"Leave this to me. The Admiral told me earlier that as soon as Mariejois falls into chaos, I should bring my men in to suppress this godforsaken place immediately!" Doberman said with a chuckle, despite the artillery fire raining down.
He looked as though he weren't on a battlefield at all, but rather catching up with an old friend on a street corner.
"I'm counting on you!" Spandine said quickly.
"G-5, listen up! Attack! Break their defensive line!" Doberman's expression hardened as he barked the order.
Immediately, the group of Marines he had brought, who looked more like a band of cutthroats than soldiers, began howling. Brandishing greatswords and muskets, they charged headlong into the fray.
The G-5 Marines, who spent their days fighting the most vicious pirates in the New World, were undeniably elite. Their entry into the battle shifted the momentum instantly.
In truth, the clash between the headquarters' security and the CP agents had been a bit like a "clash of the amateurs." It wasn't that they lacked individual strength, but both sides lacked experience in large-scale frontline warfare.
The CP agents were masters of dark conspiracies and covert operations; a full-scale armed confrontation was rarely their style. A secret agent is, after all, an agent, not a professional soldier. There's a reason people say "to each his own specialty."
As for the headquarters' security, they were powerful, but they lacked combat experience for the same reason: this was Mariejois. Who would ever be bold enough to storm the World Government Headquarters?
Thus, when a battle-hardened G-5 Marine unit with extensive New World experience and a brutal fighting style entered the arena, control of the situation quickly fell into the Navy's hands.
Watching the tide turn the moment the Marines arrived, Spandine remarked with great emotion, "You Marines really are something else."
"Our focus is different. If you asked us to handle an assassination, we couldn't hold a candle to you CP agents," Doberman replied, waving off the praise.
Just then, the situation at the front shifted.
Who's-Who had been locked in a fierce duel with an opponent. However, as the Navy joined in, another expert from the security team suddenly lunged forward. Working in tandem, the two quickly overwhelmed Who's-Who and sent him flying.
Who's-Who crashed into a wall, landing not far from Spandine and the others.
"You alright?" Spandine asked immediately.
"They're pretty good!" Who's-Who stood up, patting the dust off his clothes. He wasn't seriously injured; he had just been caught off guard by the sudden reinforcement.
With Who's-Who pushed back, the security expert who had just intervened grew bolder. With a roar, his body began to transform. Black fur sprouted across his skin, and his physique became incredibly robust, or rather, bloated with muscle and fat. Two tusks curved upward like crescent moons, looking exceptionally intimidating.
"A mammoth? No... isn't the Ancient Type Mammoth with Kaido? What was his name? Jack the Drought?" Doberman said in surprise.
Indeed, the man's transformed state bore a striking resemblance to a mammoth, especially since he was only in his hybrid form.
However, Spandine shook his head. "No, it's not a mammoth. It looks similar, but his trunk hasn't grown out. Look closer, what does it look like?"
Doberman frowned, observing the man for a moment before a look of realization dawned on him. "A wild boar!?"
"Exactly. It's likely the Wild Boar model." Spandine confirmed.
The Zou Zou no Mi (Elephant-Elephant Fruit) might have sounded comical or low-end in its Wild Boar variation, but men with true vision like Doberman and Spandine knew better. Boar-like abilities were formidable, easily rivaling tigers or bears. After all, he had just knocked back a Sabertooth Tiger like Who's-Who.
A wild boar possessed immense strength, and judging by the man's layer of thick blubber, his defense and vitality were surely massive. Those ivory-like tusks were undoubtedly lethal.
Who's-Who was fuming. I'm a Sabertooth Tiger, and you, a mere wild boar, dare to act up?
But before Who's-Who could charge back in, Doberman let out a grin. "Just in time to test my new ability..."
"New ability?" Spandine blinked, looking at Doberman with surprise. "You became an Ability User?"
"Yeah, not long ago. You probably didn't know, the Navy recently acquired a large batch of Devil Fruits... and the powers are quite formidable," Doberman said cheerfully.
These were, without a doubt, the fruits Diarmuid had secured from Impel Down. As a loyal subordinate who had followed Diarmuid for years, Doberman had no trouble obtaining one if he was interested. Diarmuid had contacted him immediately and provided a catalog.
Doberman hadn't originally planned on becoming an Ability User. He didn't want to lose the ability to swim, and truly powerful Devil Fruits were rare—it was common for a man to go his whole life without finding one that suited him. The Navy had a stockpile, but nothing had ever caught Doberman's eye. However, out of respect for the Admiral, he had looked at the list and found... well, it was too good to pass up.
Before Spandine could ask more, Doberman vanished. Soru!
