"You bastard! You actually…!!"
Red staggered back, shoving Rowen away, but suddenly his legs buckled beneath him, and he plummeted straight down.
Boom!
His massive frame crashed onto a wrecked battleship below, splintering the wooden deck into pieces. Red lay sprawled out, gasping for breath. In a moment of desperation, he threw his head back and opened his mouth, jamming his fingers down his throat as if trying to claw something out.
"Urgh!!"
The retching was uncontrollable, but aside from expelling stomach acid, he coughed up nothing.
Thanks to the powers granted by the Vampire Fruit, any blood that entered his body was instantly digested and absorbed, transformed into nourishment that restored his youth. So, trying to vomit it out was utterly futile.
Whoosh… Boom!
Another towering figure dropped from the sky. Rowen landed amidst the wreckage, planting his thunder halberd into the ground as he struggled to stand upright.
"You're insane!!!"
This was the first time Red had ever spoken in such a frightened, panicked tone. He stared at Rowen in disbelief and roared, "You're a Devil Fruit user too! Have you lost your damn mind?!"
"No," Rowen replied, his voice weak but resolute. "It's exactly because I'm a Devil Fruit user… I understand. This was the only way!"
Currently, advanced Seastone-processing techniques were known only to the stonemasons of Wano Country. The Marines and the World Government could only produce basic Seastone bullets and rough-looking handcuffs at best. However, there was one form of Seastone that everyone could easily manufacture: Seastone Powder!
Crushing Seastone into powder required only persistent grinding, simple, yet deadly.
"Damn it…!" Red gritted his teeth so hard they nearly cracked. His once-youthful skin began to lose its luster and elasticity, quickly reverting to its aged and sagging form. His wild, white hair drooped over his forehead, and a pair of cloudy eyes stared out from deeply sunken sockets. His vision had even begun to blur.
The youth he had regained by drinking human blood via the Vampire Fruit was now slipping away. All because of one thing: Rowen's blood was teeming with countless grains of Seastone powder!
"If anything, I should be thanking you, Red," Rowen said, his regeneration kicking into overdrive as he frantically produced new blood cells. He endured the weakening effects of Seastone in his bloodstream, maintaining his composure. "After all, who the hell carries a syringe around just in case?"
"If you hadn't attacked me the way you did, I wouldn't have had the perfect opportunity, just enough time to distract you from reading my thoughts while also ensuring the Seastone powder entered my bloodstream."
"…So it was during that moment?" Red, panting heavily, recalled the earlier scene when his Black Mist spikes had torn Rowen into a bloody mess, leaving hundreds of lacerations. The blood had dyed Rowen's Justice cloak a glaring crimson, concealing everything underneath. At that time, he had kept his distance from Rowen and hadn't noticed anything unusual.
He let out a bitter, sarcastic laugh. "As a Devil Fruit user, carrying Seastone powder in your body is hardly better than carrying a syringe…"
Rowen's regeneration allowed the powder to seep into his bloodstream through his wounds. And Red, by drinking his blood, had unknowingly swallowed it all.
It was a passive trap. And as long as Rowen didn't consciously think about it, Red couldn't detect it using Observation Haki.
"But you can't use your Devil Fruit powers anymore either, can you?" Red placed a withered hand on the shattered deck, barely holding himself up. His gaze turned cold… and wild.
"You think just because I lost my abilities, I've lost the fight?"
Rowen calmly nodded. "Yes."
"Nani?!"
Ignoring Red's killing glare, Rowen slowly raised his thunder halberd. His aura was weak, but the killing intent emanating from him was pure and overwhelming, enough to make Red feel immense pressure.
Looking at Red, now reverted to his old and decrepit form, Rowen gave a cold smile. "Seastone's suppressive effect on Devil Fruit users has no upper limit. No matter who you are, you'll be dragged to rock bottom the instant you're exposed… Adapting to this feeling takes long-term training, not something you can just grit your teeth through in a moment."
