The reason Gecko Moria had come to Troia Island in the first place was because he heard rumors of a graveyard housing the remains of powerful warriors. He was here to grave-rob. But he wasn't interested in gold or jewels buried with the dead; he was after the corpses themselves.
Ever since his utterly crushing defeat at the hands of Kaido of the Beasts in the New World, Moria had lost his entire crew. He had fled back to the West Blue alone, broken and practically devastated.
But he absolutely refused to let it end there. He would never forgive Kaido. During his escape from Wano Country, he had stumbled upon the grave of the legendary 'Sword God', Shimotsuki Ryuma. Stealing Ryuma's corpse and his legendary blade had given Moria a twisted spark of inspiration.
And his experiments had succeeded. By stealing a living person's shadow and inserting it into a corpse bound by a contract, the corpse would awaken as a zombie that obeyed his every command.
Now, he just needed to solve a few lingering problems: improving the physical strength and preservation of the corpses, hunting down the shadows of top-tier fighters, and finding a corpse powerful enough to pose a genuine threat to Kaido.
Click! Flash!
Bardock lowered a small Camera Snail, having just snapped a picture of Moria while the Warlord still somewhat retained his original physique. According to the original plot, Moria would soon relocate to the Florian Triangle in Paradise and completely let himself go, turning into a massive, lazy, onion-shaped balloon.
"Hey, Moria!" Bardock called out, a mocking grin on his face. "You crawled all the way back from the New World just to quit being a pirate and become a grave robber?"
Those words instantly struck Moria's deepest, most agonizing nerve. He was already furious about his ruined zombies, and this brat was practically pouring salt on the wound.
"Hmph! You ruined my zombies and let my shadows escape... so I'll just take your shadows to replace them!" Moria roared, his eyes bulging with rage. "I'll make you live the rest of your miserable lives cowering in the dark like rats, while your shadows serve me for eternity!"
Moria grabbed the massive, scissor-like weapon strapped to his waist, snapping it apart at the hinge to dual-wield the blades as twin swords. With a furious shout, he leaped forward, bringing his right blade crashing down toward Bardock's head. The sheer kinetic force behind the swing was absolutely lethal.
Bardock didn't dare underestimate the blow. He instantly raised Shusui to block. The legendary Black Blade was noticeably sharper and denser than White Iron, meaning Bardock didn't need to expend extra Armament Haki just to keep the weapon from shattering.
CLANG!
The two blades collided in a deafening shockwave. And this was merely a probing strike.
The ground beneath Bardock instantly cratered, his legs sinking into the earth all the way up to his knees. At this point in the timeline, Moria's raw physical strength was still monstrous. Bardock, in his base human form, actually struggled to match it head-on.
"Kishishishishishi! To take that strike head-on... you wouldn't be considered weak even in the New World, brat!" Moria cackled. "Now I want your shadow even more!"
Moria unleashed a torrential barrage with his twin blades. His swordsmanship was completely unrefined, but his raw power was so absurd and his swing speed so blindingly fast that it made up for his lack of technique.
Realizing he couldn't win a pure contest of brute force in his base form, Bardock changed tactics. He stopped blocking head-on, instead relying on explosive footwork and advanced evasive maneuvers to slip past Moria's frenzied onslaught, countering with high-tier, precise sword strikes.
After a few minutes of intense combat, Moria, despite being the aggressor, found himself covered in fresh, bleeding gashes.
His face darkened, his fangs bared in a vicious snarl. "You have better swordsmanship, brat. But on these seas, swordsmanship isn't everything! Doppelman!"
Moria's shadow suddenly peeled itself off the ground and stood upright. Aside from being pitch-black, it was an exact replica of Moria, right down to the twin blades in its hands.
"It's two-on-one now! Let's see how you handle this! Kishishishishishi!"
"Oh, I know perfectly well that swords aren't everything," Bardock smirked. "Devil Fruit powers? I have those too."
Bardock instantly shifted into his Beast-Human form. His height effortlessly shot past 2.2 meters, and a coat of shimmering golden fur sprouted across his body, glowing faintly in the moonlight. Bardock rarely used this hybrid form in combat, usually reserving it as a disguise, but it was absolutely perfect for this situation. In his Beast-Human form, his raw physical strength was fully on par with Moria's.
