The sound of Bellamy's hand crushing was surprisingly loud. It sounded like a heavy boot stepping on a bundle of dry twigs.
"AGH—AAARGH!"
Bellamy's knees buckled. The sneer was entirely wiped from his face, replaced by a pale, sweating mask of absolute agony. He tried to pull away, but Light's grip was absolute.
"You're loud," Light said pleasantly.
Sarquiss didn't wait. "CAPTAIN!" he roared, lunging forward with his massive kukri blade aimed directly at the back of Light's neck.
Light didn't even turn his head. He simply released Bellamy's shattered hand, side-stepped with a fractional use of Kami-e, and let Sarquiss's momentum carry the pirate past him. As Sarquiss stumbled forward, Light drove his right heel into the back of the First Mate's knee, shattering the joint, and casually backhanded him across the jaw with a Tekkai-hardened fist.
Sarquiss hit the floorboards with a heavy thud, unconscious before he even stopped sliding.
[ Target Eliminated. 3,800 KP Acquired. ]
Bellamy staggered backward, clutching his ruined, floppy right hand to his chest. His eyes darted around the tavern. The entire room of hardened Grand Line veterans was frozen, watching a fifty-five million Berry bounty get dismantled in less than three seconds.
"You... you bastard!" Bellamy spat, blood leaking from his bitten lip. His legs suddenly compressed, the calves twisting into thick, coiled steel springs. "Do you know who backs me?! I am the new era! Spring Hopper!"
Bellamy launched himself. The kinetic force shattered the floorboards where he stood. He bounced off the ceiling, ricocheted off a thick wooden pillar, and bounced off the far wall, accelerating with every impact. He became a blur, zig-zagging across the tavern at a speed that would have terrified any normal Marine.
Light just sighed.
He didn't need his eyes to track this. His Level 1 Observation Haki painted Bellamy's trajectory in his mind a half-second before the pirate even touched a surface. He could hear the desperate, jagged rhythm of Bellamy's breathing. It wasn't the breath of a predator; it was the breath of a cornered animal.
Bonney, sitting on the bench, casually grabbed a wooden menu and held it over her platter of roasted sea-boar like a tiny umbrella.
Bellamy ricocheted off the back wall for his final, lethal approach, launching himself directly at Light's back with the force of a cannonball. "DIE!"
Light drew his saber, coated the blade in a thin, ink-black sheen of Armament Haki, and simply held it out to his right side without looking back.
Schhhhk.
Bellamy impaled himself perfectly. The sheer kinetic force of his own attack drove him chest-deep onto the black blade.
Light stood perfectly still as Bellamy coughed a massive spray of blood over his white coat. The pirate captain's eyes were wide, staring down at the steel protruding from his back. He hung there on the blade for a second, the springs in his legs slowly unwinding back into human flesh.
"The new era," Light repeated softly, his voice cold. "How disappointing."
Light kicked Bellamy off the blade. The Hyena hit the floor and didn't move again.
[ Bellamy — Pirate Captain ] [ Target Eliminated. 8,500 KP Acquired. ]
For a moment, the Tropical Tavern was entirely silent. The only sound was the heavy drip, drip, drip of blood falling from Light's saber onto the floor.
Then, the panic broke.
"HE KILLED BELLAMY!" "IT'S THE REAPER! HE'S HERE!" "KILL HIM! EVERYONE ATTACK AT ONCE!"
Over a hundred pirates drew cutlasses, flintlocks, and axes. They surged forward, a tidal wave of desperate, violent men realizing they were trapped in a room with a monster.
Light smiled. The god-complex flared hot in his chest.
He didn't use Force Authority. The tavern was too cramped, and he wanted to save his stamina for the thousands waiting outside. Instead, he stepped directly into the oncoming wave.
Soru.
He vanished. He reappeared in the absolute center of the mob. Level 4 Weapon Arts took over.
It was a massacre. Light moved with a fluid, terrifying elegance. He didn't waste a single millimeter of motion. A step, a pivot, a slash. Men fell in pieces. Flintlocks fired wildly, the bullets either missing his blurring form or flattening uselessly against his Tekkai. When the quarters got too tight for the saber, he used his free hand—driving Haki-coated Shigans through skulls and throats.
Through it all, he kept his breathing perfectly regulated, guided by his Life Return.
In the corner, Bonney kept the wooden menu firmly held over her food. "Hey! Watch the blood!" she yelled irritably as a severed arm landed on the table next to her. She shoved it off the table with her elbow and kept eating.
Two minutes later, Light stood alone in the center of the tavern.
He pulled a fresh white handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his face, and checked his panel.
[ KARMA SYSTEM ] [ KP: 74,300 ]
He had farmed nearly sixty thousand points from a single room. The density of Red Karma in Mock Town was staggering. It was an absolute goldmine.
"Are you finished?" Light asked, looking over at Bonney.
Bonney shoved the last piece of bread into her mouth, chewed rapidly, and swallowed. She looked around the tavern, which was currently painted floor-to-ceiling in red, and nodded. "Yeah. It was getting noisy in here anyway."
"Stay close," Light said, stepping over Bellamy's corpse and walking toward the swinging saloon doors.
He pushed the doors open and stepped out into the dusty main street of Mock Town.
The town had woken up.
The sound of Light destroying the harbor entrance had finally registered. Pirates were pouring out of the brothels, the gambling dens, and the inns. But they weren't running to their ships anymore. Word had already spread from the docks up to the town square: the harbor was blocked. The ships were sunk. The exit was sealed.
Thousands of men were flooding into the streets, armed to the teeth, looking for whoever had trapped them.
And right there, standing on the porch of the Tropical Tavern, was a lone Marine Major in a blood-soaked coat.
Light looked up and down the street. The sky above Mock Town was an absolute, blinding canopy of glowing red numbers. Ten thousand. Twenty thousand. Fifty thousand. They overlapped and stacked until the air itself seemed to vibrate with quantified sin.
"There he is!" a pirate screamed from a nearby rooftop, pointing a rifle at him. "THAT'S THE BASTARD MARINE!"
The street paused. Thousands of eyes locked onto Light. The sheer weight of their collective bloodlust would have paralyzed a normal man.
Light simply smiled, a terrifying, luminous grin stretching across his face.
Millions, he thought, his heart pounding a steady, euphoric rhythm.
"Bonney," Light said, not taking his eyes off the sea of pirates.
"What?" she asked, standing on the porch behind him, picking her teeth with a bone.
"You might want to cover your ears."
Light stepped off the porch into the street, raised his left hand, and prepared to let gravity off its leash.