Chapter 30: The Strong and the Weak

"What kind of nonsense are you spouting?"

"Of course I hit you!"

Krieg spat out a mouthful of bloody foam, snatched up his great lance in one hand, and fixed Xiang Gaowen with a gaze wary to the extreme.

"That level doesn't count as hitting me. Originally, I planned to just lop your arm off."

Xiang Gaowen's tone was flat, as though stating a fact:

"But it doesn't matter."

"Just now, neither I nor this fellow had gotten familiar with the other's abilities. For the next slash, I roughly know how much force to use."

"What outrageous boasting!"

Having said that, Krieg swung his great lance once more and charged at Xiang Gaowen. The pain in his arm only sharpened his mind.

He couldn't let him use that kind of attack again. This time it was an arm protected by armor; next time it could be his exposed skull!

Given his build, one hit would be enough—no, he didn't even need to be hit. The explosion triggered by the lancehead alone would be enough to send him to his death!

Thoughts churned in his mind.

Krieg's face was full of grim killing intent.

Even clad in heavy armor and charging with a great lance weighing over a ton, Krieg's speed was still far beyond that of an ordinary person.

In less than a second, he closed the distance between them. The heavy lance came down like a hammer, smashing toward Xiang Gaowen with a thunderous crash.

"Die!"

Krieg's speed might have seemed swift as lightning to ordinary eyes, but in Xiang Gaowen's eyes it was slow—like the tortoise in the race between the tortoise and the hare.

Slow!

Far too slow!

Slow enough to be tiresome!

He tilted his body slightly to evade the sharpest tip of the lance. The Guanshi Zhengzong, its blade over one point two meters long, came down from above in a kesa slash.

The edge of the Guanshi Zhengzong swept past the largest and hardest lancehead, then sliced through Krieg's chestplate in one motion, cutting deep into flesh.

Yet throughout this process, Xiang Gaowen felt not the slightest resistance—clearly, the Guanshi Zhengzong was sharper than imagination.

Hiss!

Fresh blood sprayed from Krieg's chest and abdomen. His body, which had been charging forward, fell onto its back. The searing pain made him lose focus for an instant.

Not only was the thickest, hardest chestplate sliced clean through by Xiang Gaowen's slash, but the great lance Krieg had treated as his secret weapon also slowly snapped from the cut at its tip.

Boom!

After the heavy thud of hitting the ground came the black gunpowder scattering from the broken lancehead like dust.

Judging by the total amount of black gunpowder stored in the lancehead, a full detonation would have been enough to destroy a warship. Yet now all that ordnance drifted away on the harbor's sea breeze.

Only when the scattered black gunpowder struck his face did Krieg finally come to his senses and realize what had happened.

"Impossible!"

The scene before his eyes—the man standing indifferently before him—was so powerful that it had already exceeded the upper limit of his comprehension.

In nearly forty years of life experience, only two words could accurately describe the man before him…

"Monster!"

"Who the hell are you?!"

"Just an ordinary pirate aiming for the Grand Line."

Xiang Gaowen's tone was so flat it even carried a hint of pity.

Krieg, nearly gutted, lay on the ground gasping for breath, yet gritted his teeth and forced out the last question in his heart:

"A monster like you—even on the Grand Line, there can't be many, right?"

"Monster?"

Xiang Gaowen gave a soft laugh:

"In a world like that, someone like me can't be called a monster."

"Compared to those beings who casually destroy islands or even nations, I'm as insignificant as dust drifting in the air."

"You're lying to me!"

Krieg spat out a mouthful of blood, his face visibly paling:

"If… if someone like you can't cut loose on the Grand Line, then what's the point of all the weapons I built to survive?"

"Survive?"

The pity in Xiang Gaowen's eyes deepened, yet it cut into Krieg's heart like a sharp blade—a pain far harder to endure than any physical wound.

Krieg clenched his teeth, and Xiang Gaowen's flat voice reached his ears:

"When would the strong ever build weapons just to survive?!"

Krieg's pupils contracted. His mouth opened, wanting to argue, but no words came out.

Xiang Gaowen continued:

"Only the weak build equipment to adapt to their environment. The strong change the environment—until they shape the world into their own form."

"Whether you admit it or not, from the very beginning, you were purely… the weak!"

Xiang Gaowen's words were like a final verdict handed down to Krieg. The belief that had sustained the man collapsed in that instant. His expression was almost identical to the one in the original story at the seafaring restaurant Baratie.

Only this time, the one who handed him this crushing defeat was not Hawkeye but Xiang Gaowen. And Xiang Gaowen had no habit of toying with his prey—he much preferred to cut the grass and dig up the roots.

Swish!

Xiang Gaowen swung his blade to flick the blood from it, then walked step by step toward Krieg.

A matter of mere seconds felt to Krieg like an entire century. Never before had he felt death so close.

The cowardice etched into the bones of the weak was fully unleashed in that moment. Tears burst from his tear ducts, clear mucus streamed from his nostrils:

"Spare me, I beg you! I have money, I can be your subordinate, I have many fleets..."

"I..."

Xiang Gaowen shook his head:

"It seems you still do not understand. From the moment you set foot in Raven Port and made your move against me, this outcome was destined."

Holding Guanshi Zhengzong high above his head, Xiang Gaowen looked at Xiang Keluo with nothing but unspeakable pity and boredom in his eyes.

Such an opponent could no longer stir his interest.

Had he known Xiang Keluo's former thoughts, he would surely have understood why Xiang Keluo made that choice.

Boring.

It would truly drive a person mad.

When everything becomes tasteless, rather than drifting on the sea, one might as well find a quiet town and wait to die.

Fortunately, Xiang Gaowen knew that on the Grand Line, in the New World, countless mountains awaited his climb.

Since when?

The purpose of his arrival in this world had already changed in a way even he had not realized.

Certain hidden existences within the genes, suppressed by the civilized society of his past life, gradually awakened alongside power and slaughter.

"This sea has no seat for the weak!"

The words fell.

The silver-white blade light in Xiang Gaowen's hand descended, yet halted the instant it touched Xiang Keluo's neck skin...

"Wait!"

"Take my life in exchange for his!"

A Jin, lying in the pool of blood, had awakened at some unknown moment, kneeling on the ground with his head pressed almost into the dirt.

Under the dual damage of the claw knife wound left by Xiang Keluo and the poison gas, his body was but a single step from death; the fact that he could speak at all relied entirely on his own powerful willpower forcing him on:

"As long as you spare the captain, I can give everything!"

"I beg you!"

At this moment, not only did Xiang Gaowen stop his hand, but Xiang Keluo also suffered a momentary lapse in focus, only to recover his former cold and ruthless demeanor in the next instant.

Seizing the instant when Xiang Gaowen's attention was completely drawn to A Jin, Xiang Keluo rose and leaped toward A Jin, grabbed the latter's arm, and threw him at Xiang Gaowen.

"Don't blame me! A Jin! I want to live!"

"In your next life, do not board my ship!"

(End of this chapter)