On a bright morning, the rising sun hung in the air, casting a faint golden light that enveloped the entire Sabaody Archipelago, especially Grove 71. A small ship quietly docked on the shore, and more than thirty Umbrella Corporation employees in black suits busily carried various weapons and ammunition into the vessel via the gangway. Five of them each led four sheep, which were then placed into iron cages in the cabin.
Stella and Gild Tesoro, standing on deck, watched the sunrise over the ocean. Soon after, a Black Bat flew out of the forest and landed on the ship's edge. Through its position, Sephiroth, clad in a black leather suit and a white half-mask obscuring the upper part of his face, opened a spatial door and appeared on the deck. He carried an iron cage in his left hand, containing a Vampire Bat hanging upside down within it.
"Boss!" Gild Tesoro and Stella exclaimed in unison.
Sephiroth nodded slightly, glanced at the thirty-plus men in black suits on the ship, before opening his mouth to ask, "Hmm! Ready?"
"Ready and prepared to set sail," Gild Tesoro affirmed.
"Okay! Sail against the wind, depart!" Sephiroth commanded.
"Little ones, let's go!" With Gild Tesoro's shout, the men in black suits instantly became busy, retracting the anchor, raising the sails, and leaving the shore.
Sephiroth placed the iron cage on the deck, and took out an estimated Grand Line chart from his pocket, then looked at it. "Gild Tesoro, are you sure you have the Bats I gave you on Ruskaina Island?"
"Hmm! Wherever you commanded me, I have dispatched people carrying Bats to settle there. I also dropped by the people who assist the company in its intelligence operations."
"Right! Speaking of intelligence... Have Gecko Moria's traces been investigated?"
Hearing this, Gild Tesoro had an embarrassed expression on his face. "Sorry! Boss, this Grand Line is too big. I'm only certain now that Gecko Moria took spoils from a certain city in the West Blue two years ago. After that, his whereabouts became a mystery."
"Um!? That guy... Could it be that he has already started becoming a fat shut-in?" Sephiroth murmured softly.
"Fat shut-in?" Gild Tesoro couldn't help but be stunned for a moment when he heard that word.
"Huh? It means squatting at home without going out, and getting heavier..." Sephiroth rubbed his eyebrows with a distressed expression. If Gecko Moria didn't come out to cause trouble, in this world with relatively limited information, he might truly be unable to find the person.
It suddenly occurred to him that Gecko Moria had stolen Ryuma the Swordsman's body besides the Meitou Shusui, when fleeing Wano Country. Logically speaking, if Moria hadn't conceived the idea of creating a zombie army, he shouldn't have stolen those corpses mysteriously.
"Let people pay attention to whether there are rumors of tomb raiders and zombies on the West Blue side. Following these two clues, Moria's traces can be found."
"Okay, Boss!" Gild Tesoro nodded and agreed, and he was ready to contact the underworld forces in the West Blue when he was free. When the time came, he would sprinkle a few more Beli so that the other party could intensify their search.
After confirming the general direction of Ruskaina Island, Sephiroth unfurled his black flesh wings and flew in front of the small ship. He first positioned and estimated it through the faint spatial induction from his Vampire Bat. Soon after, he reached out and drew the Butcher's Blade from his waist, and in the void, he drew a very large "work" character.
Click!
Two large spatial doors slowly opened, revealing the ocean located on the other side of the door... and a completely different landscape.
"This... this!?" Gild Tesoro and the others, all with astonished expressions, looked at the suddenly changed scenery, as if the island on the other side of the door was Water Seven.
Sabaody Archipelago and Water Seven were hundreds of kilometers apart! If an ordinary ship wanted to reach Water Seven from Sabaody Archipelago, it would take a long time. This was because the World Government built three massive Gates of Justice between three locations: Marineford, Enies Lobby, and Impel Down, creating a special vortex current within the triangular area where these three gates connected.
Ships that were not "World Government" could not enter the triangular area and would be blocked by the special currents! Even if one coincidentally broke through with a special method, without permission from the World Government or Marine Headquarters, the ship could only be caught in the vortex of currents, going back and forth, and unable to pass through the Gates of Justice. Therefore, ordinary ships needed to circle around, traverse the vortex current area, and travel for four or five days before they could reach Water Seven.
However, Sephiroth disregarded the distance between the two points and arrived at Water Seven in an instant. The small ship quickly passed through, and with only a short stretch of light green alternative space, it reached the nearest ocean off Water Seven.
Sephiroth, fluttering his black wings, landed back on the deck of the small ship, then he exhaled a sigh of relief and sheathed his blade. Although this door-opening technique could increase efficiency and reduce physical exertion, when two spatial points were forced to connect in an instant, the feeling that most of his physical strength was consumed in a flash still made him feel a little uncomfortable. In the past, he used temporary space to transfer ships, which was a continuous exertion of physical strength, but he could also regain his physical strength in the process. Now, although the overall exertion was small, in an instant, the physical exertion had reached a terrifying level!
When the spatial door completely closed, Gild Tesoro snapped out of his daze. He took a few steps and approached the silver-haired youth. "Boss... This spatial transfer seems a little different from the previous ones?"
"There's no difference, but the principle is actually the same... I just let the blade project at high speed in a different space, and directly connect the two locations together in the temporarily constructed different space, and merge the two spaces into one at the same time. This drastically reduces my physical exertion, as well as eliminates some operation steps." Sephiroth explained. "As long as you have enough strength to use your Devil Fruit ability, your imagination can be realized no matter how grand it is. Conversely, without strength, no matter how rational your ideas are, it's useless..."
After saying that, Sephiroth reached out and patted Gild Tesoro's shoulder. His serious words made the latter fall into deep thought.
Sephiroth, after a rest of two or three minutes, resumed his old trick and opened a new spatial door, allowing the small ship to perform a spatial transfer. He repeated this operation several times in a row, and it took him more than twenty minutes to get the small ship, which should have taken more than half a month to reach, to the sea off Ruskaina Island.
"Let the boat sail around the coastline, look for a house on the beach that has been divided in two, and contact me," Sephiroth ordered.
After finishing his instructions to Gild Tesoro, he entered the cabin with the iron cage and found twenty white sheep, which were kept in separate cages. After having just resumed his spatial transfers, his reserve life had been consumed by a fractional half, and a wave of life force was now urgently needed.
Squeak, squeak.
However, Sephiroth first released the Vampire Bat from the iron cage in his hand, controlling it to lie on the sheep, and began to suck blood crazily. In a short time, the sheep aged and their lifespans withered, falling into the cage, while the Vampire Bat flew back to the cage in his hand, satisfied. Immediately after, he reached out his right hand, grabbed the necks of the sheep one by one, and began extracting life force one by one. After absorbing all the life of nineteen sheep, he replenished his reserve life. At this point, all the sheep in the iron cage, already collapsed, had reached the end of their lives, and were dying.
Gild Tesoro ran all the way to the cabin, and he glanced at it casually, and only then, ignoring the twenty collapsed sheep in the iron cages, he said to him, "Boss, I saw a house that was separated by external force and only half of it is left!"
"Okay, I know!" Sephiroth nodded, walked out of the cabin with the iron cage, and came to the deck. Immediately, he saw that in the distance, on the coastline, half of an old residential building stood.
Enjoying the story? You can read 7 chapters in advance on p@treon/Rzzzy!