Bone and trained strength were enough.
"Open," he said quietly.
BOOM.
The punch connected with the center of the gate with the force of a cannon blast.
The wood didn't just splinter—it exploded. The massive ironwood planks shattered inward in a spray of jagged shrapnel. The force of the impact tore the iron hinges clean off the support posts with a metallic screech. The entire gate collapsed inward like a felled tree, crashing into the village square and kicking up a cloud of dust and debris.
Argentus stepped through the smoke.
Inside, fifty armed cannibals stood frozen in a semicircle around the destroyed gate. They held clubs studded with bone, crude knives made from sharpened shells, and a few stolen cutlasses from previous victims. They outnumbered him fifty to one.
But as Argentus walked through the settling dust, cracking his knuckles with slow deliberation, the air in the village changed.
The Kumate's bulbous pink noses twitched frantically, sniffing the air. Their primitive instincts, honed by generations of hunting, were screaming a single message into their brains:
"Attack!" the new leader screamed—a frantic man with a blue feather tied into his antenna-hair. His voice was shrill with fear, but he forced it into command. "All at once! Surround him! EAT HIM!"
They charged.
A wave of screaming, hungry bodies rushed forward, desperate to overwhelm him with sheer numbers.
Argentus didn't retreat.
He stepped into the tide.
A club swung at his head. He ducked beneath it, driving his fist into the attacker's liver with surgical precision. The man's eyes bulged, and he folded instantly, vomiting as he collapsed. A spear thrust came from the left. Argentus sidestepped, grabbed the wooden shaft, and used it as a pole to vault himself into the air. His boot connected with another attacker's jaw mid-flight, the crack of breaking bone audible over the chaos. He landed lightly, spun, and grabbed two rushing tribesmen by their antenna-ponytails. With a grunt of effort, he slammed their heads together. CRACK. They dropped like sacks of grain.
It wasn't a battle.
It was a rhythm.
Dodge. Strike. Crack. Step.
His Observation Haki flared constantly, painting threats in his mind before they materialized. Behind me. Argentus ducked, and a machete wielded by a cannibal swung through empty air, embedding itself in the skull of the man standing behind him instead. Left side. Argentus leaned back, and a spear tip grazed his chin, close enough to draw a thin line of blood but missing anything vital.
He moved through the mob like water flowing through a sieve. Every time he struck, a body fell. He broke arms with precise elbow strikes. He crushed windpipes with open-palm hits. He shattered kneecaps with low kicks that left men writhing on the ground.
Ten down. Twenty down.
The screaming changed tone. It shifted from battle cries of aggression to shrieks of pure terror.
Men began to flee, shoving each other aside in their panic. Others dropped their weapons, falling to their knees with their hands raised in surrender.
Argentus walked through the carnage and grabbed the leader—the one with the blue feather—by the throat. He lifted the man off the ground with one hand, his fingers digging into flesh, and stared into his bulging, terrified eyes.
The rest of the tribe stopped moving. They backed away, dropping whatever weapons they still held, trembling like leaves in a storm.
Argentus looked around the circle of terrified, identical faces. He tightened his grip on the leader's throat until the man's struggles weakened, his eyes rolling back. Then he dropped him like garbage.
The leader hit the ground and didn't get up, unconscious or dead—Argentus didn't care which.
"This island," Argentus announced, his voice cutting through the sudden silence like a blade, "now belongs to Argentus D. Drake."
The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the crackling of torches and the labored breathing of the wounded.
Then, the sound of running feet.
A few villagers at the back of the crowd turned toward the path that led to the docks, their instinct to flee overwhelming their fear of punishment.
"Halt."
Argentus didn't shout. The single word carried a weight that froze them mid-step as if invisible chains had wrapped around their ankles.
"Nobody leaves," he continued, his silver eyes scanning the crowd with cold authority. "If I see a single sail touch the horizon before I'm finished here, I will burn this entire rock to the waterline. Every hut. Every boat. Every. Single. One of you."
He stepped over the unconscious body of the former leader, his boots squelching in the blood-soaked mud.
"You have work to do," Argentus said, his tone shifting to something almost businesslike. "I require a vessel. Not a lumbering cargo ship, but a sloop—small, sturdy, and fast enough to outrun anything in these waters. And you will fill its hold with every ounce of gold this miserable island possesses. Coins, jewelry, trade goods—I don't care. Don't hold back a single piece."
He looked at the nearest tribesman, who flinched violently.
"You have three days," Argentus said. "Get to work."
For the next seventy-two hours, the island became a hive of terrified, exhausted activity.
While the villagers scrambled to reinforce a suitable boat and drain their hidden treasury, Argentus lived like a conquering king.
He commandeered the headman's quarters—the largest hut in the village, built on stilts with walls decorated in faded war paint. He devoured the finest cuts of meat from their stores, drank their oldest fermented wines, and slept in the softest hammock they possessed.
To any observer, he seemed completely at ease. His snoring echoed through the house at night, a rhythmic sound that projected an image of total vulnerability.
It was too tempting for one of the former leader's most loyal guards to resist.
