A/N: The story will pick the pace back up when we shift to war... which is in about 4-5 chapters. Cheers!
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Black Hole.
The words left Marshall D. Teach's lips, and the very laws of physics in the Eternal Hell began to violently warp.
The heavy, inky darkness poured from Teach's palms, spreading across the bedrock like a localized, devouring tide. Wherever the darkness touched, the solid stone of Level 6 groaned in agonizing protest before completely collapsing inward, crushed by an unnatural gravity. The flickering light from the wall torches was visibly sucked into the void, plunging the battlefield into terrifying shadows.
"Don't let it touch you!" Emporio Ivankov roared, grabbing two of his Okama subordinates and leaping high into the air.
"Dammit!" Sanji cursed. The cook violently kicked off the crumbling floor, and used Sky Walk. Some time back, he was successful in copying what those CP-9 people did.
He propelled himself into the air just as the darkness swallowed the bedrock where he had been standing. He looked down, his visible eye widening as he saw chunks of stone, discarded weapons, and even a heavy iron maiden being effortlessly sucked into Teach's shadows.
Zoro didn't have the luxury of flight. As the darkness rushed toward him, he planted his boots on a shrinking patch of solid stone. He coated Wado Ichimonji and Sandai Kitetsu in a dense, desperate layer of Armament Haki.
Nitouryu: Nanajuni Pound Ho! (Two-Sword Style: 72 Pound Phoenix!)
Zoro launched a massive, compressed blade of wind directly into the approaching tide of darkness. The vacuum slash tore through the inky void, parting the gravity just long enough for Zoro to vault to safety atop a fallen Seastone pillar.
He was panting heavily; the residual damage from Magellan's poison was actively screaming in his veins, making every movement a Herculean effort.
"ZEHAHAHAHA! Dance for me! Dance!" Teach laughed maniacally, standing at the epicenter of the destruction. "You can't escape the abyss! Liberation!"
Teach threw his arms upward. The darkness violently expelled everything it had just consumed. Thousands of pieces of crushed bedrock, shattered iron, and deadly debris exploded outward like shrapnel from a massive bomb.
Luffy, still suspended in the air from a previous jump, gritted his teeth. He couldn't dodge the incoming barrage of high-velocity stone. He crossed his arms over his face, actively forcing his rudimentary Armament Haki to cover his skin.
The debris slammed into him. The Haki mitigated the lethal damage, but the sheer kinetic force bruised his ribs and sent him crashing into the wall.
"Captain!" Jesus Burgess cheered, rushing forward to capitalize on Luffy's fall. The giant wrestler pulled back his elbow, aiming to crush the Straw Hat's skull.
"Get away from him!" Bonney roared.
In her massive, hyper-muscular aged form, she tackled Burgess from the side. The two heavyweights rolled across the remaining solid ground, shaking the floor with their sheer mass.
The Straw Hats and the Revolutionaries were fighting like demons, but the toll was undeniable. They had already survived the absolute worst Impel Down had to offer. They were running on fumes, adrenaline, and pure willpower. Teach's crew, fresh and uninjured, were beginning to slowly overwhelm the exhausted vanguard.
A hundred yards down the corridor, standing perfectly still in the shadows, Light Yagami watched the chaotic struggle.
Warden Magellan lay completely unconscious in a crater behind him, easily neutralized by Light's overwhelming Level 4 Armament Haki. Light didn't look back at the fallen Warden. His dark, calculating eyes were locked entirely onto the laughing, manic figure of Marshall D. Teach.
With a mere thought, the system interface materialized in Light's vision, projecting directly over Blackbeard's head.
[ Name: Marshall D. Teach ][ Green: 3,850 | Bad: 245,000 ]
Light's eyes narrowed a fraction of a millimeter. The Bad Karma was expected. Teach had murdered his own crewmate in cold blood, betrayed his captain, and handed Fire Fist over to the World Government to trigger a global war.
Still, the Bad Karma wasn't enough. Hmm, he had been out of the Whitebeard Pirates for a year or so now, hasn't he?
Looking at it from this angle, to accumulate 245,000 bad karma so quickly... he was a creature of pure, selfish ambition.
But the Green Karma... three thousand, eight hundred and fifty points.
It was a surprisingly high number for a man who seemed to embody the very concept of evil. It was enough to give Light a momentary pause.
Three thousand eight hundred? For this absolute scum? Light thought, his mind rapidly processing the historical data he had researched from the Marine archives.
Martial D. Teach spent over two decades on the Moby Dick. He was a member of the Whitebeard Pirates for decades.
The pieces clicked together in Light's analytical mind.
Edward Newgate, Whitebeard, wasn't a standard pirate. He claimed territories to protect them from slavers, corrupt Marines, and rogue crews. His flag brought absolute peace to entire islands. By simply serving under Whitebeard's banner—by fighting off rival crews or protecting the innocent villages under Whitebeard's domain—Teach had unknowingly and passively accumulated a wealth of Good Karma.
So even a parasite can accumulate good deeds simply by standing under a righteous man's shadow, Light realized, a cold knot forming in his chest.
The Karma System was truly impartial. It logged the lives Teach had helped save as part of the crew, completely ignoring the fact that Teach's internal motives had always been selfishly waiting for the Darkness Fruit to appear. It counted the physical outcome.
The fracture in Light's absolute faith in the numbers deepened. The system was flawless in its mathematics, but it was somewhat blind to the human heart.
Light looked at the glowing red number. Two hundred and forty-five thousand. Teach had finally found his fruit. He had broken the iron rule of the sea and embraced his true, vile nature. He was a rabid dog that had slipped its leash, threatening to plunge the entire world into chaos just to crown himself king.
