Before his voice had even finished echoing, a massive wave of blood mist exploded outward from Ritter.
It rapidly spread across the ruins, shrouding the entire plaza in a faint crimson haze.
Have you ever heard of something that could make people work harder?
The little old men stared at the things moving inside the mist.
"What the heck... Is this for real?!"
Within the roiling blood mist, figures began to silently take shape.
One after another, they stepped forward.
Each wore tattered crimson armor.
Their faces were blurred and indistinct.
In their hands were long whips condensed from mist.
With this kind of thing standing behind you, who wouldn't work hard?
The Blood Warriors moved in perfect unison.
They instantly spread out, each one locking onto a group of robots.
Ritter had already said it.
He had plenty of answers to copy.
Besides, he had never planned to peacefully coexist with these people.
Back when he had conquered Skypiea, he had needed them as labor for his future base.
At that time, Ritter had not yet been strong enough to summon large numbers of Blood Warriors.
That was why he had chosen to reason with them.
That was how he had resolved the conflict between the two races.
But now?
Ritter only needed to build the energy station.
At worst, he could simply kill them all and let his summoned warriors handle everything.
Lazy Ritter: I just can't be bothered.
Little Old Men: You're so selfish!
That was actually a little unfair to Ritter.
Ritter simply did not allow anything useless to exist on the moon.
"Build the energy-link system."
Ritter's voice echoed through the blood mist.
"Anyone who stops... or tries to sabotage it..."
Before he could finish speaking, a Blood Warrior swung the long whip in its hand.
Snap!
The whip struck a massive lunar rock beside them.
The stone was instantly carved with a deep groove.
At the edges, an eerie sizzling sound could be heard as the rock began to corrode.
"This is what happens."
The little old men trembled violently.
A few of them even collapsed onto their backsides.
The robots really did not need to be so afraid.
"You... You barbarian!"
The little old man with the longest beard pointed at Ritter with a trembling finger.
But his voice had already lost most of its confidence.
Ritter snorted.
He folded his arms and looked at them leisurely.
"Barbarian?"
"Weaklings don't have the right to define that word."
"Now move."
"My patience is limited."
Under the silent supervision of the Blood Warriors and their constantly twitching whips...
The little old men suddenly noticed the girl in Ritter's arms.
Their eyes lit up.
That aura...
It was the same aura as their former master.
The little old men and robots seemed to experience some kind of sudden intellectual breakthrough.
Then they submitted.
Serving the master was nothing to be ashamed of!
They immediately began operating the ancient machinery.
They adjusted the output of the energy core.
Following Ritter's instructions, they redirected the energy toward the location he had chosen for the secret formation.
Ritter watched the project begin to operate.
He nodded in satisfaction.
Then he turned around and smiled at the girl, who had been quietly watching everything from behind him.
He gently rubbed her hair.
"See?"
"Problem solved."
"It'll be finished soon."
The girl looked at him.
Then she glanced at the little old men and robots working busily under the Blood Warriors' enthusiastic encouragement.
There was no fear in her ice-blue eyes.
Only the same unwavering trust as always.
She gently tugged on Ritter's clothes.
"Captain... amazing."
Ritter burst out laughing.
He took her hand.
Sometimes, conquering a place really was this simple.
His purpose in coming here had been crystal clear.
To ensure that the little one could safely reach the future, Ritter did not mind playing the villain for once.
After all, he was Ritter, the Mist Lord.
He did whatever he pleased.
He had no taboos.
He acted according to his own likes and dislikes.
As for compensation later...
Did she really think charging my combatant's electricity was free?
Collecting a little interest was perfectly reasonable.
Ritter led the girl to a relatively high section of broken ruins and sat down.
Like a king surveying his own territory, he looked down upon the scene below.
The Blood Warriors continued to drive the little old men and robots to work.
Ritter was not in a hurry.
Time was on his side.
Or rather...
He was forcibly taking control of time himself.
There was nothing he could do about it.
The energy he had taken from the little old men was now being used to build the moon's system.
