"Damn it!"
He hurriedly interrupted the output of his magic power, and the ice spikes that were about to erupt fully barely stopped, but most of the fish-men still didn't escape their fate.
Their bodies were torn to shreds by the fine ice crystals growing inside, and blood and internal organs instantly froze, turning into chunks of ice fragments.
"Damn! My bounty!"
A frustrated curse popped out of Lorne's mouth, breaking his previous inscrutable, powerful demeanor.
Looking at the trophies scattered all over the ground that he had made a mess of, for the first time, a look of heartache appeared on his face.
This is all money! How could he have forgotten about this?
Getting carried away in the heat of the fight, he almost shredded all the Berries.
Lorne hurriedly dissipated his magic power, and the ice vines and ice spikes that were flashing with cold light quickly melted, leaving only a pile of frozen stiff fish-man corpses.
He walked up quickly and began to pick through the pile of bodies.
"This one won't do, the face is rotten, the Navy won't recognize it."
"This one is broken in half, who knows how the bounty will be calculated."
"Tsk, this one is even worse, skewered like a tanghulu."
He muttered in disgust while checking.
Finally, his gaze fell on the octopus fish-man Hatchan, who had been pierced through the chest by an ice spike, but whose upper body was still relatively intact.
"Hmm, this one is okay, the head is intact."
Lorne flicked his finger, and a thin ice blade swept silently past; Hatchan's simple-looking head was separated from his body, and it floated up, wrapped in a layer of thin ice.
After finishing this, he remembered the two executives he had killed in seconds earlier.
"Damn, that water-spitting one and that karate-fighting one from before..."
He recalled that those two seemed to have been pierced directly by two ice spikes he summoned casually, and then exploded into sky-filling flesh and ice chunks.
Not even a complete piece of skin was left.
"One Chew, one Kuroobi, adding up, that's over ten million Berries, right?"
Lorne clicked his tongue, gasping in heartache,
"Loss, this wave is a huge loss!"
While calculating his losses with grief, he walked toward the thorn ice cage imprisoning Arlong.
Arlong, inside the ice cage, was covered in blood, pierced through his limbs and torso by countless ice spikes, but still hanging on to his last breath.
His eyes, full of resentment, stared fixedly at Lorne as he approached, his throat making a wheezing sound, as if he still wanted to curse something, but could only spit out large mouthfuls of bloody foam.
Lorne couldn't be bothered to listen to his nonsense anymore, just looking with some regret at his face, which was still relatively intact.
"Twenty million Berries, at least I didn't let you turn into a pile of minced meat too."
He muttered to himself, waving his hand lightly at the ice cage.
The ice spikes forming the cage instantly dissipated, Arlong's broken body collapsed powerlessly onto the ice, and then a cold blade flashed by.
Arlong's massive, jagged shark head flew into the sky, the expression on his face frozen forever in that extreme hatred and unwillingness.
Immediately, it was quickly wrapped in a layer of newly generated ice and floated in mid-air alongside Hatchan's head.
Lorne looked with satisfaction at his biggest harvest this time; over twenty million Berries, at least the effort hadn't been in vain.
He turned around, looking at the frozen hell he had created with his own hands, and the fish-man corpses frozen in various twisted postures, rubbing his temples with a headache.
"Geez, making such a big commotion, I still have to clean up the mess myself."
He didn't want the Navy to come knocking tomorrow morning because of an unprecedented large glacier appearing in the East Blue; although he wasn't afraid, it would be too troublesome.
As a lazy person who essentially pursued ease, some things that might bring subsequent trouble should be nipped in the bud as much as possible.
Lorne stretched out one hand, his palm facing the vast ice field, and as his magic power circulated, the ferocious glacier that extended to the horizon began to melt rapidly.
The hard ice layer turned into the purest water flow, carrying the frozen blood, minced meat, and remains, gushing back into the sea with a splash.
The frozen pirate ship, shark spabu, also floated back on the water surface as the ice layer disappeared.
Within just a few minutes, the harbor returned to its original state, with only a faint smell of blood remaining in the air.
All traces of the battle, all evidence that the fish-men had existed, except for that lone pirate ship, were almost completely washed away.
"Done."
Lorne clapped his hands, and the two heads floating beside him automatically flew in front of him, simply tied by him with ice ropes, swaying, exuding an indescribable eeriness.
He stepped onto the deck of the shark spabu and began his looting work; after all, even a mosquito is meat, and the Arlong Pirates should have some savings.
He kicked open the door to the captain's cabin, only to see empty treasure chests and account books all over the floor.
In Lorne's mind, he could even picture Arlong's arrogant, grinning face.
"Hahaha! Money is the best friend! All my money will be used to expand my empire!"
He flipped through a few account books, which were densely recorded with the wealth he had looted after coming to the East Blue.
"What a pure bastard."
Lorne curled his lip, lowering his evaluation of Arlong even further; not even leaving some pocket money, truly an unqualified villain.
Since there was no profit to be made, he walked back to the ship's rail, looking at the sea surface that had returned to calm below, and began to think about the next step of his plan.
"Next, it's time to exchange for the bounty."
He recalled the plot information in his mind about this world; the nearest Navy base should be that 16th Branch governed by Colonel Nezumi.
Thinking of that greedy, cowardly, and stupid guy, Lorne felt it was exceptionally troublesome.
He could even foresee the incredibly greedy look on the other party's face when he saw Arlong's head.
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