As we approached the Thriller Barque, the silence was suddenly broken by a rumble from behind. Looking back, we saw a massive wall rising rapidly out of the water, cutting off the way back. The metallic screeching and splashing of water intensified the feeling of a trap slamming shut behind us.
The team was alarmed. Their anxiety turned into a real panic, especially after translucent ghosts began to appear on board. These otherworldly creatures seemed to be watching our every move, and their silent supervision intensified the atmosphere even more. No one knew that the ghosts couldn't see me, Bruno, and Flygria, who remained hidden in another dimension.
The mood of the team was falling. It seemed that an open rebellion was about to take place. But I didn't really care. As soon as we reached the shore of the Thriller Barque, our invisible trio left the ship, leaving the captain and his men to fend for themselves. As soon as the captain left my control area, he collapsed onto the deck, losing consciousness.
We walked along the gloomy paths of the ship island, heading towards the castle. My goal was clear: to destroy Gekko Moriya. The scenario in which he could become my puppet was out of the question — the conditions for the ritual were impossible in these circumstances. So, it remained to rely on the effect of surprise and direct attack.
On the way, we crossed a cemetery, where we noticed spiritual threads stretching from strange creatures. They only had half of the threads, a clear sign of a lack of shadow. If my guesses are correct, then a person without a shadow will also have an incomplete range of threads, which will make it impossible to capture Ryouma. It didn't bother me—I moved on.
Suddenly, I felt the movement of other people's spiritual threads in the air. It was Absalam, invisible because of its Suke-Suke no Mi fruit. Using the ability to manipulate spiritual threads, I focused on feeling their movement in the astral space. Absalam remained invisible, but his spiritual threads were barely visible, like thin rays of light slightly distorted by the movement of the air. To avoid premature detection, I started a gradual effect: I started by slowing down his thoughts and movements.
He felt a slight slowdown at first, then his steps became unsteady. Absalam froze, probably trying to figure out what was happening to him. At this point, I tightened my grip. The spiritual threads began to obediently pull themselves into my "hands", as if I were pulling dozens of the thinnest ropes.
After a few seconds, his attempts to resist became noticeably weaker. The invisibility maintained by his conscious concentration weakened, and his figure began to appear in the air like a blurred outline, and then finally manifested. Absalam fell to his knees, gasping, his eyes glassy.
The chase was short-lived: after a few minutes, Absalam turned out to be my puppet. His invisibility was lifted, and he appeared in front of me. He didn't have a lion's face yet—Dr. Hogback hadn't had time to complete all his experiments.
Now under my control, Absalam led us towards the castle, avoiding the main patrols. The puppets, while I am in the fifth sequence, are not able to directly share information, but their memory can be stimulated by colliding with recognizable places and objects. However, full-fledged data extraction will require fourth-sequence abilities, which is not yet available.
We reached the main staircase of the castle, leading to the throne room. At the top, behind the massive doors, Gekko Moriya himself was sleeping. I gave Absalam the signal. His hands rose, and the hidden bazookas fired two powerful projectiles. The first blow woke Moriya, the second one burned his skin, but did not cause serious damage.
— Absalam! The traitor! Moriya bellowed, his voice shaking the walls.
Gekko's shadow disintegrated into dozens of bats, which began to circle the hall chaotically. They quickly found Absalam and surrounded him, creating a shadow cage. Bruno reacted instantly, creating a door under Absalom and dragging him back to the hidden dimension.
I temporarily released the threads of Moria, so as not to arouse suspicion, and began to observe. Enraged, Shichibukai tried to detect the enemy using his shadow. Then I opened two doors: one near Moriah, the other near his shadow. As soon as he turned around, Flygria and I launched an attack. An air bullet and a hail of bullets from Thompson rained down on him, but he managed to switch places with the shadow, avoiding fatal damage. However, Absalam was waiting for him there, who fired another volley.
