Chapter 23 - Scourge Pirates

The primary strength of Scourge pirates are Brady and Gize, both of them are battle-hardened veterans with amazing physical strength.

As for the thirty-five-something minions present in their crew, they are nothing to him. Blaize plan on commencing his pirate hunting operation by blazing the scourge pirates to ashes.

He has no intention of capturing them or showing mercy to this type of pirate crew. They destroyed towns, exterminated countless families, and captured the children as slaves just for money and sport.

It stirred his sore spot. The memories of previous body owners as a slave flashed past his eyes and he involuntarily clenched his fist. Though the previous owner of the body is dead, the memories of the latter's father and mother influenced Blaize.

'The word 'slave' seems to trigger something in me, it should be related to the hate accumulated by the previous body owner.'

The pirates killed his parents and captured him. Blaize inherited not only the previous body owner's memories but also the love of his father and mother.

Blaize is an emotional person, he can't just simply discard the feelings as if they don't exist. But instead, he welcomed it.

The scourge pirates deserve a fate worse than death. And he will show them.

--

The same day evening, the scourge pirates left the little Reef island as their log pose locked onto the next island. Filling their supplies, they set off.

Blaize followed them by walking high in the air. After a few minutes, the Island disappeared from his eyes as the pirate ship sailed the Grandline. He then directly landed on their ship mast and listened to their conversation.

"From what we heard from the residents of outlaw town, we will reach the final Island of the first half of Grandline in another few days. It's worth celebrating, don't you think so, Captain?"

A pirate with a huge scar on his left side of the face spoke.

"Yes...we definitely need to party." The rest of the pirates also agreed with him.

Only Brady and Gize remained stoic as if the bunch before them isn't their own crew. Brady's face even had a tinge of disdain in them.

'Clowns!' He muttered inwardly while gulping a bottle of wine. He has no sense of comradeship towards them except Gize, as they are pretty weak in his eyes.

He knew, with such weaklings he has no hope of crossing the red line and enter the New World. Once he reaches Sabaody, he will discard them and gather some strong underlings.

At that moment a taunting voice reached his ear, startling everyone on the board to the core. "Captain of the Scourge pirates, Brady the scourge, I think the bounty of 52 million beri is fairly high for you?"

"Who?" Brady shouted while the rest of the crew jumped to their feet and looked around them on high alert.

But they were shocked to find a single figure hovering in the air. 'Hovering?' They knew normal humans aren't capable of flight. 'Who is he?' They all thought.

"Who are you?" Brady asked. His posture relaxed discerning the enemy is nothing but a single man. He isn't confident in his strength but he trusts his devil fruit ability very much.

Undetectable to others, his pores released microscopic poisonous mushrooms into the air and covered the entire ship.

"A pirate hunter," Blaize replied while his heat sense detected the microscopic particles invading his body but soon burned to ashes under extreme heat.

He smirked and kindly remained Brady, "Don't bother. Your devil fruit ability won't work on me. Today is the day of your death!"

Hearing his words, Brady's face turned ashen. He understood his foe came prepared.

And before he could react, Blaize's body boiled to an uncontrollable degree and released extreme heat. The high heat affected the surroundings and the entire ship below him caught on fire.

'What's happening?' The pirates on the ship panicked and jumped onto the sea.

"He's a devil user. I don't understand, why did such a strong person target us?"

"His devil fruit powers completely suppress our captain's ability! Shit! Even the sea is evaporating." The pirates were filled with fear confronting someone countless times above their caliber.

Only three people remained on the burning ship. Brady and Gize were able to remain on the ship because Blaize controlled his heat so that he could have a good fight.

'Soru!' Blaize uttered and his figure vanished alerting Gize and Brady. And before the two could react, his figure reappeared behind Gize.

Blaize threw a simple punch. A blazing heat compressed in a straight line pierced Gize and created a fist-sized hole in his body.

Gize looked down to find a gaping hole just below his chest, where his heart thumped a moment ago. Now, it's gone. Meanwhile, thread-like blood fumes—vaporized insides— were expelled from the wound.

Gazing at Brady, he collapsed to the ground, lifeless. Even in death, he couldn't perceive how he died. His death didn't deter Brady in any way. He stood like a rock staring at Blaize, without averting his gaze.

Brady knew he lost the only advantage—his devil fruit ability—against his enemy. Burning ship with no solid footing, limited space, nothing's in his favor. But he won't go down without a fight.

Blaize uttered, "Come! Fight if you want to survive."

Brady coldly looked at Blaize and dashed forward. Pink energy surged from his body and wrapped his arm, firing rapid purple bullets at him.

In response, Blaize waved his hand and a fiery red spherical orb originated from him. It covered everything with a 1-meter radius, vaporizing the attacks shot at him.

As for Brady, he created six clones using his devil fruit ability. Blaize couldn't distinguish which is the real one.

'Parlor tricks!' Blaize muttered and concentrated his devil fruit powers. A scorching shockwave erupted from him and spread in every direction. It's his new attack, 'Extinction wave!'.

The extreme heat obliterated everything in its path, destroying the half-burnt ship and leaving nothing but countless debris scattered in the sea. It also incinerated Brady's clones and burned his real body.

Thrown in the sea, Brady's body weakened losing his devil fruit power. His body also had several burnt marks while smoke radiated from them.

Lucky for him, the sea saved him from completely burned to crisp. Otherwise, he would have been long dead. Brady supported his body from submerging into the sea with the help of a half-burnt wooden plank.