Useless Zombies

"No, how could this be? How could it turn out like this?!" Gecko Moria stared in disbelief at Ryuma’s corpse, which had been cut in two.

Kyros, standing nearby, looked somewhat bewildered. Though he had a few wounds on his body, they were clearly nothing more than superficial injuries.

Moria had just played his trump card: Ryuma the Dragon-Slaying Swordsman. As a swordsman himself, Kyros had stepped forward without hesitation.

In Kyros’s eyes, if Gecko Moria regarded Ryuma’s zombie as his ultimate trump card against Kaido, then he had to be at least as strong as an ordinary Shichibukai!

Yet after exchanging several dozen blows, Kyros had split Ryuma in half with a single slash.

Well, with that level of strength, he was probably about on par with an ordinary Beasts Pirates officer. He was nowhere near as strong as Ulti or Page One. And this thing was supposed to be a trump card?

Could it be that during this voyage, his strength had improved so dramatically that he could now easily kill ordinary Shichibukai-level opponents?

"Damn it, my Ryuma zombie!" Moria shouted. "You defeated him so easily! Are you Kaido’s new subordinate? Another one of his All-Stars?!"

"Uh… I don’t know Kaido at all, and I don’t think I’m strong enough to be an All-Star…"

"So you’re one of the powerful fighters Kaido sent to deal with me. I won’t admit defeat so easily." Completely immersed in his own world, Moria shouted, "Come forth, my strongest fighting force! Oars the Demon!"

Boom! Boom!

Amid enormous footsteps, Oars the Demon’s mountain-like figure slowly emerged.

But this guy moved sluggishly, his eyes were lifeless, and small bits of rotten flesh even fell off him as he walked. Aside from his astonishing size, there was really nothing about him that could be called the strongest fighting force.

"Oars the Demon?" Ulti tilted her head. "Don’t tell me he’s another guy with a huge reputation but no real ability?"

"Damn it, my Oars isn’t like that Ryuma zombie just now… What?!"

Ulti and Page One struck at the same time, transforming into enormous dinosaurs. Their Armament Haki-coated attacks instantly shattered one of Oars’s legs.

The slow-witted giant zombie futilely swung an arm before falling to the ground. The bandages and stitching thread wrapped around him immediately came apart, and his entire body shattered into pieces from the impact.

There was still nearly a year before the Straw Hat Pirates encountered Gecko Moria, so Oars was far less complete now than he had been when he met the Straw Hat Crew. Being able to move at all was already decent; as for fighting, this was about all he could do.

As Oars’s corpse crashed to the ground with a boom and broke apart, the entire battlefield fell silent for a moment.

"That’s it?" After a moment, Charlotte Pudding tilted her head and asked in confusion.

Those words seemed to provoke Gecko Moria. He let out a furious roar. "Impossible! How could this happen? What underhanded tricks did you use?!"

"You’re just too weak, aren’t you?" Ulti said, rolling her eyes. "They’re just corpses. They have no Haki, and their muscles have atrophied and rotted away. You expect them to defeat Kaido? Are you kidding me?!"

"Damn it, I’ll kill you!" Enraged by those words, Gecko Moria lunged forward, his huge body kicking up a fierce wind.

But by now, both Ulti and Page One had seen through his bluff. They immediately struck back, driving their Armament Haki-coated fists and headbutts hard into the float around Gecko Moria’s belly.

"Urgh!" Moria’s eyes bulged from the blow as he spat out blood. He flew back even faster than he had charged in, crashed into the castle behind him, and was buried beneath a pile of rubble.

A rustling sound instantly rang out as countless bats flew from the gaps in the rubble and re-formed into Moria.

Shadow Horns!

With a casual wave of his hand, black shadows rose like spears behind everyone, launching a surprise attack from their shadows.

Yota did not move. The so-called Shadow Horns struck his body and instantly shattered without even scraping his skin.

Kyros’s Observation Haki was the sharpest, and he noticed them at once. With a backward swing of his sword, he snapped the shadow spear in two.

Armament Haki appeared over Ulti and Page One’s bodies. The shadow spears left several bloody cuts on them, neither too large nor too small, but for these two Ancient Zoan-type Fruit users, they were little more than scratches.

Violet, who possessed the Byakugan, gave a light sway and evaded the shadow attack. Charlotte Pudding’s eyes transformed into the shape of the Mangekyo Sharingan, and a set of ribs appeared around her, protecting her.

After his attack failed, Gecko Moria’s expression instead became completely calm. Only now did he truly realize that he had reached a life-or-death crisis.

Stirred by the threat of death, Gecko Moria seemed to regain some of his formerly keen battle instincts. Though his body had become sluggish from prolonged idleness, his Devil Fruit abilities were still at their peak under his development.

Shadow Doppelganger, Shadow Warrior, Shadow Revolution… A series of fluid attacks followed one after another. Using shadows to switch positions and attack with unpredictable methods, Moria forcibly held back Ulti and Page One, even faintly gaining the upper hand.

Yet Yota, standing to the side, was not worried in the slightest. He even stopped Kyros, who wanted to go help.

"There’s no need for you to act. The two of them can handle it."

Sure enough, as time passed, Moria soon began panting heavily. In contrast, Ulti and Page One, covered in blood from head to toe, only grew fiercer as they fought, showing no sign that their combat ability was declining.

"Gecko Moria hasn’t fought for far too long. So what if his Devil Fruit development hasn’t declined? Devil Fruit abilities consume stamina too!"

"With his current stamina, even if he can gain the upper hand against Ulti and Page One at the start, he’ll eventually be worn to death."

Just as Yota said, after they fought for a while longer, one Shadow Warrior position swap was slightly slower than before. Ulti immediately struck Moria with an Ulti Headbutt.

And after taking just one blow, Moria was completely dazed. In the brief moment he lost focus, even more attacks instantly rained down on him.