Am I… going to die?
Lucci dragged his ruined body forward, eyelids growing heavier and heavier, as if something invisible was yanking them down with brute force.
Don't close your eyes.
That was the only thought keeping him awake.
He bit down hard, forcing his bloodshot eyes wide open, staring at the young figure standing ahead with a wooden sword in hand.
Compared to him—
Ryukawa, dressed in white, not a speck of dust on his body, looked almost unreal.
The contrast was brutal.
Lucci was a broken, bleeding corpse barely standing.
Ryukawa looked like a god who had stepped into a ruin and remained untouched by it.
"This monster…"
Lucci clenched his teeth, swallowing the stabbing pain screaming from every part of his body.
He could feel it.
Death was getting closer.
His body was getting heavier.
Especially his eyelids—like boulders pressing down on them. Just keeping them open took everything he had.
"Me… the so-called strongest CP9 agent in eight hundred years…"
"To end here… in East Blue of all places…"
"How could anyone have predicted something this absurd?"
"In East Blue… I ran into a monster at this level."
"Even on the Grand Line, he'd be outstanding."
"But why… why is he here, in East Blue?!"
Lucci was furious.
Not at Ryukawa.
At fate.
He'd been unlucky beyond reason—running into a monster in a sea everyone called weak.
Had he really not checked his fortune before coming?
How could a disaster like this land on him?
"I hate this…"
Lucci tilted his head back in bitter despair.
His road had been laid out.
With his talent, he'd have risen smoothly inside CP9.
He had a future.
And then he came to East Blue—
and a boy from East Blue snapped that future in half.
"I never should've gotten involved."
"Now look at me… I'm done."
His mentality was broken beyond repair.
With his body this wrecked, hope was a joke.
Against a monster like this, how could he escape?
There was no way.
If Ryukawa could cripple him in a single strike, he would never allow him to crawl away.
And Lucci's state was already terrible.
"He's too strong."
"Strong enough to make you despair."
"This is the first time in my life…"
"that I've felt this kind of helplessness…"
"This kind of suffocating hopelessness…"
Lucci's lips trembled. He stared at Ryukawa with hollow desperation.
Blood dripped steadily from his wounds, splattering onto the shattered tiles beneath him.
Drip.
Drip.
The stench of blood thickened the air.
"Cough—cough!"
Lucci Hacked up more blood and gave a faint, crooked smile.
He understood.
There was no chance left.
This trap was originally meant to kill Ryukawa—an airtight "catch the turtle in the jar."
But in the end—
it became his execution pit.
The plan hadn't failed.
Every step had been flawless.
Only one thing was wrong—
he had underestimated the opponent.
If he'd known Ryukawa was this strong, Lucci would never have stepped forward himself.
He would've withdrawn and called for reinforcements.
But who could've guessed it?
A monster like this, in East Blue—
it wasn't supposed to happen.
And yet it had.
"The 'weakest East Blue'…"
"That title really killed me."
If East Blue hadn't been labeled weak, he never would've walked in this casually.
Lucci took a deep breath, eyes locked on Ryukawa.
"Come."
"Kill me."
"As you wish."
Ryukawa raised the wooden sword.
He swung.
In an instant—
shoo!
A razor-sharp slash shot from the blade.
Sword aura burst outward for more than ten meters, moving like lightning—fast, violent, and flashing with a red glow.
It reached Lucci almost immediately.
Pshk!
The slash pierced straight through Lucci's chest.
A scorched, gaping hole opened in the center of him.
Blood exploded out.
It sprayed across the air and rained onto the ground, painting the broken tiles.
The metallic stench surged.
Lucci's eyes blurred.
His vision turned muddy, Ryukawa's figure becoming distant and unreal.
"…What a monster…"
"Dying by your hand…"
"isn't… shameful…"
His eyelids finally won.
They fell shut.
Thud.
Lucci collapsed.
Blood poured out rapidly, pooling around his body into a small lake.
