One Piece: The Cryo Doctor on the Straw Hat Ship

On the left, the pink-haired Perona slumped beside the broken railing.

Her beloved parasol was already broken, her once pretty face was as pale as paper, and her left shoulder and upper body were charred black—marks of being directly struck by Enel's lightning.

The faint arcs of electricity still crackled at her wound, each one causing her body to convulse uncontrollably.

“Perona…” Moria’s voice was hoarse, like sandpaper being rubbed.

Perona barely opened her eyes, her lips moved but no sound came out, only tears of terror silently streamed down her face.

Moria turned his head: "...Absalom."

On the right, Absalom is pinned down by a huge boulder that broke off from the mainmast.

The cyborg's lower half was buried in rubble, his only remaining arm limply resting on the ground, his fingertips trembling slightly.

His stitched-up face no longer held its usual arrogance, only pain and bewilderment remained.

Further away—

Hogback's body lay across the steps leading to the cabin.

The obese doctor's head had been separated from his body and rolled three meters away in a pool of blood, his eyes wide open and his face frozen with the horror of his last moments.

Moria's gaze was fixed on the head, as if he were frozen in place.

“...Hogback…”

His voice was very soft, so soft that it was almost swallowed by the mist.

Then, the emotions in those scarlet pupils began to surge wildly—shock, anger, pain… finally turning into a near-collapse-like despair.

"Ugh... Ughh ...

Moonlight Moria suddenly tilted his head back and let out a beast-like roar.

The roar was heart-wrenching, carrying all the regret, resentment, and rage that had accumulated over the past twenty years, and it exploded in the thick fog!

Tears mixed with blood streamed down his contorted face.

"You...you bastards...how dare you..."

He stared intently at the black-bearded man standing a few meters ahead, his teeth grinding together, blood seeping from his gums.

"How dare you...kill my subordinate!!!"

Blackbeard stood with his hands on his hips, his massive body casting a deep shadow in the fog.

He grinned, revealing his broken, yellow teeth, his eyes gleaming with undisguised mockery and cruelty.

"Thief hahaha... subordinate?"

"Moria, you piece of trash, do you even deserve to use the word 'subordinate'?"

He lifted his foot and stomped heavily on the deck, causing the entire ship to sway slightly.

"After being defeated by Kaido twenty years ago, all you've done is hide in this godforsaken place, barely surviving by stealing other people's shadows!"

"If you don't even have the courage to face reality head-on, how can you protect your subordinates? Huh!?"

Blackbeard's voice suddenly rose, each word like a whip lashing at Moria's heart:

"Look at you—you can't even protect your own shadow, yet you dare to dream of protecting others?"

"This is... utterly ridiculous!!!"

Moria trembled violently.

Every word Blackbeard uttered struck at the deepest wounds in his heart.

twenty years ago.

The country of peace.

That battle...

He still wakes up from nightmares to this day.

His most trusted crew members fell one by one to the swords of Kaido's pirate crew.

Their screams, the blood, and the last look in their eyes as they gazed at him...

From that time on, Moriah changed.

He no longer trusted his "living companions".

Because living people can get hurt, die, and leave.

Only the dead... only zombies, are eternally loyal, never betraying, and never allowed to suffer the pain of loss again.

So he built the terrifying three-masted ship and lived in the Devil's Triangle.

He collected the corpses of the strong and stole the shadows of others to create a massive zombie army.

He told himself: This is good.

That way, you won't lose it anymore.

But why...?

Why now...?

Tears blurred my vision.

"Hahaha..."

Blackbeard's arrogant laughter still echoed in the thick fog, making the dilapidated deck hum.

He looked down at Moria, who was kneeling on the ground trembling, his eyes gleaming with undisguised greed and mockery.

"Hahaha... Gecko Moria, you're no longer worthy of the title of Shichibukai!"

"Let me take your place and make better use of this identity!"

Blackbeard grinned, his broken teeth gleaming yellow in the gray mist.

"This guy... has he always been this 'crazy'?"

Enel reclined on a luxurious sofa amidst the ruins of the building, lazily glancing at Blackbeard's frenzied back, a look of undisguised disdain playing on his lips.

Lafayette adjusted his top hat, his slender eyes curving into crescents in the shadows, his voice still elegant but with a hint of amusement:

"Madness? Perhaps. But it's precisely this 'madness' that makes our captain...so interesting, isn't it?"

Enel snorted coldly and didn't say anything more.

He was a madman who called himself a "god" and regarded all living beings as ants, acting entirely according to his whims.

But after boarding Blackbeard's ship, he discovered that this barbarian from the Blue Sea named Marshall D. Teach was even more reckless than him when he went crazy!

But then, a hint of gloomy relief flashed across Enel's eyes.

—If this person's "madness level" hadn't far exceeded his own, why would he have been willing to temporarily submit to him and conspire with him to "dominate the world"?

In this world, madness and ambition are the hardest currencies.

"Don't worry." The darkness in Blackbeard's hand swirled in his palm like a living thing, but it didn't land on Moria to deliver the final blow.

He looked down at Moria, "You won't die so soon."

“Living ability users…are more valuable to me.”

Blackbeard's single eye swept over the dying Perona, the subdued Absalom, and finally settled on Moria's face, which was contorted with anger and despair.

"Shadow-Shadow Fruit, Ghost-Ghost Fruit, Invisibility Fruit... Tsk tsk, these are all pretty good abilities."

He stretched out his rough fingers and gently patted Moria's sweat-drenched, purple cheeks, as if assessing the quality of a piece of merchandise.

“I won’t let you die so easily. As long as I lock you up and make the Navy and the World Government think you are ‘dead’... then these abilities will be mine forever.”

"You...you bastard...!" Moria's eyes were bloodshot as he struggled to pounce on him, but Blackbeard stepped on his shoulder and pressed him back onto the deck.

“Burgess, Van Augur,” Blackbeard straightened up and clapped his hands, “tie them up and stuff them into the hold. Remember—don’t kill them.”

"Yes, Captain!"

Burgess grinned as he picked up the specially made sea stone shackles, while Van Augur silently raised his long spear "Thousand Six," aiming the muzzle at Perona and Absalom to prevent them from launching a final counterattack.

Blackbeard turned around with satisfaction, just about to say something more—

rustle……

A very faint sound, like the rustling of dry leaves, suddenly came from the thick fog and forest at the edge of the deck.

The sudden noise caught the attention of Blackbeard's crew.

The next second—

A figure slowly emerged from the misty shadows of the forest.

That figure... no, perhaps it shouldn't be called a "person".

A body of pure white bones, devoid of any flesh or blood, its grim skeleton gleaming with a cold, hard luster in the gray mist.

"Sigh~"

Seeing such a bizarre scene, even the powerful Blackbeard crew couldn't help but gasp in shock.

The figure moved slowly, even leisurely, each foot landing on the deck with a soft "tap, tap," which sounded particularly jarring in the deathly silence of the battlefield.

But what's most eye-catching is its top—

He was sporting a head of fluffy, curly hair that was unusually eye-catching...

Afro.

Skeleton, afro.

Two completely different elements are strangely combined at this moment, creating a visually striking effect that is almost absurd.

Blackbeard narrowed his eyes, and dark energy once again condensed in his palm.

Enel also raised an eyebrow, and a wisp of electricity quietly flickered at his fingertips.

The others also became wary.

However, the skeleton stopped about ten meters in front of the group.

He slowly raised his head—though he had no eyes, everyone could feel that his “gaze” was falling directly on the faces of Blackbeard and the others.