Light's grip tightened on the hilt of his pitch-black saber. He didn't care about the Green points anymore. He didn't care what Whitebeard's shadow had shielded.
Teach was a plague. And Light was the cure.
He didn't announce his presence. He simply vanished.
"Captain, look out!" Van Augur yelled, his exceptional sniper instincts flaring. He frantically raised his long rifle, Senriku, aiming at the empty space to Teach's right.
Light reappeared directly behind the sniper. He didn't even draw his sword. He simply raised his right hand, pointing his index finger at the back of Van Augur's head.
Flick.
A hyper-condensed, microscopic pulse of Level 4 Internal Destruction Haki shot cleanly through the sniper's skull. Van Augur didn't even have time to widen his eyes. His brain was entirely pulverized. He collapsed to the stone floor, instantly dead.
"Augur!" Jesus Burgess roared, completely abandoning his wrestling match with Bonney. He lunged at Light, throwing a massive, Haki-less clothesline aimed to tear Light's head off.
Light casually caught Burgess's massive wrist with one hand. The sheer disparity in physical and spiritual strength was comical. Light squeezed. The sickening sound of Burgess's thick forearm bones completely shattering echoed loudly over the din of battle.
Before the giant could even scream, Light drove his open palm upward into Burgess's sternum, discharging a shockwave of internal Haki that entirely liquefied the wrestler's heart.
"Two," Light counted coldly, letting Burgess's massive body drop to the floor.
Shiryu of the Rain abandoned his clash with Zoro, his survival instincts screaming at him to intervene. He swung his cursed nodachi at Light's unprotected back, aiming for a lethal, cowardly decapitation.
Light's newly ascended Level 4 Future Sight rendered the sneak attack utterly obsolete. Light didn't even turn around. He simply sidestepped the massive blade by a millimeter, drew his pitch-black saber in a reverse grip, and thrust backward.
The dark steel pierced seamlessly through Shiryu's Impel Down uniform, piercing his spine and completely severing his heart. Shiryu gasped, blood spilling from his lips and staining his cigar. Light ripped the blade free, and the sadistic swordsman fell dead into a puddle of his own blood.
Lafitte and Doc Q were dispatched in the next three seconds, completely unable to comprehend the sheer, mathematical speed and efficiency of Light's Level 5 Weapon Arts.
Within exactly ten seconds, the newly formed Blackbeard Pirates—a crew destined to shake the foundations of the world—were entirely, ruthlessly annihilated.
Marshall D. Teach stood entirely alone.
The swirling darkness of the Black Hole faltered and completely dissipated. Teach looked down at the bloody, broken bodies of his carefully selected commanders. His eyes widened to impossible, terrified proportions. The grand, arrogant dream he had harbored for twenty patient years was crumbling into dust before his very eyes in less than a minute.
Teach looked at the False Deity. The man in the black coat was slowly walking toward him, the pitch-black saber dripping with Shiryu's blood. Light's dark eyes were completely devoid of any mercy, any hesitation, or any human warmth.
The absolute, primal terror of death seized Blackbeard's soul.
"Wait! Wait!" Teach shrieked, his voice breaking hysterically. He dropped heavily to his knees, his massive frame shaking violently. He threw his hands up in a desperate, pathetic gesture of surrender. "Please! You don't understand! I know the New World! I know Whitebeard's territories! I know the secrets of the Devil Fruits! I know how to steal them!"
Teach crawled backward on the stone, leaving a trail of sweat. "I can be useful to you! I can be your subordinate! I'll be your dog! Take me as a hostage! Anything! Just let me live! ZEHAHA—ah—say, I'll make you rule the world!"
Light stopped walking. He looked down at the groveling, hysterical man. A man who had sought to become Pirate King, reduced to a weeping mess the moment he faced true, insurmountable consequence.
"You're too loud," Light said softly.
Light raised his pitch-black saber, the steel hissing with dark Haki.
"BASTARD! WAIT—!" Teach screamed, his hands glowing with a final, desperate burst of darkness.
Light swung.
The blade cleaved cleanly through the air, completely bypassing the darkness with Internal Destruction. The False Deity decapitated Marshall D. Teach in a single, fluid, merciless motion.
The heavy, severed head of Blackbeard hit the cold stone floor, rolling a few feet before coming to a complete stop, its eyes frozen in an expression of absolute, horrified disbelief.
The usurper was dead.
The Eternal Hell fell into a terrifying, profound silence.
Luffy, Zoro, Sanji, and the Revolutionaries stood frozen, staring at the aftermath. They had fought with everything they had just to push the Blackbeard Pirates back, but Light had dismantled and slaughtered them with the casual, terrifying ease of a man swatting flies. Zoro's lone eye widened, realizing gap between them and the False Deity. Sanji's cigarette hung loosely from his lips, completely forgotten.
The legendary prisoners locked in the massive Seastone vaults, who had been cheering for Blackbeard just moments ago, were now dead silent. They watched the False Deity wipe the blood from his blade.
Would this guy let them out?
Light sheathed his saber. He slowly turned his head, looking over his shoulder at Luffy.
The rubber boy was panting heavily, his fists still clenched, staring at Teach's headless body. He didn't look relieved.
He just looked hollow, the reality of Ace's absence settling back over him like a lead weight.
"They're all alive." Light stated, his voice echoing perfectly in the quiet abyss. He turned his gaze entirely away from the Straw Hats, looking toward the dark, shadowed vaults lining the walls of Level 6.
"Thanks for that."
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A/N: Checkout my other fanfic "Dragon Ball: My Talent System", protagonist has reincarnated into the Dragon Ball universe with a Talent Extraction and Fusion System! Did you know ants have the talent of applying 50x their force?! And many more!
{Check out Patreon for advanced chapters. See my bio for link!}