Rob Lucci—
was gone.
Yes.
The so-called strongest CP9 agent in eight hundred years died today.
In Loguetown, East Blue—
beneath Ryukawa's sword.
And it wasn't even close.
He was crushed.
The entire fight was a one-sided massacre.
Ryukawa landed two moves.
The first sword—Lucci was left dying.
The second—his chest was pierced.
Then—
Lucci died.
If this got out…
who would believe it?
A boy from East Blue pressing CP9's prized agent into the ground, killing him with two strikes.
Cipher Pol's higher-ups would lose their minds.
They'd poured countless resources into Lucci.
A mountain of training, money, time, blood.
And in the end—
he was erased by a teenage swordsman like he was nothing.
"Lucci is dead."
"But there are still plenty of CP agents left…"
Ryukawa's eyes narrowed as he looked at the black-suited figures sprawled unconscious across the floor and outside.
So—
what to do with them?
"My identity is exposed now. I planned and prepared all this… and still ended up revealing myself."
"But it doesn't matter."
"If Cipher Pol has more tricks…"
"I'll take them all."
Ryukawa stepped forward with the wooden sword in hand.
Clean movements.
No hesitation.
No wasted motion.
The blade fell.
Blood splashed.
The ruined lobby was soaked by fresh crimson.
Footsteps approached—messy, loud.
Smoker stepped off his motorcycle, cigar clenched between his teeth, eyes fixed on the shattered building with a heavy seriousness. He didn't relax for even a second.
"Lieutenant Colonel Smoker, it's here!" a lieutenant said at his side.
"I know," Smoker replied.
He didn't need a reminder.
The moment he arrived, he felt it—
the atmosphere was wrong.
Oppressive.
Even his heartbeat seemed to slow, pressed down by that suffocating air.
A light breeze swept past.
And then—
a smell drifted into his nose.
"Blood."
"So much blood…"
Smoker's pupils shrank.
His face shifted slightly.
He stared at the ruined structure, throat going dry, a wave of unease surging through him like rising tide after rising tide.
The blood stench was thick.
Thick enough that—
in Smoker's memory—
he'd never smelled anything like it.
Even with the doors closed, the odor leaked out like a curse.
Like a slaughterhouse.
"People died in there."
"If not, there's no way the blood smell would be this heavy."
"If I'm guessing…"
"the dead number is at least three hundred."
Smoker took a deep breath, forcing his shock down.
This was the first time since taking control of Loguetown that he'd encountered something this horrifying.
Too many dead.
And it happened in Loguetown—one of the strictest Marine-controlled towns in all of East Blue.
Meaning someone had dared to butcher people right under Marine noses.
Something was wrong.
Very wrong.
"And these people…"
Smoker's gaze swept the unconscious black-suited men scattered around the building.
"Who are they?"
"And why did all of them collapse like this?"
The questions piled in his skull.
Their uniforms were identical.
Black suits.
Standardized.
It looked… familiar.
Too familiar.
Smoker's stomach sank with a bad guess.
"Don't tell me…"
"Are these Cipher Pol?"
He exhaled hard.
If this really involved Cipher Pol, the situation just became a thousand times uglier.
And then the other question hit even harder—
even if they were CP…
Why were there so many?
Why were they all down?
At a glance, Smoker estimated more than two thousand bodies around the perimeter.
Two thousand men, collapsed.
And they looked like they'd fallen at the same time.
Was that even possible?
If it was—
what kind of method could drop two thousand people instantly?
Just thinking about it made even Smoker's skin crawl.
Of course, these were still only guesses.
He had no proof they'd all lost consciousness at once.
But even so, the questions wouldn't stop circling.
This whole thing was muddy.
Dangerous.
A nightmare to handle.
"Spread out!"
"Surround the area—now!"
Smoker ordered immediately.
"Yes, sir!"
Two hundred elite Marines moved at once.
Within moments—
they formed a full perimeter, sealing the ruined building airtight.
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