Before Orochi could even finish speaking, Jack grabbed him by the collar, hoisting him straight off the ground.
"L-Lord Jack! What are you doing?!" Orochi squeaked in terror, staring at the towering, enraged pirate. He knew all too well that Jack was an unstable brute with a horrific temper who wouldn't think twice before snapping a neck.
Jack took a deep, trembling breath, veins bulging across his forehead as he roared, "You snake, Orochi... playing mind games with me?!"
Orochi's face drained of all color. "Lord Jack, I swear, this is a massive misunderstanding!"
"A misunderstanding?!" Jack snarled. "Then explain how Wano suddenly has a rogue samurai running around with that kind of terrifying strength!"
"I swear on my life, I had no idea!" Orochi jabbed desperately, his head ringing. "Please, stay calm..."
Jack let out a heavy growl, his hand instinctively reaching up to touch the empty space where his braid used to be. "Standing around arguing won't fix this. Keep Wano locked down. At all costs, do not let that bastard calling himself Ryuma escape this island."
"Understood! Right away!" Orochi nodded furiously like a bird pecking at grain until Jack finally turned and stomped off.
Once the hulking pirate was out of sight, Orochi let out a long sigh of relief, his panicky expression smoothing out into something far colder.
"Who in the world is this guy?" Orochi muttered to himself. "Robbing Ryuma's grave, impersonating him, and possessing power like that... Whoever you are, kid, you just crossed the wrong people. Next time we meet, you won't be getting away."
Meanwhile, Ryuma fought his way through small squads of Beast Pirates, carving a bloody path until he finally slipped into a ruined, abandoned village to lie low.
From his knowledge of Wano's history, Kaidou had been ruthlessly exploiting this land for years. By now, the country had essentially turned into a living hell. Aside from the pristine Flower Capital, almost every other region had been laid to waste—the inhabited zones were filled with starving, miserable souls, while the uninhabited areas were reduced to moss-covered ruins.
"He's over here!"
A voice echoed through the broken down walls. Ryuma glanced up to see yet another group of Beast Pirate pursuers closing in.
He looked behind him—cornered with nowhere to retreat. Guess he'd just have to clean them up right here.
Ryuma let out a cold smirk. "You guys chased me all the way here without noticing that most of your comrades are already dead? You've got some nerve."
The pirates exchanged hesitant glances, but like brainwashed killing machines, they charged forward in a frenzy anyway.
Ryuma had been battling constantly since arriving here. While he wouldn't claim to have mastered every single technique of the legendary sword god yet, slicing through ordinary fodder was child's play.
With a sharp yell, Ryuma flicked his wrist. The edge of his blade trembled, and from the cold steel burst hundreds of translucent dragon-shaped sword beams!
The dragon-shaped currents swarmed the pirates like living beasts, tearing through their ranks in a flurry of silver flashes. Within seconds, the entire squad lay dead on the dirt.
Ryuma sheathed his blade halfway, his voice icy. "You invaders should have thought twice before stepping foot on Wano's soil."
Ding! Host, Devil Fruits have been detected on the deceased targets. Would you like to devour them?
The system's chime rang in Ryuma's mind, making him pause in surprise.
Wait, that doesn't make sense, Ryuma thought. Aren't these low-level grunts fed Artificial Devil Fruits? How could real ones drop from them?
He pondered it for a moment before the realization struck him.
Kaidou's ultimate goal was to construct an all-Zoan army. Because natural Zoan fruits were rare, expensive to hunt down, and not guaranteed to be strong, the crew resorted to distributing artificial SMILE fruits on a massive scale. However, the men he just cut down must have been elite squad leaders—genuine Zoan users!
"Absorb them all," Ryuma commanded internally.
Ding! Congratulations, Host, you have absorbed a D-Rank Fruit: Cat-Cat Fruit!
Ding! Congratulations, Host, you have absorbed a D-Rank Fruit: Giant Fly Fruit!
Ding! Congratulations, Host, you have absorbed a C-Rank Fruit: Vulture Fruit!
Ding! Congratulations, Host, you have absorbed a D-Rank Fruit: Snail Fruit!
...
A string of notifications followed. In total, Ryuma acquired ten D-Rank Fruits and three C-Rank Fruits.
The C-Rank ones were somewhat usable, but the D-Rank ones were complete dead weight. What was he supposed to do with a Snail Fruit? Turn into a snail and crawl around? Zero combat value.
Man, the pirate world really is full of useless abilities, Ryuma scoffed mentally. Kaidou's crew really was taking in anyone and anything.
He thought it over. Selling thirteen low-grade fruits back to the system wouldn't yield much value, and he certainly wasn't going to eat them himself.
"System, can I fuse them?" Ryuma asked.
Two Devil Fruits of the same rank could be fused together into a higher-tier fruit—one of the most broken features of his system!
Ryuma immediately initiated the process. He fused the ten D-Rank Fruits into five C-Rank Fruits, bringing his total to eight C-Rank Fruits. He then fused those eight into four B-Rank Fruits, and the four B-Ranks into two A-Rank Fruits...
Ding! Congratulations, Host, you have obtained an S-Rank Fruit: Zoan, Ancient Species — Direwolf!
Ryuma blinked in surprise.
Direwolf? Now that's an interesting one.
After considering it for a while, he decided against absorbing the Direwolf Fruit immediately. He had five Devil Fruit slots in total, and he wanted to optimize his build carefully: two Logia, two Paramecia, and one Zoan.
For his single Zoan slot, he couldn't afford to settle for less. The Direwolf Fruit was undeniably strong, but he wanted to hold out and fuse his way up to a SSS-Rank Fruit in one go. Besides, with his current swordsmanship, lacking a Zoan transformation wasn't holding him back in the slightest.
Ding! System Quest Issued: Eliminate Kurozumi Kanjuro to earn one Lucky Draw ticket!
Ryuma raised an eyebrow.
Kanjuro?
He knew all about that snake. In the original story, the guy was thoroughly revolting. On the surface, he posed as a loyal vassal of the Kozuki clan and one of the Nine Red Scabbards, but in reality, he was a spy planted by the Kurozumi clan, acting as Orochi's mole the entire time.
Granted, at this point in time, Kanjuro was likely just a young man who hadn't yet executed his grand betrayal.
Ryuma let out a dark chuckle. Forget Kanjuro—even if Orochi himself showed up, it wouldn't make a difference.
"Quest accepted," Ryuma smirked.
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