"What!?"
Hearing Moria's words, Tesoro's pupils suddenly contracted.
Then, while tugging hard at Moria's thick fingers, he put on an act and said:
"What Celestial Dragon slave? I don't know what you're talking about..."
"Kishishishishi..."
A dark green gleam flickered in Moria's eyes as he let out a low laugh.
"Stop trying to hide it. We already know your background like the back of our hand!"
"But I really do want to ask you something. After learning that Stella died at the hands of the Celestial Dragons, how are you still willing to do business with them and be their dog!?"
"Bastard!!!"
With his chest pinned down, Tesoro's voice came out low and hoarse.
The moment he heard the name "Stella," he understood at once that the people before him truly knew everything about his past.
Including the fact that he himself had once been a slave of the Celestial Dragons.
"What could bastards like you possibly understand!?"
Even with fate tightening around his throat, Tesoro still fought desperately as he roared:
"If you've never experienced my pain, then how could you possibly understand any of this!?"
"I want to control all the money in the world! I want to become the richest man in this world!"
"One day, even the Celestial Dragons will kneel before my wealth!"
Boom!!!
As the fury in Tesoro's heart reached its peak, the golden molten liquid that had only just settled down began boiling again, turning into countless sharp spears that thrust toward Moria.
Yet faced with Tesoro's sudden eruption, Moria acted as though he saw nothing at all. Just as the sharp spears were about to pierce his body, a pitch-black shadow suddenly rose from beneath his feet, transforming into countless arms that seized every single golden spear and stopped them cold.
"I already told you! Your power is worthless in front of me!"
"You're nothing more than an awakened Paramecia user, yet you dare dream of challenging the great power of Pokémon!?"
"It seems that unless I make you completely give up, you won't obediently listen!"
Boundless malice suddenly poured out of Moria's body, forming behind him into a terrifying demon with scarlet eyes, a hooked beak, and jagged fangs.
The instant the demon appeared, Tesoro—who had still been burning with rage—turned deathly pale as if he had seen some primordial monster, his pupils trembling violently.
Ghost-type move: Astonish.
In the games, it was only an unremarkable move with a power of merely 30.
But after Moria's refinement, it had directly transformed into a mental assault comparable to Conqueror's Haki, a move that struck straight at the enemy's heart.
Especially when cast by his shadow clone in Ghost Pokémon-ization form, the Ghost energy it unleashed became even more overwhelming.
Combined with Moria's already demonic appearance, its effect received an enormous boost.
Against nearly anyone whose spiritual attributes were inferior to Moria's, it would almost certainly inflict Astonish's negative effect—flinching.
"No! Don't come over here!!!"
As though he had seen some horrifying scene, Tesoro suddenly cried out in panic. Under the effects of flinching, his body bizarrely erupted with a burst of strength, allowing him to break free from Moria's restraint in one motion.
This was also one of the differences between the real world and the game world.
In the games, the flinching state prevented a Pokémon from properly using moves.
But in the real world, a target that fell into flinching would, under the torment of their mind, make all kinds of erratic actions.
No matter what, though, before the flinching state wore off, Tesoro had already completely lost his ability to fight.
Then Moria, not caring in the slightest about Tesoro's condition, simply waved one hand and unleashed another powerful Dark-type attack.
"Dark Burst!!!"
Boom!!!
The surging power of darkness rippled outward like rings spreading across calm water, sweeping rapidly over Tesoro's body. The instant it touched him, it detonated with terrifying force.
At the same time, Dark-type energy invaded Tesoro's brain, making his mind tremble violently.
"Argh!!!"
Under the horrifying impact of energy, Tesoro spat out a huge mouthful of blood, and his body was violently blasted backward.
But at that exact moment, a figure of similar size to Moria, its whole body made of purple-black shadow, suddenly appeared along Tesoro's flight path.
It was Moria's shadow clone—Doppelman!
Before Tesoro's consciousness could recover, the Doppelman in Ghost Pokémon-ization form threw out a punch and used the Ghost-type move Shadow Punch, causing Tesoro's body to suffer another attack at the level of a top Yonko Commander, before sending him hurtling back even faster than he had come.
As for Moria's main body, he had naturally long since prepared for this.
Without a word, he followed up with a vicious pursuit. In the state of consecutive attacks, the Dark-type move capable of dealing double damage landed on Tesoro once more.
In an instant, Moria and his Doppelman were like players batting a ping-pong ball back and forth, continuously bombarding Tesoro with Dark- and Ghost-type Pokémon moves.
For a time, Tesoro had no strength at all to defend himself or resist.
The physical damage was secondary.
After all, the strong in the world of pirates naturally had tougher, more durable bodies.
But the problem was that the two Pokémon attributes Moria possessed—Dark and Ghost—one targeted the brain and mind, while the other struck at the essence of the soul!
These were means far beyond what ordinary pirate powerhouses could contend with.
And this, too, was an important reason why Moria had become so loyal to the Straw Hat Pirates!
Such powerful and terrifying strength could be obtained here with ease, directly elevating his power to Admiral level.
Faced with such a blessing, how could Moria not be utterly loyal!?
Just a few minutes later, the once-arrogant Golden Emperor, Tesoro, lay sprawled on the ground in a pool of blood, his eyes unfocused as he stared blankly into the sky, as if he still hadn't awakened from the hellish torment he had just endured.
"Now... can we talk?"
Boom!!!
Moria and his Doppelman, their gigantic bodies standing one before and one behind, came to Tesoro's side.
Shaken by the sudden tremor, Tesoro slowly raised his head, his expression complicated as his gaze met Moria's.
Tesoro's fingers twitched.
Even now, the ground he lay on was covered in gold, and it was all connected to the island's golden mass. With a single thought, he could control all the gold on the island again and reenter combat.
But when he recalled everything he had just suffered, not a trace of defiance rose in his heart. Instead, he stammered fearfully:
"Y-you... what exactly do you want!?"
Clearly, under the torment of Dark- and Ghost-type moves, all the pride in Tesoro's heart had been completely crushed.
And at the same time, that meant he was finally ready to communicate properly.
Step!
Moria took one step forward, and his body slowly withdrew from Pokémon-ization, returning to its normal form.
Though his usual form was still enormous, without the endless Dark-type energy waves constantly disrupting the mind, Tesoro absurdly felt a trace of "kindness" from Moria.
"Kishishishishi..."
"Tesoro, I told you already. You and I are very alike!"
Coming to Tesoro's side, Moria bared his teeth in a grin.
"The same arrogance. The same suffering. The same overbearing pride..."
"The strength we believed in once let us live inside a false world we built for ourselves."
"But that false world is so fragile. The slightest outside interference, and everything bursts like bubbles in an instant!"
"You don't seriously think... that relying on currency issued by the Celestial Dragons can give you the power to rule over them, do you?!"
Facing Tesoro, now completely under the control of his strength, Moria—who had gone through the same thing himself—directly tore apart the self-deceptive shell Tesoro had built to protect himself and asked a question that struck straight into his soul.