

Bai Cangshu’s hearing was extremely sharp. After the girl pushed open the sewer cover, he had not heard the sound of it being closed again. Then there had been heavy footsteps.

So Bai Cangshu guessed that someone had discovered this place.

But precisely because this place was filthy, chaotic, and dilapidated, Bai Cangshu knew Enel would not appear personally. Thus, he waited here with complete calm.

"Careful, it’s Priest Shura! That spear can shoot fire!"

Leo, balancing against the wall on one leg, shouted a warning. His basic combat instincts remained, and he reported the information quickly. Barnaby below also raised his gun barrel at the intruder, but hesitated to fire.

Priest Shura, clad in flight gear, wearing goggles, and with two white wings on his back, held Cindy in one hand. He grinned viciously as his right hand made a subtle backward motion.

The spearhead Bai Cangshu had caught immediately began emitting intense heat, and flames burst forth.

But Bai Cangshu squeezed with his left hand.

Creak—bang!

Amid the grating sound of twisting metal, the Heat Dial concealed within the spearhead was instantly damaged. As the flames went out, the smile on Shura’s face had not yet fully faded. The next moment, the air in front of him was violently evacuated, and the intense pressure made his face ripple.

His vision went blank. His pupils trembled several times before refocusing, and a figure had already appeared before him. A long left hand rested lightly against his chest, almost like a caress.

The next moment, terrifying force erupted in an instant.

Pfft!

Spiral force instantly penetrated Shura’s body. The intense spiraling power twisted and tore apart his chest muscles, but before he could even feel the pain, the terrifying surging force shattered his heart in an instant.

Blood sprayed from every orifice on his face.

You killed Priest Shura and gained 500 Dimensional Points

You triggered Side Quest: Demise of God's Guard