Seeing Gecko Moria's confident and arrogant expression, Momonga's mouth twitched slightly.
This guy is seriously fearless...
Did he really not hear about Daren's brutal methods before making a move?
The number of people who've fallen at Daren's hands can't even be counted on one hand anymore.
"Why don't you think it over again?"
Momonga considered it for a moment but couldn't help advising,
"If you really piss off Daren, you won't walk out of North Blue."
Since Moria hadn't killed anyone yet, and he was one of Daren's potential picks, Momonga figured he'd at least try to talk some sense into him.
Otherwise, if Daren got annoyed and simply wiped him out, it would be a real hassle.
Who knew whether the soldiers' shadows would even come back after Moria died...
"Kishishishi!!"
Moria suddenly laughed maniacally, as if he had heard the most ridiculous joke in the world.
"What kind of joke is that?!"
The black shadow behind him twisted violently with his surging emotions, and a powerful aura erupted from his body.
"I came to the North Blue for the sole purpose of challenging him!"
"Marines... you'd better stay out of my way, or I might not be able to resist taking you down too!"
Momonga: ...
The corner of his eye twitched, and his fists clenched involuntarily.
Were all the young people these days this full of themselves?
Looking at Moria's smug face, Momonga seriously weighed whether he should just deal with this idiot before Daren arrived.
But before he could make a move, a sharp, explosive noise suddenly pierced the air from far away.
It was the sound of something tearing through the sky at terrifying speed, breaking the sound barrier.
Momonga froze, then quickly withdrew his crackling hand.
He glanced pityingly at Gecko Moria, who was still laughing loudly, and said flatly,
"Good luck."
Moria blinked in confusion, but before he could react, a white figure suddenly shot out from the distant clouds and plummeted straight toward the ground at an incredible speed.
Boom!
The entire Marine base shuddered violently as a massive cloud of dust erupted into the air.
As the dust swirled, Moria's face darkened slightly. He raised his arm to block the gusts and stared sharply at the figure emerging through the smoke.
"Gecko Moria... I was just looking for you."
A low, steady voice echoed from within the dust, as a tall, imposing figure in Marine uniform stepped forward, his gaze half amused, half serious.
Gecko Moria froze for a second—then burst into wild laughter.
"Kishishishi!! You actually came so fast! I've been waiting for you, 'King of the North Blue'!"
Grinning fiercely, he struck without hesitation!
Without so much as a gesture, the massive black shadow behind him suddenly dispersed, morphing into a swarm of black bats.
The bats carried a rotting stench and spread out like a chilling death net, rushing toward Daren.
"Brick Bat!"
The sky darkened under the thick cloud of shadow bats, each pair of glowing red eyes and razor-sharp fangs thirsting for blood.
Daren narrowed his eyes slightly, frowning.
"I don't like being bitten by bats... Vampires I can deal with."
He casually waved his hand.
From the wreckage around them, the broken cannon barrels twisted and reformed, instantly launching a hail of metallic bullets that tore through the incoming bats like a storm of death.
But strangely, the bats, when shattered, burst into thick, sticky shadow goo that slithered back toward Moria like living creatures.
"Kishishishi!! You're strong! Just like I hoped!! If you were weak, this would've been so boring!!"
Gecko Moria looked at Daren easily brushing aside his attack, but instead of getting angry, he grew more excited, his pale face flushing red.
Daren: ...
He turned to glance at Momonga.
Momonga shrugged helplessly, returning a look that clearly said,
Don't look at me, I don't know if this guy's brain is fried either.
Daren's mouth twitched slightly but soon accepted the reality.
In an era crowded with ambitious warriors, guys like Bullet, Crocodile, and Moria were all the same—stubborn to the bone.
These so-called "great men" had been riding a wave of success from the moment they first set sail, bulldozing their way through the seas with sheer strength and Devil Fruit abilities, unstoppable as they tore into the New World.
Their dazzling victories and meteoric rise only fed their arrogance, making each one more self-important and headstrong than the last.
—Until the day they smashed headfirst into an immovable wall, bloodied and broken, finally realizing the massive gap between themselves and the true monsters of the sea.
It was precisely because of this brutal gap that, in the original storyline, both Crocodile and Moria fell into deep despair after their crushing defeats, never fully recovering afterward.
Simply put, they'd never really been beaten down by the harsh realities of the world before.
"Then there's no helping it. I'll just have to beat you into submission..."
Daren narrowed his eyes, a cold smile curling at the corner of his mouth.
Feeling the Vice Admiral's malicious gaze, Gecko Moria couldn't help but feel a chill run down his spine.
Especially the way that Marine kept glancing at his hands... Why was he staring at them like that?
"Damn it!"
"Doppelman!"
Seeing that the Vice Admiral still wasn't making a move, Gecko Moria gritted his teeth and unleashed the power of the Kage Kage no Mi.
In an instant, a human-shaped shadow emerged from the black mass behind him, a long shadow blade forming in its hands as it lunged toward Daren.
A single slash!
A flash of crimson flickered in Daren's pupils.
The moment he activated his Observation Haki, the Doppelman's attack trajectory unfolded clearly in his mind.
With a slight sidestep, Daren casually let the shadow blade brush past his hair.
"Kishishishi! You fell for it!"
Gecko Moria shouted gleefully, waving his hand.
"Black Box!"
The moment the words fell, the Doppelman beside Daren revealed a sly, human-like grin.
A towering black box, three meters tall, took form on the ground.
Gecko Moria himself showed a decisiveness that a rookie pirate shouldn't have. Grinning viciously, he clapped his hands together and thrust them forward through the air.
A jet-black spear shot out from under his feet, gathering tremendous force as it condensed into a long shadow spear—then pierced straight into the Black Box!
Tsuno-Tokage!
"Kishishishi! Got him!!"
Seeing the strike land, Gecko Moria laughed wildly.
"That's the end of the 'King of the North Blue'! Kishishishi!!"
He was supremely confident in the power of his attack.
The piercing strength of the Tsuno-Tokage was enough to easily rip through stone, steel, and even a Marine warship!
Trapped inside the Black Box, that Marine Vice Admiral had no way to dodge...
He was dead!
But at that moment, Moria suddenly noticed something strange.
The Marine Captain who had been sitting quietly on a nearby boulder since the beginning still hadn't moved an inch.
Not only that, he was even giving Moria a look—as if he were watching an idiot.
"What the hell..."
Gecko Moria froze, his manic laughter dying off.
Then—
Hiss!!
A sharp tearing sound split the air, like fabric being ripped apart.
Moria instinctively turned toward the noise, and his pupils shrank to pinpricks.
A hand…
A hand had just torn straight through his supposedly indestructible Black Box!