Bang! Bang! Bang—!!!
Relentless explosions of impact thundered from inside the house. Outside, the pirates exchanged uneasy looks.
Just from the sound alone, anyone could tell how brutal the fight had become.
If not for the captain's order, they would've stormed in already and hacked that brat into minced meat.
"Pfft—!"
Scalding blood sprayed from Hermes's mouth.
His chest felt like it had shattered from the inside; breathing became a struggle, his face flushing from the strain. The claw wound across his back was so deep the bone nearly showed.
He dragged himself up from a heap of broken chairs, rolled awkwardly—
And the next instant, Joya—mouth smeared with blood, face twisted into something monstrous—stomped down with his right foot.
A savage aura rolled off him in waves.
Relying on his Zoan recovery, even with injuries comparable to Hermes's, Joya could still take hits and keep fighting. If this turned into a battle of attrition, Hermes would die first. No question.
Hermes had known that for a while now.
He'd been forcing the exchange anyway, using Joya as a whetstone—pushing his reactions and timing higher, harder, faster.
But now?
Enough.
The damage was too heavy.
Time to end it with a finishing move.
"Brat," Joya growled, "you're strong. Join the Dog-Dog Pirates and I'll let everything go."
He was actually trying to recruit Hermes.
If Hermes bowed his head, Joya was willing to forgive all of it—because Hermes's value was far greater than those dead underlings.
And more importantly…
Joya was a little unsure.
He didn't have absolute confidence he could finish Hermes cleanly.
This brat was disgusting—like a cockroach. Too stubborn, too slippery, too hard to put down.
"Remember this," Hermes said, eyes cold. "You're dying by the hands of the most fearless man in the world."
He ignored the offer and surged forward.
"You ungrateful little bastard—fine! I'll grant your wish!"
BOOM!
A fist met a claw.
Two fresh cuts opened across Hermes's knuckles, but it was within what he could endure.
He immediately shrank to thirty centimeters, slipping past Joya's follow-up—
Then spun behind him and drove a kick straight at the groin.
A kill-intent strike.
Joya's eyes bulged. He clamped his legs shut, furious—
And without even turning his head, he swung an arm back like a bat.
Hermes shrank to five millimeters at once.
He hopped forward rapidly, climbed Joya's leg like a flea, and reached his shoulder in a blink.
The light dimmed.
Joya reacted fast—swatting down like he was trying to smack a fly.
But Hermes was faster.
He gathered everything into his legs and launched himself straight toward Joya's ear.
"Bad—!"
Joya's heart lurched.
He slapped his own ear again—no restraint, no hesitation. He didn't care if he hit himself into a concussion. If Hermes got inside him, the outcome was obvious.
But it was too late.
Hermes had never used this move before because it was the one card that could flip the table.
A deafening impact shredded Joya's eardrum. His whole skull rang. Stars burst across his vision. That slap had been vicious even to himself.
Inside—
Hermes was seeing black too.
The stench was suffocating. He nearly passed out. It took him minutes just to steady his mind.
Joya's expression turned feral, but fear had already crept into his eyes.
He jammed his fingers into his ear, digging desperately.
Nothing.
Nothing he could catch.
He could only pray that slap had killed Hermes.
Pfft—!!!
A spike of agony stabbed through his head. Joya froze—
Then screamed and rolled on the ground.
The brat wasn't dead.
"Brat! If you've got balls, come out!"
"Finger Pistol."
Hermes didn't expand and blow Joya's head apart.
He needed that head intact—bounty money didn't pay for paste.
Once he was inside, killing Joya was only a matter of time.
"AAAAAAAH!"
Blood began leaking from Joya's eyes, nose, ears—his screams turning ragged, frantic.
"Spare me! I'll give you anything! Whatever you want—!"
Gradually—
His rolling slowed.
His spasms turned weak.
Then—
A soft tearing sound.
The screaming stopped.
If you could see inside Joya's skull, you'd find Hermes had severed key nerves and ruptured vital vessels.
A Zoan—killed like that.
Almost easily.
Because no matter what kind of monster you are, the inside is still soft.
And one day, when Hermes could shrink to a millimeter—or smaller, to something the naked eye couldn't even track—
He'd be the kind of death that rode on the wind.
Silent.
Unavoidable.
"Cough… cough…"
Hermes crawled out through Joya's ear, drenched in blood, panting hard.
Joya's corpse still twitched now and then.
Hermes didn't hesitate.
He cut the prize free immediately.
He was badly hurt. This time, he'd need days to recover.
Only then did the pirates outside finally think to rush in—
But it was already too late.
Hermes didn't linger. He smashed through the damaged wall and disappeared into the night.
"Captain!"
"Damn it—he killed the captain!"
"How is that possible?! Captain Joya… lost to a brat?! And his head—!"
That day, the Dog-Dog Pirates would not be calm.
Neither would Mayute Town.
A pirate with a 38,000,000 bounty—Joya—had truly been killed by a kid.
Mayute Town boiled over.
"Did you hear?! That kid—Hermes Jormungandr—really killed Joya!"
"You're joking! Last I heard, the kid was getting beaten so badly he vanished for days. How did Joya suddenly die?!"
"It's real. People went to the Dog-Dog Pirates' base. Other pirate crews already split up their wealth."
"Brutal…"
Someone sighed.
But that was reality.
The moment a captain fell, wolves came in to carve everything clean.
The first wolves were often the crew itself.
The Dog-Dog Pirates were finished.
Even crews that once rivaled Dog-Dog Pirates—the Chain Pirates and the Twin-Wheel Pirates—were discussing Hermes now.
They'd taken their share of the spoils.
But their leaders—"Chainman" and the twin-wheel gunslinger Kokos—were wary too.
If Hermes could kill Joya, then Hermes could threaten them.
In terms of individual combat strength, they weren't far from Joya. Their advantage was thin—and in a pure duel, neither could confidently kill Joya outright.
Their bounties being higher by a few million was mostly because they'd committed worse crimes—hit richer targets, attacked Marine interests, that sort of thing.
Nowadays, bounties had "water" in them.
In the old days, before the Great Pirate Era, bounty numbers tracked combat power much more closely.
Not anymore.
"Captain, that kid should be a pirate hunter."
"Pirate hunter… that's a nasty identity."
A lot of pirates went grim.
You didn't need a dictionary to understand what that meant:
he hunted pirates for money—treating them like walking ATMs.
No pirate liked pirate hunters.
In some ways, they were even more hateful than Marines.
"—Hiss…"
In a hidden corner, Hermes dragged his exhausted, trembling body through the motions of cleaning his wounds.
Every second felt endless.
This time, he was truly injured—especially the wound on his back. He couldn't properly clean it alone.
So he gritted his teeth, poured hard liquor straight into it, and slapped on a crude bandage.
He still needed a doctor.
But for safety—
He decided to sleep first, restore strength, then move.
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