“Yeah, how could you possibly understand me…? Only when you experience the same pain I did will you understand that zombies that cannot die is the only eternity!
Ruler of Shadows, Shadow’… Asgard!”
Thriller Bark, beneath the main mast.
Moria’s body began undergoing a tremendous transformation, becoming completely different from before.
One after another, the shadows he had stolen across the island left the zombies’ bodies and were absorbed into Moria’s own shadow.
As more and more shadows poured into him, Moria’s body continued to expand…five meters, ten meters, twenty meters…
Moria, who had originally been slightly shorter than Kuma, now became as enormous as a giant. When the transformation finally stopped, his body resembled a massive hill.
His enormous shadow stretched forward beneath the dim light. Moria braced both hands against the ground, his breathing growing incomparably heavy. Every breath seemed to carry the roars of countless others.
The shadows Moria had stolen possessed wills of their own. His body had now become their prison. Although they could not resist the power of the Shadow-Shadow Fruit, they would not willingly help Moria either.
In the past, when the weather was overcast, Moria’s companions, who trusted him, would willingly give him their shadows, allowing their captain to carry their strength into battle.
Only then had Moria truly been the “Ruler of Shadows.” But those days had long since become a distant dream for Moria.
His massive body exuded an oppressive presence all on its own. Without saying a word, Moria swung his hand down at Kuma.
Boom!
Cracks spread across the ground, and the nearby buildings were destroyed outright. Kuma’s figure appeared amid the shattered walls and ruins.
His steps were calm, and his voice was firm.
“I don’t understand you, nor do I want to. I will protect my companions. They are my treasured family, not something someone like you can destroy.”
Moria’s pupils contracted violently. Kuma’s words were like needles constantly stabbing at his nerves.
“Kuma… that’s your name, right? I’ll remember it… It’s been a long time since anyone… made me this angry!”
Moria’s vocal cords vibrated, producing overlapping echoes.
He was going to turn Kuma into a zombie…
No. He should take Kuma’s shadow and turn his companions into zombies. Only then would Kuma experience the same pain he had and embrace the eternal companionship of zombies.
Without the physical skills and Haki he had possessed in the past, Moria’s enlarged body had become even more obese and clumsy. He threw another punch.
There was no technique behind it. He was simply swinging his strengthened body wildly. The enormous fist tore through the air, producing a piercing shriek.
If Moria were allowed to keep destroying things so recklessly, the entire island-ship would be smashed to pieces. But this time, Kuma did not dodge.
He merely raised his right hand. The palm bearing a pink paw pad gently met the descending giant fist.
Thud.
With a dull impact, Moria’s fist stopped in midair.
More precisely, it had not stopped; it had been “caught.”
Kuma’s palm looked insignificant compared to the house-sized fist, but the instant they made contact, the power of the Paw-Paw Fruit took effect.
“Pad Cannon.”
Kuma’s lips moved slightly.
The air in his palm was compressed to the extreme, forming a visible, transparent paw-shaped imprint before being repelled toward Moria.
Without Haki reinforcing it, a fist swung with nothing but physical strength posed no threat whatsoever to Kuma. Against an opponent whose Haki was insufficient, a Devil Fruit with powerful rule-based abilities was nearly impossible to counter.
And the strength of Moria’s body was nowhere near enough to break through that limit.
Boom!!!
The shock wave erupted forward. Moria’s enormous body was struck head-on as though by a battering ram, sending his entire body toppling backward.
The foundations of the castle beneath Moria’s feet collapsed instantly, and rubble poured down like a waterfall. His huge body, stuffed with shadows, traced a clumsy arc through the air before crashing heavily into the distant forest.
Crushing whole swaths of zombies that had already lost their shadows.
As dust and smoke filled the air, Kuma slowly lowered his hand and walked toward the ruins ahead, his footsteps making a rhythmic sound among the rubble.
“Wow, Kuma, you seem to have gotten even stronger! Looks like you haven’t been slacking off on your nighttime training.”
“Not just at night. Ever since what happened on Little Garden, Kuma has been training hard every day. He’s had an incredible amount of energy.”
Inuarashi added to Ginny’s words from the side. When there was no actual combat, training required a sparring partner. Kuma had trained so relentlessly during that period that Inuarashi and Nekomamushi even had to take turns fighting him.
The incident in which a Cipher Pol agent had taken Ginny hostage had given Kuma a stronger sense of danger.
“No. This man has poor control over his power.”
A faint smile appeared on Kuma’s face, as though he were giving an assessment.
“That technique called Shadow’s Asgard… It should increase his physical strength by stacking external shadows within his body. His power has indeed increased many times over, but…”
Kuma paused and looked at the enormous figure struggling to rise amid the dust.
“His reactions can’t keep up with that power. For me, an opponent who has grown this large is actually easier to deal with.”
Moria struggled to pull himself out of the ruins, both hands clamped over his mouth. From time to time, black shadows tried to escape through the gaps between his fingers, only for Moria to force them back inside.
“Hah… hah…”
After climbing back to his feet, Moria gasped heavily for breath. His condition was even worse than Crocodile’s.
Although Crocodile had settled for fighting weaker opponents, he still fought frequently for the sake of maintaining his reputation.
But in the Florian Triangle, anyone with a modicum of strength had basically been swept away by Harald, so the opponents Moria encountered were even weaker.
Combined with how deeply he had sunk into depression, his strength had regressed to an absurd degree.
“Still, this big guy can certainly take a beating. I’m afraid I’ll have to do that a few more times.”
“By the way, Kuma, this guy can grow so huge and gain so much power… because of the shadows inside him, right?”
“That should be the case. Why?”
“Nothing much. I just had a little idea. Maybe… I can help you deal with this situation.”
Battles between Devil Fruit users were also battles of information. If one could determine exactly what kind of ability the opponent’s Devil Fruit possessed and devise corresponding countermeasures, it became easy to gain the upper hand.
Take Crocodile, for example. It was not only water that could prevent him from undergoing elemental transformation. Juice, beer, and even blood spilled during battle could do the same.
If Crocodile suffered from excessive dreams and night sweats, he might even restrain his own elemental transformation while sleeping.
While Moria was still trying to calm the restless shadows inside his body, Ginny had already passed through an Air Door and emerged from the alternate dimension beside him.
Then Ginny’s body nearly merged with her own shadow, and one of her arms directly reached into Moria’s shadow.
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