Not long after dinner, a slave trader arrived at the deal location with four underlings.
Ethan began to move.
First, he cleared out the pirates hidden in the nearby houses. He slipped into the rooms, slowed his steps, held his breath. One hand over the mouth, one stroke to the throat. Silent and clean.
This was not his first time killing. Shortly after coming to this world, he had stabbed a pirate guard to death. Back then, he had only been twelve.
Same procedure now. The lookout in the other house went down the same way, and then it was the two at the back door.
At the corner of the alley, Ethan tapped lightly on the wall.
"Huh? I think I heard something. Lier, go check it out."
"Tch, why is it always me…"
Grumbling, the pirate called Lier walked over. The moment he turned the corner, the sound stopped.
The one left at the back door waited two minutes without a response and sensed something was wrong. He opened his mouth to shout a warning, but it was already too late.
With Ethan's current physical stats, two minutes was more than enough to kill a man, circle around and come up behind the second.
Hand over the mouth, slash the throat, drag the body away. He was a professional by now.
In Ethan's head, one thought flashed by: Sekiro walks with me.
He scattered the iron spikes at the back door, then swung around to the front to prepare for the direct assault. With four people standing together, there was no room left for fancy tactics.
He drew a deep breath, rested his hand on the hilt and walked toward the front door, drawing his focus tight as a wire. Observation Haki opened.
"Hey! Who the hell are you? Brat, get lost. Take one more step and we'll cut you down!"
Ethan kept walking as if he had not heard a word. His pace grew faster. A brisk walk, then a jog, then a sprint.
The gradual change in rhythm made the pirates feel that something was wrong, but it was already too late.
With a Speed of 29, Ethan far surpassed a normal human. Before the men at the door could even draw their weapons, the blood scented blur that was Ethan was already in front of them.
The blade flashed from the sheath. A draw cut. The first pirate dropped with confusion still in his eyes.
A twist of the wrist, a diagonal downward slash. The two pirates behind him were pierced in a single stroke.
A reverse diagonal cut finished the last one off.
By the time the fourth man fell, not a single pirate had managed to draw his weapon.
Before becoming a true sword master, there was no need to name your moves. It was all basic sword forms. Fast, ruthless, accurate. That was enough.
The diagonal downward cut was simply a strike from your upper right toward your lower left. The reverse version went from lower right to upper left. People called them "kesagiri" and "reverse kesagiri" because it sounded more like something a proper swordsman would say.
In that moment, Ethan felt his sword was icy cold, while his heart burned hot. He kicked the door open and rushed inside.
At the first screams from the doorway, everyone in the house grabbed for their weapons. They were all people who lived by the blade and had long since prepared themselves for a situation like this.
The instant the door burst open, a white cloud of powder billowed into the room.
Two pouches of lime powder flew forward, split open by a single slash and driven by the force of the blade straight into the faces ahead.
Almost everyone inside was hit. Ethan charged into the chaos and began cutting people down, practically one stroke per opponent.
His skill with the sword was part of it. The pirates' moment of panic and their blinded vision did the rest.
Ordinary pirates could not handle something like this. Even in the classic martial arts tales back in his old world, a master like Miao Renfeng from Snowy Mountain Flying Fox had become clumsy and restricted once blinded.
Not everyone in the room had been caught by the lime, though. Bar and his trusted second had instinctively taken two quick steps back when they saw the white cloud and were spared.
As soon as they saw Ethan's ferocity, they turned toward the back door without hesitation.
When Bar shoved the door open, he immediately noticed the two lookouts were missing and slowed down, eyes scanning the alley.
His second, on the other hand, had no such awareness. He bolted past Bar with everything he had, perhaps secretly pleased that he was actually faster than his captain today.
"Argh… you/-/…%￥#"
A scream cut through the night. The second clutched his foot and crashed to the ground, rolling in pain.
Hmph. Iron spikes. How dirty.
Bar stepped on his underling and kept running.
By then, Ethan had already finished everyone in the house. He shook his blade to fling off the blood, gave it a quick once over and nodded when he saw no chips along the edge. The quality was acceptable.
The only living people left inside were the children locked in the cages.
He hesitated for a moment. The nearby pirates were all dead now, so the children were in no immediate danger. He would deal with Bar first.
The noise was bound to draw townspeople sooner or later. He could not stay in one place.
He took off at a run. When he reached the back door and saw the second mate still rolling on the ground, he put him out of his misery with a casual stroke, then sprinted after Bar.
At an intersection, his Observation Haki suddenly flared with danger. Ethan threw himself into a backward lean, rolled into a backflip and retreated into a side alley.
A moment later, strands of cut hair drifted gently down from where his head had been.
Bar stepped out of the shadow at the corner, sword in hand.
"Tch. Shame I missed."
Thank goodness his Observation Haki had awakened before this trip. Otherwise, he would have died right there.
That brush with death cleared Ethan's head. He fully understood now how cruel and cunning this opponent was.
"Did you know," Bar said, licking the blood at the corner of his mouth, "the last guy who came for my head had his arms and legs chopped off and got hung from the mast for two days before he died. I wonder how many days you'll last. Keh keh keh."
Ethan raised his sword without a word.
"Your skills aren't bad. How about joining me instead? Be my first mate. We'll rule the East Blue together. Gold, women, whatever you want, you can have. How about it?"
Ethan continued to hold his sword and stayed silent.
Bar tried threats, then switched to promises of riches and women, hoping to shake his opponent's resolve.
But all his seasoned tricks fell flat. That told him this really was a dangerous enemy. One more word and he felt the momentum would swing against him.
So he stopped talking.
They drew their swords and moved at the same time. In an instant, they had traded places.
"Hm?"
Ethan frowned. In that brief clash, he had cut three times while Bar had only managed two, yet Bar was still standing, with no blood showing where he had been hit.
"Keh keh keh. I admit your swordsmanship is much better than mine.
"But you spent so much stamina before we even crossed blades. If you can't finish this quickly, you'll be the one who dies."
He could see metal glinting beneath Bar's torn clothes. Ethan understood at once: this pirate really was disgustingly cautious.
But so what?
In, out. In, out. In, out. He steadied his breathing and listened for the sword's rhythm.
Slowly, he raised his blade.
When he looked up at Bar, his eyes were completely calm, stripped of all killing intent. That was what truly set Bar on edge.
A sense of death coiled around his heart.
The last time he had felt this way was back when he had first gone to sea.
Bar licked the blood at his mouth again and charged. He believed that, just like back then, he would not be the one to die.
They crossed each other once more.
"This time… I bet wrong…"
Ethan's sword shattered.
Bar's body fell in two pieces.
The realm of cutting steel was his.
(End of Chapter)
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