On the second night, under the cover of a moonless sky, the guard crept into the room. He moved with the silence of a lifetime predator, his bare feet making no sound on the wooden floor. In his hand, he clutched a serrated dagger—its edge coated in a paralytic poison harvested from the island's tree frogs.
He stood over the hammock, watching Argentus's chest rise and fall in the steady rhythm of deep sleep. The boy looked defenseless. Unarmed. His weapons were stacked carelessly in the corner, too far to reach.
I have you, the guard thought, a vicious grin spreading across his face. The demon sleeps like any other man.
He raised the blade high, both hands gripping the hilt for maximum force.
He brought it down with all his might, aiming for the heart.
The blade never made contact.
In fact, the guard never even saw Argentus move.
Argentus's Observation Haki had painted a vivid, perfect image of the room in his mind's eye the moment the guard's foot crossed the threshold. He had felt the man's intent—a sharp, burning spike of malice and murderous resolve—long before the assassin was even within striking distance.
His eyes hadn't opened. His breathing hadn't changed. To the guard, he had appeared completely asleep.
But his hand had moved.
There was a singular, wet thud.
The guard's body remained standing for a split second, the dagger still raised high above his head in hands that no longer received signals from a brain. Then, his head slid cleanly off his shoulders, the cut so precise it looked like a magic trick. The head hit the floor with a dull thunk, rolling slightly before coming to rest against the wall. The body followed a heartbeat later, collapsing in a boneless heap.
Argentus, who had drawn and re-sheathed his knife faster than the human eye could track, finally opened one eye. He looked at the mess on the floor—blood slowly pooling across the wooden planks—and let out a disappointed sigh.
"Now I have to move hammocks," he muttered.
He rolled over and went back to sleep.
Argentus woke on the morning of the third day to the sound of hammers and shouted commands echoing from the harbor. He stretched his limbs with a satisfying series of cracks, rolling his shoulders and neck until the stiffness bled away.
He felt revitalized. The fatigue of his previous travels—the constant paranoia, the sleepless nights, the gnawing hunger—had been completely washed away by three days of uninterrupted rest and more food than he'd eaten in months.
The bloodstain on the floor where the assassin had fallen was gone, scrubbed clean by terrified servants while he'd slept. The detail made him smirk as he stepped over the spotless wood. Fear was an excellent motivator.
He grabbed his meager gear—a worn coat, a waterskin, and the knife he'd used to separate the guard's head from his shoulders—and slung them over his shoulder. After adjusting his coat to sit properly, he marched down to the harbor with the confident stride of a man who owned everything he could see.
The villagers were gathered at the dock, looking haggard and hollow-eyed. They had worked through the nights without rest, fueled entirely by the terror of his threat to burn their island to ash. Sweat stained their striped shirts. Their hands were wrapped in bloodied rags from rope burns and splinters.
But at the end of the dock, bobbing gently in the morning tide, was the result of their desperate labor.
It was a sloop—sleek, aggressive, and purpose-built. The hull was narrow and reinforced with dark, treated wood capable of cutting through rough waves without taking on water. A single, tall mast rose from the center deck, rigged with pulleys and lines designed so that one man could handle the sails without trouble. The rigging was taut, professional work despite the rushed timeline.
Argentus stepped aboard without a word, the wood creaking slightly under his boots. He inspected the deck first, running his hand along the rail. Clean. Scrubbed. Efficient. No loose nails or shoddy craftsmanship—they had been too afraid to cut corners.
He moved to the small cabin located toward the stern. It was compact but functional, fitted with a hammock strung between reinforced beams, a narrow desk bolted to the wall for navigation work, and a heavy iron lock on the door. Simple, but secure.
Next, he checked the hold.
He lifted the wooden hatch, and a golden glimmer caught the morning sun. His eyes adjusted to the dimness below, and satisfaction spread across his face.
The island's entire treasury had been emptied. Canvas bags bulging with gold berries and pieces of jewelry sat stacked along one side. Next to them were barrels of fresh water, crates of smoked meats, dried fruits, hardtack, and even a few bottles of wine. Enough supplies to last him weeks, maybe a month if he rationed.
He ran his fingers over one of the gold bags, feeling the weight. This wasn't just survival money. This was investment money. The first real capital toward his ultimate goal.
He emerged from the hold, letting the hatch fall shut with a satisfying thud. He looked down at the dock where the villagers stood in a nervous cluster. At the front was the former leader—the one with the blue feather in his hair—now sporting a heavy bandage wrapped around his skull like a grotesque turban.
The man flinched when Argentus's silver eyes landed on him.
"Acceptable," Argentus said, his voice carrying clearly over the sound of lapping waves. "The craftsmanship is adequate. The supplies are sufficient."
He let the silence stretch for a moment, watching them squirm.
"You get to keep your lives."
He didn't wait for gratitude—he knew there would be none. With practiced ease, Argentus untied the mooring ropes and coiled them efficiently on the deck. He moved to the mast and hauled on the halyard, raising the sail with smooth, controlled pulls.
(END OF CHAPTER)
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