In a way, he was simply taking from the people and using it for the people.
However, this starry sky clearly did not belong only to them.
A few days later...
A group of space pirates active in the area arrived.
They had clearly mistaken the energy reaction here for some kind of undiscovered treasure.
Or perhaps wealth hidden by the Moon People.
In simpler terms...
A legendary treasure had just appeared in the world.
A starship circled above the ruins.
The hatch opened.
A group of pirates wearing mismatched spacesuits and carrying energy weapons began descending.
They were all different shapes and sizes.
And they were all howling excitedly.
At the front was a burly man wearing a one-eyed visor.
He waved a massive sword in his hand.
"Hahaha!"
"Looks like those little moon dwarves really were hiding something good!"
"Boys, take everything valuable!"
"Anyone who resists gets killed!"
"I knew all the strong ones had left!"
"Maybe we can rule this place!"
The pirate captain and his men were clearly used to the weakness of the Moon People.
They completely failed to notice the faint, abnormal blood mist surrounding the ruins.
Nor did they notice the silent crimson figures appearing and disappearing within it.
The little old men and robots trembled in fear.
Their work instantly came to a halt.
They stared in terror at the unwanted visitors.
Ritter slowly stood up.
"Seriously... so damn noisy."
He muttered under his breath.
Then he gently patted the back of the girl's hand.
He motioned for her to stay where she was.
Ritter took one step forward.
His calm gaze settled on the group of space pirates descending without a care in the world.
"Hey."
Ritter's voice instantly rang in the ears of every pirate.
"Who gave you permission to step onto my territory?"
The one-eyed pirate captain froze.
He followed the voice and looked up.
There, high above him, stood Ritter.
The strange blood mist surrounded him.
The pirate captain was initially cautious.
But when he realized there were only two people, his arrogance quickly returned.
"Your territory?"
"Bullshit!"
"The moon is ownerless!"
"Be smart and get lost!"
"Hand over the treasure and I might spare your life!"
"Ownerless?"
Ritter looked as though he had just heard something hilarious.
"I already told you."
"I took a liking to it."
"So it's mine."
He stopped wasting words.
Ritter merely raised his chin slightly.
"Kill them."
The next moment...
The Blood Warriors that had been quietly supervising the construction moved!
Their previously blurred figures instantly solidified.
The flames of their souls burned fiercely within their empty eye sockets.
They silently roared.
Like a crimson flood breaking through a dam, they surged toward the newly landed pirates from every direction!
"What the hell are those things?!"
"Open fire!"
"Fire! Fire!"
The pirates panicked.
Their energy weapons began wildly firing beams of light.
But there was an eternal truth that never changed.
Lots of smoke.
Zero damage.
The energy beams entered the blood mist.
Explosions erupted.
Thick smoke rolled through the ruins.
Yet all it did was make the blood mist churn even more violently.
The Blood Warriors completely ignored the attacks.
A bunch of weaklings who could not even use Armament Haki had no chance against them.
The Blood Warriors might not be particularly useful against true powerhouses.
But every single one of them was, in a certain sense...
An Elemental Devil Fruit user.
And Elemental Devil Fruit users were practically invincible in the first half of the Grand Line.
The mist whips in their hands lashed out.
They easily wrapped around the pirates' limbs and necks.
Some directly pierced through their spacesuits.
"Gaaaaah!"
"No! Somebody save me!"
The screams echoed through the pirates' communication channel.
Fear and despair filled every word.
The one-eyed pirate captain watched in horror as his second-in-command was swept past by a crimson figure.
In an instant, he became a dried corpse.
Then the corpse scattered apart.
The captain was scared out of his mind.
He turned around and desperately tried to flee back to his starship.
However...
At some point, a massive and far more solid blood dragon had already coiled around the entrance to his starship.
Its cold dragon eyes stared indifferently at him.
"M... Monster!"
"Devil!"
The one-eyed pirate captain screamed in despair.
He wildly swung the chainsaw sword in his hands.
Ritter could not even be bothered to look at him one last time.
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