Chapter Seventy-Seven: Balance

Superhuman-type Castle Fruit.

This was the very Devil Fruit that Bege had consumed at the auction last time.

As its name implied, the power allowed the user’s body to transform into a solid fortress.

Thus Bege’s body was like an impregnable castle, capable of housing anything within it—even living creatures.

Whatever entered his body would shrink down, only returning to its original size once outside the area of effect.

In short, it was a mobile fortress.

As the leader of a gang, Bege lacked neither money nor manpower, so he naturally maximized the deployment of weapons and men inside his body.

That was why, today, he only brought seventy or eighty underlings with him to the street.

Now, with danger closing in, Bege revealed his trump card.

The henchmen stationed within his body mobilized swiftly, wheeling out cannons that poked through gunports, all aimed directly at Maud, and lit the fuses.

With thunderous roars, black cannonballs the size of marbles shot from the ports in Bege’s chest, returning to normal size in midair.

Along the length of the street, the shrill whistle of cannonballs splitting the air suddenly rang out.

Maud, familiar with the Castle Fruit’s abilities, had already withdrawn from the blast radius the moment Bege made his move.

However, the pirates on either side of the street, ignorant of Bege’s power, had no chance to escape by the time the whistling shells screamed past their ears.

A deafening explosion erupted.

Ten cannonballs detonated almost simultaneously.

A wave of scorching heat and shrapnel swept outward.

A dozen or so unlucky pirates nearby were riddled with shrapnel and died on the spot.

Many others were hurled away by the blast, suffering injuries of varying severity when they hit the ground.

Once the smoke cleared, dozens of pirates lay scattered across the street.

At once, curses and cries of pain blended together.

None of those present had ever imagined Bege would be so deranged as to fire artillery right on the street.

"Bege, you bastard!"

The shaken pirates cursed him furiously, then scattered, fleeing the scene.

With cannons involved, who would dare linger to watch?

Even pirates inside the taverns hurriedly rushed outside at the commotion, desperately trying to put distance between themselves and Bege.

Only pirates of rare skill and nerve, like Lafitte, remained, keeping a safe distance—close enough to observe the battle, yet far enough to avoid being caught in it.

Bege paid no heed to the pirates cursing his family. He merely raised his head to look at Maud, who stood atop a tavern roof.

As Bege’s gaze lifted, so did the gunports on his chest, once more targeting Maud.

But mindful of the explicit rules of Mad Hatter Town, Bege did not order another volley.

If he destroyed the tavern, he alone would pay the price in the end.

Maud had anticipated this, using the town’s rules to restrain Bege from pressing his attack.

Seeing Bege halt the cannonade, Maud seized the moment to leap down, charging straight toward him.

Deliberately, Maud chose an attack route that kept a tavern at his back.

From this angle, the ever-cautious Bege could not fire freely.

Instead, he closed the ports on his chest and opened several hatches in his abdomen.

Inside, his gang members were already in position, arrayed behind the hatches, each gripping a rifled musket.

They couldn’t use cannons, but flintlocks were fair game.

Moreover, the sniper’s silence from afar, which both surprised and unsettled Bege, now allowed him to focus his firepower on Maud.

Still, he kept part of his attention on the sniper, wary of another shot at any moment.

Seeing Bege shift tactics and Saul making no move, Maud abandoned his charge and edged closer to the pirates sprawled on the ground.

At the same time, without exception, the gangsters behind the hatches pulled their triggers.

A dense barrage of musket fire erupted, sending a hail of lead—over a hundred bullets—screaming toward Maud.

Prepared for this, Maud sheathed his black-bladed crow, then grabbed two severely wounded pirates nearby, using them as shields before him.

The barrage struck, blooming a grisly spray of blood from the hapless human shields.

In an instant, the two unfortunates breathed their last.

All around, more than twenty injured pirates lying on the ground watched, horror-stricken.

Terrified they might be next, they summoned the last of their strength, scrambling—even crawling—to make their escape from the line of fire.

Watching Maud use two of their own to block the storm of bullets, Bege only smiled coldly.

With ample manpower inside, the castle could sustain a rolling volley, compensating for the slow reload of flintlocks and vastly increasing the rate of fire.

Two corpses would never suffice to withstand a second round.

Within a second, another volley roared from the hatches in Bege’s abdomen.

Hundreds of lead bullets erupted, forming another deadly curtain aimed at Maud.

"A gun formation, is it…"

Facing the second volley in less than two seconds, Maud kept his composure.

He crouched low, reducing his target profile, and stacked the two limp bodies before him, enduring the second hail of lead.

Then, not giving Bege the chance for a third volley, Maud hurled the corpses forcefully toward him.

Bege’s eyes narrowed as he dodged aside, narrowly avoiding the two bodies.

His movement sent a tremor through his form, throwing off the aim of his men behind the hatches and forcing them to abort the third volley.

At that moment, Maud lunged at two more pirates desperately crawling across the ground in an attempt to escape.

Seeing Maud barreling toward them, the two pirates’ faces twisted in terror, their screams echoing through the street.

"No, stay back! Don’t come any closer!"

"You two have worked hard," Maud said, almost kindly, before swiftly knocking them out cold.

A shield should never move on its own.

Grabbing the unconscious pirates by their collars, Maud charged at Bege once more.

With enough weapons and men, the Castle Fruit could unleash astonishing firepower.

But behind that firepower lay a critical weakness:

Balance.

Disrupt Bege’s balance, and his firepower lost its target.

Bege frowned, watching as Maud switched to a new pair of pirate shields, and gave the order to fire again.

Another round of gunfire erupted from the hatches, lead bullets blazing toward Maud.

He raised the two pirate shields in front of him, absorbing the barrage.

The force of the bullets halted Maud in his tracks.

But as the last bullet faded, Maud repeated his ploy, flinging the bodies at Bege.

Bege’s expression darkened as he dodged aside to avoid the corpses.

Maud seized the moment, a burst of explosive speed closing the distance in an instant. He drew his pistol and aimed at Bege’s eye, pulling the trigger.

Bang—

A lead bullet whistled forth.

"That bastard…"

Bege’s heart lurched. He jerked his head back, narrowly dodging the bullet.

The sudden movement once again threw off his balance.

In that moment, realization dawned on Bege:

Maud seemed intimately familiar with the Castle Fruit’s abilities.

As the thought struck him, Bege righted himself.

But by then, Maud was already upon him.

With a metallic ring, the black-bladed crow was drawn.

A flash of steel split the air.

Blood arced in gouts, splattering through the sky.