Chapter 30: The Strong and the Weak

“What kind of nonsense are you talking?”

“Of course I hit him!”

Krik spat out a mouthful of blood, snatched up his great lance, and regarded Gao Wen with utmost wariness.

“That doesn’t count as a hit. I originally intended to sever your arm outright.”

Gao Wen’s tone was calm, as if stating a simple fact:

“But it doesn’t matter.”

“Just now, neither of us understood each other’s abilities. Next strike, I’ll know exactly how much force to use.”

“Arrogant fool!”

With that, Krik swung his great lance again and charged toward Gao Wen; the pain in his arm sharpened his mind.

He couldn’t let that attack happen again—this time it was his armored arm, next time it could be his exposed skull!

With his build, even a single hit—or even just the explosion from the lance’s tip—would send him to his grave!

Thoughts churned in his mind.

Krik’s face was thick with deadly malice.

Even clad in heavy armor and sprinting with a lance weighing over a ton, Krik’s speed still far surpassed that of an ordinary man.

In less than a second, he closed the distance between them, bringing the heavy lance down like a hammer upon Gao Wen.

“Die!”

To an ordinary man, Krik’s speed was lightning-fast—but to Gao Wen, it was as slow as the tortoise in the hare-and-tortoise race.

Slow.

Too slow.

So slow it made him bored.

He sidestepped slightly, avoiding the sharpest point of the lance, then brought down the Kanshisei Shōjō—its blade over one point two meters long—in a diagonal cut.

The Kanshisei Shōjō’s edge sliced through the largest, hardest part of the lancehead, then continued cleanly through Krik’s breastplate, sinking deep into flesh and muscle.

Throughout this, Gao Wen felt not the slightest resistance—the Kanshisei Shōjō was sharper than imaginable.

Hss!

Blood gushed from Krik’s chest and abdomen; his forward momentum reversed as he toppled backward, the agony causing a momentary lapse in his awareness.

Not only had Gao Wen’s blade cleaved through his thickest, hardest breastplate, but the great lance Krik had treated as his secret weapon also began to slowly split apart from the cut at its tip.

Thud!

After the heavy crash to the ground, black powder spilled from the lancehead’s broken end like dust.

Calculating the total black powder stored in the lancehead, if fully detonated, it could destroy a warship—but now all of it scattered with the harbor wind.

Only when the falling black powder struck his face did Krik snap back to reality and realize what had happened.

“How is this possible?!”

The sight before him—the man standing calmly before him—his strength had surpassed Krik’s entire understanding.

In nearly forty years of life, only two words could accurately describe this man…

“Monster!”

“Who are you?!”

“Just an ordinary pirate aiming for the Grand Line.”

Gao Wen’s tone was so detached it bordered on pity.

Krik, nearly disemboweled, lay gasping on the ground, yet gritted his teeth and asked his final question:

“Monsters like you… even in the Grand Line, you must be rare, right?”

“Monster?”

Gao Wen chuckled lightly:

“In that world, people like me aren’t monsters at all.”

“Compared to those who can destroy islands—or even nations—I’m as insignificant as dust drifting in the air.”

“You’re lying!”

Krik spat blood, his face visibly paling:

“If… if someone like you can’t dominate the Grand Line, then what’s the point of all the weapons I built just to survive?”

“Survive?”

Gao Wen’s pity deepened, piercing Krik’s heart like a dagger—this pain cut deeper than any wound to the flesh.

Krik clenched his teeth as Gao Wen’s cold voice reached his ears:

Why would a strong person build weapons just to survive?!

Krik’s pupils shrank; his mouth opened, wanting to argue—but no words came out.

Gao Wen continued:

“Only the weak build gear to adapt to their environment. The strong reshape the environment until the world becomes their own shape.”

“Whether you admit it or not, from the very beginning, you were pure… weakness.”

Gao Wen’s words delivered Krik’s final judgment; the belief that had sustained this man collapsed in that instant, his expression identical to the one he wore in the original story at the Baratie.

But this time, the one who delivered his crushing defeat was not Hawk-Eye—it was Gao Wen—and Gao Wen had no habit of playing with mice. He preferred to cut the grass and root it out.

Swish!

Gao Wen swung his blade, flicking off the blood, then stepped slowly toward Krik.

In less than a few seconds, it felt like a century to Krik—never had death felt so close.

The innate cowardice etched into the marrow of the weak erupted fully; tears burst from his tear ducts, snot streamed from his nose:

“Spare me, please! I have money—I can serve you! I have many fleets…”

“I…”

Gao Wen shook his head:

“You still don’t understand. From the moment you set foot in Raven Port and attacked me, this outcome was inevitable.”

Gao Wen raised the Kanshisei Shōjō high; his gaze upon Krik held only boundless pity and boredom.

This opponent no longer stirred any interest in him.

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

Boredom.

It could drive a man mad.

When everything becomes tasteless, it’s better to find a quiet village and wait to die than to drift endlessly on the sea.

Fortunately, Gao Wen knew that in the Grand Line, in the New World, countless mountains still awaited him to climb.

He wasn’t sure when it happened.

His purpose for coming to this world had already changed—so subtly he hadn’t even noticed.

Certain hidden instincts buried in his genes, suppressed by his past civilization, gradually awakened alongside his power and killing.

“This sea has no place for the weak!”

His words fell.

The silver-white blade in Gao Wen’s hand descended—then halted the instant it touched Krik’s neck skin…

“Wait!”

“Take my life instead of his!”

Jin, lying in a pool of blood, had somehow awakened, kneeling on the ground with his head pressed nearly into the dirt.

Under the combined wounds and poison from Keluo’s claw-blade, his body teetered on the edge of death; his ability to speak now relied solely on sheer willpower.

“If you spare my captain, I’ll give you anything!”

“Please!”

At that moment, not only did Gao Wen freeze, but even Krik experienced a fleeting moment of shock—then instantly returned to his cold, merciless self.

Seizing the instant Gao Wen’s attention was fully on Jin, Krik rose, leapt toward Jin, seized his arm, and hurled him toward Gao Wen.

“Don’t blame me, Jin! I want to live!”

“Don’t ever board my ship again in your next life!”

(End of Chapter)