"What the hell are you trying to do?" Oguro roared toward the patch of shadow.
The guy wearing the ram-horn demon mask stepped out, grinning like it was all a joke.
"What else? Obviously I'm here to save this country."
He removed the mask and leapt onto the roof of a nearby building, raising his voice for everyone to hear.
"Everyone! The royal family of this kingdom has never cared about whether us commoners live or die!"
"For the sake of raising taxes, they've already resorted to every dirty trick possible! And now they've even turned our homes into a battlefield!"
"We just want to survive. Is that wrong? Do we not even have the right to live? Is that fair?"
His voice carried so much agitation and emotional weight that the crowd of residents couldn't help shouting back.
"Not fair! We want to live! We want to live!"
The goat-horned man smiled with satisfaction.
His voice felt like a devil's whisper dripping with temptation.
"If we want to survive, there's only one road left for us. We must completely wipe out that rotten royal family who doesn't give a damn whether we live or die!"
Oguro was stunned.
This guy wasn't trying to trigger chaos just to profit from the fallout.
He wanted to overthrow the royal family himself.
Shun!
Oguro used Shunpo and instantly appeared in front of the ram-horn man, slashing down with his Zanpakutō.
The masked man reacted quickly, turning around and drawing his blade to block.
"You… you're not CP0, are you?" Oguro asked with a grave expression.
CP0 might try to stir chaos in a nation to reap benefits.
But taking over the country themselves was absolutely impossible.
"Hehe… who knows?"
The goat-horn man didn't answer. Instead he shouted to the crowd around them.
"Hurry! He's a lapdog of the royal family! Everyone, kill him together!"
Right after he shouted, thin white mist began spreading in the air again.
Clearly, he was activating his ability once more.
This time Oguro was prepared. His spiritual pressure held his mind steady, leaving not a single crack for the enemy to exploit.
The ram-horn man's eyes flashed with surprise.
He had eaten his Devil Fruit many years ago, and this was the first time someone had broken out of it so easily.
But his grin returned.
My fruit isn't that simple.
The next moment, Oguro saw the trembling, terrified residents who had been praying to the heavens moments ago suddenly raise weapons and charge at him without fear.
At first glance, it wasn't surprising.
He had just experienced something similar back at the inn and already knew the guy could control people.
But this time, things were different.
Oguro swung his blade's flat side, intending to knock the charging citizen unconscious.
But in the next second, the civilian's figure vanished and reappeared behind Oguro.
"That's… Soru?"
Oguro's eyes widened. "That technique takes rigorous training. Was this guy a Marine before?"
But after taking a closer look, the man was just an ordinary citizen.
Forget Marines, he didn't even look like someone who exercised regularly.
What was going on?
Shun!
Before he could figure it out, a Rankyaku slash swept toward him.
Oguro tilted his body slightly to dodge.
Only then did he notice several civilians using Rankyaku.
A realization struck his mind.
He glared at the ram-horned man.
"You're controlling them!"
"Fufufufu!"
The man burst out laughing.
"The name's Freud. I ate the Mizu Mizu no Mi, the Illusion Fruit. I can use sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste to influence a person's emotions and thoughts until I completely control them."
"The people you're fighting may just be ordinary civilians, but under my control, their brains believe they are CP0 elites. Their minds force their bodies to execute the moves, so of course the Rokushiki comes naturally!"
At that moment, everything clicked in Oguro's mind.
The new variety of flowers blooming throughout the capital.
The spices in the food.
Even the brightly colored decorations everywhere.
Everything had been prepared by Freud to control the entire population of the capital.
Because he had already taken over most residents long before, the moment the Shadow Dragon Guards and Oguro entered the city, their movements were exposed.
"Hehehe! You brought people to Furant Kingdom. You must be planning to rule this place, right? I wonder if you can bring yourself to harm them?"
Freud hid behind the crowd, laughing smugly.
"Hmph."
Oguro snorted. Freud wasn't wrong.
He couldn't bring himself to kill innocent civilians.
But that didn't mean he had no way to deal with this.
Boom!
A violent wave of Conqueror's Haki exploded outward. The pressure surged like a god descending to earth.
A group fight?
Conqueror's Haki users feared that the least.
But to Oguro's surprise, his Conqueror's Haki failed to knock out the civilians.
It wasn't completely ineffective, but only a thin line of people at the edges collapsed.
Not even one-tenth of the rioters.
"Hahahaha…"
Freud couldn't hold back his laughter.
He stared at Oguro with mocking eyes, like a cat toying with a trapped mouse.
"You think I've never dealt with Conqueror's Haki users before?"
"This crude intimidation technique doesn't work when I've planted strong enough 'courage cues' in their brains!"
"So then, Sith Oguro… what will you do now? Planning to stop them?"
"I'll give you a friendly reminder. You should hurry up. Their bodies won't last long."
Oguro's face darkened.
These civilians looked unharmed on the surface.
But Rokuogan techniques were trained only by hardened Marine elites because they required extremely high physical strength.
Under forced control, these civilians were using techniques far beyond what their bodies could handle.
Their muscles and bones were already under immense strain.
If this continued, permanent injury was guaranteed.
Some might even collapse and die from the backlash.
Freud had never cared about their lives. To him, they were just tools for seizing control of Frant Kingdom.
"You bastard… you're beyond vile."
Oguro's eyes turned icy cold. The look he gave Freud was the look one gave a dead man.
"Say whatever you want. As long as I kill the fruit user, your ability ends naturally."
If he couldn't solve the problem…
Then he'd just kill the one who created it.
Simple and brutal.
Shun!
Oguro flashed through a crowd of civilians, raising his Zanpakutō. Thick Armament Haki coated the blade as he slashed toward Freud's neck.
But Freud only smirked.
And in the next heartbeat, his entire body vanished from Oguro's sight.
***
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