"If it were the you before eating a Devil Fruit, I'll admit, even in old age, you wouldn't be easy to deal with. But now…"
Boom! Soru!
Smoke exploded from beneath Rowen's feet as he launched forward, halberd in hand, like a streak of black lightning, charging straight ahead.
"The you who's eaten a Devil Fruit… how much power do you really have left?!"
"So fast!!"
Red's eyes widened in shock. Precisely because he knew how crippling Seastone was, and precisely because he could feel the weakness binding his limbs, he was all the more terrified of Rowen's explosive speed.
"Damn it!"
With a furious snarl, Red gritted his teeth and stepped forward, raising his umbrella and ruthlessly slashing sideways at the precise moment Rowen arrived beside him.
Boom!!
Halberd and umbrella clashed violently, but to Red's shock, he realized he couldn't match Rowen's strength.
"Impossible, Armament Haki?!"
He had only used brute force to swing his umbrella, but Rowen's thunder halberd was wrapped in a faint yet real coating of Busoshoku Haki (Armament Haki). That thin layer of Haki was like the final straw that broke the balance between two already-exhausted fighters.
But...
"Naive!"
Rowen could still use Armament Haki, but Red could still use his Kenbunshoku Haki (Observation Haki). He instantly read more than twenty of Rowen's potential follow-up attacks. Without hesitation, he released the umbrella before it could be knocked away and drove his hand forward, forming a blade with his fingers, ruthlessly aiming to stab Rowen in the chest.
The fact that Rowen had so easily swatted his umbrella away had clearly caught him off guard. But Rowen immediately understood; this must be Red's special Observation Haki at play again.
As the hand-blade pierced toward him, Rowen narrowed his eyes slightly.
Thud! Ka-cha!
"Your Observation Haki told you what I was about to do… but not the enormous gap between our current strength levels."
Rowen grabbed Red's stabbing hand. His muscles tensed, and with terrifying force, his grip crushed Red's bones with audible cracks.
"Your counterattacks all assume that your body can keep up with mine. But right now, that's just not the case."
Indeed, Red could predict what Rowen would do, but he couldn't perceive the most crucial thing: the difference in stamina and physical power.
One was a veteran Devil Fruit user, forged through years of harsh Seastone training, with monstrous endurance. The other was a newly awakened user, with no experience resisting Seastone, and not even familiar with its sensation.
Add on the debuff of old age, and the power gap between the two was utterly lopsided.
"No… no! Damn it! I can't fall here!" Ignoring the pain in his crushed hand, Red clenched his other fist and hurled a punch with all his remaining strength. "You despicable Marine!!"
He hadn't lost yet! The Marines were nothing but a pack of rabid, lowly jackals! How could he fall here?! How could he fall again, to the treachery of the Marines?!
Summoning the last of his strength, Red swung down a heavy punch, but in that moment, a white flash shot past his vision, followed instantly by pain and crushing weakness. He coughed up a mouthful of thick blood.
Thud…
His punch weakly tapped Rowen's cheek, only managing to push the skin aside slightly. He didn't even have the strength to make Rowen's head turn.
"Th-this is…?!"
Eyes wide in disbelief, Red looked down.
Rowen's left hand had lifted up, his thumb and forefinger spread in an eerie formation, activating the wrist-mounted sleeve launcher, firing a cluster of Seastone senbon (needle-like projectiles).
Dozens of Seastone needles tore into Red's chest, shattering his heart and gouging out a bloody chunk of flesh from his torso.
"Despicable? You think you're qualified to say that?" Rowen's voice was cold and merciless. "This is war. A war that you started. Learn the difference between a duel… and war, you pirate scum."
Red's eyes widened, his pupils contracted. But in the very next moment, all the light faded from them. He stared at Rowen, then his body went still.
Patrick Redfield… died with his eyes wide open.
(End Of This Chapter)
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