In the next instant, Doberman appeared before the Boar-man and lunged with a Shigan!
"Tekkai!" the Boar-man bellowed. As a member of the World Government's forces, even if he wasn't Navy or CP, he still possessed mastery of Rokushiki. Seeing a Vice Admiral lead with a Finger Pistol, he countered with Iron Body.
However, Doberman was clearly superior. His finger pierced through the Iron Body, driving a bloody hole into the Boar-man.
Yet the Boar-man seemed unfazed. His thick layer of fat granted him incredible endurance and vitality.
"Tusks!" He lunged at Doberman with his curved fangs. Doberman grinned, stepped back, and drew his blade from his waist, meeting the tusks head-on. Despite the Boar-man's immense strength, Doberman held his ground.
Before the Boar-man could transition to a new move, the environment changed. This was a battlefield, a frontline where many had already fallen. Blood was everywhere.
At that moment, the blood that had been mere "scenery" came to life. It transformed into a crimson torrent, washing over the Boar-man and leaving him momentarily scrambled.
"What is this!?" Spandine watched the scene from afar, stunned.
"There was once a pirate named Craster, known as the 'Blood Plague.' He was once a candidate for the Seven Warlords of the Sea before he ran into Admiral Diarmuid, right?" Who's-Who said, showing his extensive knowledge.
Spandine nodded. "Correct. That guy had the Blood-Blood Fruit, a Paramecia that allows for the free manipulation of any blood. It's incredibly powerful, especially on a battlefield where quantity leads to a qualitative change!"
Indeed, the fruit Doberman had consumed was Craster's Blood-Blood Fruit, the power of the man Diarmuid had once suppressed with ease. Though Craster had been a coward at heart, the fruit itself was a formidable Paramecia. Doberman hadn't had it long, but he had already developed it quite well.
"You bastard..." The Boar-man charged out of the blood flow directly at Doberman, his cold tusks looking like a charging bulldozer.
"You shouldn't have shown me any wounds," Doberman grinned.
He suddenly made a pulling motion with his hand toward thin air. From the wound where Doberman had landed the Shigan, a violent crimson spray erupted—a massive amount of blood!
"Blood Drain!" Doberman barked.
With the sudden, massive loss of blood, the Boar-man's stamina vanished. His footsteps faltered, his momentum collapsed, and he faceplanted into the dirt, unable to reach Doberman.
Doberman didn't even bother to close the distance. Instead, he pulled out a small vial containing a purple liquid and crushed it. The liquid sprayed out, every drop falling into the blood torrent Doberman had just drained.
"Blood Plague..." A cruel light flickered in Doberman's eyes as he spoke softly.
The tainted blood then surged back, following its original path through the Boar-man's wound and back into his body. But now, it was "poisoned."
Within three to five breaths of the blood returning to his system, the Boar-man's face turned a bruised purple. He began to twitch in agony; his Beast Form failed him, and he collapsed, writhing on the ground until he reverted to human form.
His skin turned completely purple, then began to ulcerate, fester, and dissolve. Even with the extreme vitality of a Boar-type Zoan, he could not withstand the corrosion and rot eating him from the inside out.
Doberman simply watched. This was the first time he had used this technique on a living person, and it was undeniably brutal.
In less than a minute, the Boar-man stopped breathing. His corpse, however, continued to rot and fester. Soon, a foul stench filled the air. The once-crimson blood turned into a black, turgid sludge that smelled of decay, clearly highly dangerous.
Doberman gave a slight wave of his hand, and the foul, blackened blood surged again. Under his control, it began to weave through the battlefield like a living thing.
Those touched by the tainted blood were doomed. Just like the Boar-man, anyone touched by the sludge was instantly poisoned, infected by this "Blood Plague." Their bodies would rot, their blood would decay into more sludge, which Doberman would then add to his arsenal.
In ten minutes, the entire area was contaminated. The CP agents and the G-5 Marines didn't dare stay, retreating from the zone. Doberman stood in the center of the battlefield, surrounded by a swirling storm of blackened, turgid blood. Not a single living soul remained near him.
It was a scene of pure carnage. The corpses were mutilated in such a way that it was sickening to behold. Doberman had used a niche, dark application of the Blood-Blood Fruit to its absolute extreme. In just ten minutes, he had cleared the entire battlefield! And he had done it with the experimental curiosity of a man testing a new toy.
"I'm starting to suspect he's a bit of a psychopath now," Who's-Who said, swallowing hard with a hint of awe in his voice.
Spandine stared at the blood-soaked horror before him, his lip twitching. He said seriously, "Don't suspect it. He's definitely a psychopath!"