Moriya was angry and made a hole in the castle and jumped out. He found himself outside, and the dead immediately surrounded him. After giving the order, some of them scattered to find the rest of the Mystical Four and the zombie generals.
We decided not to wait for his strong allies. Attacking stealthily, we constantly opened fire from different angles. However, he quickly figured out how to stand up to us. A shadow enveloped the upper part of his body, and zombies began to cover him from below. I created a ball of flame and threw it into the shadow. For a moment, it seemed as if the flames had reduced it, but the shadow immediately recovered.
Realizing that this could not continue, I ordered Bruno and Absalam to temporarily leave the hidden dimension. Flygria created a kind of maze, temporarily separating Moria and me from the dead. I focused on manipulating the spiritual threads to slow down the enemy. Any damage knocked down control, but the slowing effect was more than useful.
Bruno and Absalam took up positions on opposite sides. Bruno opened the spatial door and Flygria, who was peeking out, began to suppress the shadow with a hail of bullets from Thompson. As soon as the enemy thickened the shadow towards the bullets, Absalam fired on cue, causing him to twitch from his wounds. Without giving a break, Bruno continued his series of attacks using Rangaku.
The angry Gekko began to absorb shadows from all over the Thriller Bark. While he was doing this, we continued to attack nonstop. However, the dead, whose shadows were not absorbed, began to surround us, having managed to get out of the labyrinth of Flygria.
Moriya lost his patience and started absorbing shadows from all over Thriller Bark. His body grew larger, becoming grotesque and terrifying.
By gathering a significant number of shadows from the battlefield, Gekko also reinforced several nearby undead. They've become bigger, faster, and more invulnerable to our attacks. One of them, a giant zombie armed with a shipwreck instead of a sword, almost split the Flygria's defenses. We had to combine all our forces to immobilize him before we could get to Moriah.
I didn't expect this from him, most likely he did this trick considering his own wounded condition.
I realized that he was too strong in this form, and we decided to temporarily return our puppets to Bruno's dimension. There we watched Moriah, wounded and gigantic, lose his strength. An hour later, he collapsed to the ground, unconscious, and the shadows began to leave his body.
For an hour, he stubbornly searched for us, but finally, his giant figure collapsed to the ground with a booming sound that made small stones shake on the ground. Streams of shadows began to stream out of his body like black snakes, rushing into the sky. They writhed in the air, dissolving like the spiritual moans of frightened prisoners who had been freed from the depths of his power.
I opened a small door leading to our hidden area. Cautiously peeking out, I looked at Gekko's sprawled body. His face is exhausted, and there is emptiness in his half—closed eyes. And the wounds that were on him before the transformation worsened.
Assuming the role of finalizing the ritual, I raised my hand, folding my fingers in a gesture as if I were holding a pistol. The silence that suddenly fell on the battlefield seemed deafening. For a split second, I froze, as if emphasizing the inevitability of what was happening. Then my finger twitched, imitating a gunshot, and at the same moment there was a popping sound. The air bullet pierced through the air like a steel needle and entered Moria's head precisely.
His body jerked, as if fighting fate for the last time, but it was just a reflex. The hole in his skull looked strangely small, almost imperceptible. But after a moment, a thin stream of thick black liquid flowed out. Slowly at first, then faster, as if the shadow itself was flowing out of him, leaving this shell.
I felt the eyes of his servants fixed on me. Their silence was heavier than a scream. Some took a step back, others tensed, as if preparing for an attack, but no one moved. I looked at them through the crack in the spatial door, held my gaze, as if inviting them to remember this moment.
Then he smiled. A wide, calm smile, like a mockery of all their fear, frozen at that moment. Slowly, without haste, I closed the door, going back into the hidden space, leaving them alone with the dead body of their commander.
The silence on the battlefield has changed. Now it was not the silence of the confrontation, but the realization spread in the air. Every movement of the remaining zombies and living allies seemed muffled, as if the world had decided to hold its breath.