On the deck of the Moby Dick, the Poison Behemoth was holding the entire defense line aloft on its own.
Two ever-thickening, blood-red arms pummeled one of the mutated monsters like colossal pile drivers, hammering it blow after blow.
The sheer ferocity of the onslaught made the surrounding pirates blanch, afraid that at any moment, one stray strike might tear them apart along with the enemy.
Suddenly—the Poison Behemoth's body shuddered.
Magellan's expression turned grim in an instant.
He snatched a steel blade from a nearby pirate without a word and slashed it across the juncture where his own body fused with the Behemoth.
The cut severed clean through!
From the wound spilled not blood—but a writhing mass of eerie, dancing filaments, chilling to the core!
Magellan leapt from the deck, shouting at the top of his lungs:
"Everyone! Abandon the Moby Dick! As far away as possible!"
Before he hit the water, he drove his fists mercilessly into his own chest and gut, vomiting up great gouts of filthy, toxic blood.
Each splatter that landed on the ship's hull erupted into garish blooms of fungus.
The Poison Behemoth, severed from its host, instantly flew into a berserk frenzy.
It snatched up the already-mangled mutant on the deck, its gaping maw snapping shut and biting away half the creature's body in a single gulp.
Even the black organ sac within the beast's chest was swallowed whole—chewed twice, too tough to break apart, then gulped down into its belly.
Apparently dissatisfied with the taste, the Behemoth tossed aside the remaining carcass. Its bloody hand swept out again, scooping up an unfortunate pirate who couldn't dodge in time.
With a crunch, it shoved him straight down its throat.
The very next moment, countless fungal filaments burst upward from the Behemoth's gullet, forcing the pirate back out!
He crashed heavily onto the deck, stunned out of his wits, sitting there frozen as he gaped up at the monstrous giant.
The Behemoth's left hand was clamped around the great bundle of filaments wriggling from its mouth, straining to tear them free.
Meanwhile, its right arm cocked back—then slammed an uppercut directly into its own left elbow!
Beating yourself up, seriously?
A deafening boom!
The Behemoth's massive fist landed true, the tremendous impact wrenching its left arm violently out of position.
But that left arm refused to release its grip on the fungal mass.
The result—a grotesque spectacle as the Behemoth's body was stretched unnaturally long, pulled taut by its own arm.
Finally, with a wet snap, the bundle of filaments tore loose. The Behemoth flung them miles out into the open sea.
The watching pirates began to realize—these filaments were likely the cause of the Behemoth's erratic behavior.
Now that they'd been torn free… surely the monster would return to being an ally?
Instead, the Poison Behemoth let out a sky-splitting roar as fresh clusters of filaments erupted from every inch of its skin!
The pirates screamed in terror and scattered in all directions, not daring to linger a heartbeat longer.
Magellan, however, understood the situation better than anyone.
Because he could feel it within himself—the alien fungus was multiplying uncontrollably inside his own body.
His flesh, his bones, his very energy—even the deadly poisons he had infused within himself through his Devil Fruit—everything had become fuel for the fungus.
He had no power to kill it. He couldn't even slow it down for an instant!
Worst of all, the filaments were swiftly seizing control of his muscles and nerves.
In mere moments, half his body was no longer his own—lashing out like the Poison Behemoth, brutally assaulting the half he still controlled.
That was why he had leapt into the sea.
Partly, to suppress his Devil Fruit ability and cripple his movements, so he wouldn't harm his allies.
And partly, to make the most direct appeal for aid—to the Star Spirit!
This had been the very solution the Behemoth conveyed to him before severing their link.
The Behemoth's words, after all, were the voice of Roya's will.
As Magellan's consciousness dimmed, he could only pray that the Star Spirit Roya spoke of would arrive in time—to cleanse these horrific fungi.
Otherwise, with their capacity to devour and multiply, the tens of thousands of lives along this defense line would be nothing but fodder!
Then—warmth surged through the seawater around him, flooding into his body.
An energy both real and unreal instantly seized the rampaging fungus, halting its growth and hunger.
A voice crashed into his mind:
"Big loss! This is a massive loss! If not for the Pluton acting as a relay, all the energy I've hoarded over centuries wouldn't even cover the cost of this one mess!"
"Roya! If you don't find a way to compensate me, I might as well just self-destruct and be done with it!"
Magellan groaned. "Are you insane? Who are you even planning to impress by blowing yourself up?"
The Star Spirit snorted angrily and fell silent.
But Magellan couldn't hold back a cry of pain.
He could feel it—those strange energies were ripping the filaments out of his flesh and nerves.
The fungus threads embedded deep within him were being torn free, deactivated, and expelled violently through his pores.
The agony was beyond human endurance.
And the Star Spirit, still sulking over Magellan's backtalk, worked all the more roughly—putting him through sheer hell.
As Magellan writhed in torment, he raised his head to see the Poison Behemoth still thrashing on the deck.
The Behemoth wrenched the writhing filaments from its body, then suddenly hurled itself off the deck, plunging into the sea and swimming toward Mary Geoise.
Magellan exhaled in relief.
If cleansing the fungus from his own body was such an arduous task, then purging the Behemoth—larger, stronger, and far more deeply infected—would be an even greater ordeal.
Fortunately, the Behemoth's seed of consciousness had managed to suppress the fungal eruption just enough to retreat from the New World front line.
That allowed the Star Spirit to focus on purging Magellan first, before doubling back to aid the Behemoth—stamping out this fungal crisis once and for all.
But without the Behemoth, the pressure on the defense instantly spiked!
In a chain reaction, casualties among the pirates and Revolutionary Army soared.
Just as Whitebeard felt the situation tipping beyond recovery, a flash of black light tore across the battlefield.
It pierced through a dozen mutated beasts in a single streak before landing on the deck of the Moby Dick.
Squard had arrived—filling the gap left by the fallen Poison Behemoth!
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