This time, Bardock took the initiative. Combining his Master-level swordsmanship with Soru and Geppo, he stuck to Moria's real body like glue, relentlessly pressing the attack. Whenever Doppelman tried to flank him and force a two-on-one scenario, Bardock would use Soru to teleport, instantly repositioning himself so that he, Moria, and the shadow were all standing in a straight line, forcefully keeping the fight a one-on-one.
Moria gritted his teeth in frustration. "Rokushiki?! Are you a Marine?! No... a monster like you wouldn't be an unknown in the Marines. Who the hell are you?!"
"I'm just an ordinary, unremarkable West Blue adventurer," Bardock replied cheerfully, his hands moving in a blur as he carved another gash across Moria's chest. "Bardock, of the Dandelion Organization."
"I don't care who you are! Just die!"
Seeing Bardock swing Shusui at his neck, Moria didn't even attempt to dodge or block. Instead, he swung his own blade directly at Bardock's torso, seemingly intending to trade a fatal blow for a fatal blow.
Bardock frowned, his instincts screaming that this was a trap. Sure enough, the moment Shusui struck Moria's neck, the Warlord's physical body turned completely intangible. The blade phased right through him, cutting empty air.
At the exact same time, Moria's blade slammed into Bardock's shoulder. It was the first time Moria had actually landed a direct hit. The earth beneath Bardock instantly shattered from the impact, sending jagged shrapnel flying in every direction, with a few pieces even rocketing toward Robin and the others observing from the tree line.
"Kishishishishi! Kagemusha (Shadow Warrior)! Kishishishishishi!" Moria laughed triumphantly, having swapped places with his shadow at the last millisecond.
"Bardock!" Robin gasped, her heart leaping into her throat as she prepared to rush forward.
"Stand down," Daz Bonez ordered calmly, stopping her with an outstretched arm. "Don't panic. The Boss has mastered Haki. A cheap trick like that isn't going to hurt him."
As the dust cloud slowly cleared, Moria's triumphant grin froze.
His heavy blade was resting directly on Bardock's shoulder... but it hadn't even managed to cut the fabric of Bardock's clothes.
Moria's face turned completely pale. "Armament Haki! You possess Armament Haki of this caliber?!"
"Oh? Come on, Moria. Isn't Haki an incredibly common ability in the New World?" Bardock tilted his head, a mocking glint in his golden eyes. "Don't tell me you don't know how to use it."
Those words struck Moria harder than any physical blow.
During his prime in the first half of the Grand Line, Moria had practically coasted to the top. Relying entirely on his overpowered Shadow-Shadow Fruit and his monstrous physical strength, he had crushed everyone in his path—whether they were Devil Fruit users or Haki masters. He had genuinely believed Haki was no big deal.
That is, until he met Kaido.
That monster had utterly and completely dismantled him in every conceivable way, but the absolute, crushing despair of Kaido's supreme Haki was permanently burned into Moria's soul. In that single war, Moria had lost everything—his dreams, his crew, and his burning ambition.
"What the hell do you know?!" Moria screamed, his eyes bloodshot with manic fury. "The New World is a graveyard for dreams! With monsters like that roaming the seas, countless legends have had their ambitions shattered to pieces! A brat like you... even if you make it to the New World, the only thing waiting for you is a brutal death!
"I bet your crewmates care about you a lot, right?! Well, guess what?! You're going to lose them all! Do you want to know why?! BECAUSE THEY ARE ALIVE! As long as they are alive, you can lose them! But if they're dead zombies from the very start, there's nothing left to lose!
"Join my Zombie World plan! Zombies are immortal! Even if they get purified, they can be replaced infinitely! They are the ultimate, unending army!" Moria panted, staring at Bardock with a deranged, desperate expectation.
"Uh, I'll pass," Bardock rejected him without a second of hesitation. "I have zero desire to see a world filled with rotting corpses."
"You miserable brat! THEN YOUR JOURNEY ENDS HERE! SHADOWS ASGARD!"
Moria threw his arms wide, unleashing his ultimate technique. From the surrounding forests and distant ships, the stolen shadows of the pirates they had encountered earlier shot through the air, swarming toward him.
"100... 200... 250... Is this really all I have left?!" Moria growled in frustration. "Whatever! It's more than enough to crush a brat like you!"
Moria greedily absorbed all 250 shadows into his own body. His already massive frame began to bulge and expand violently, his muscles tearing and reforming as he rapidly grew. In the blink of an eye, he became a towering, grotesque behemoth, far larger than even the giant Jaguar D. Saul in Robin's memories. The sheer, suffocating pressure of his dark aura washed over the island.
"Good!" Bardock grinned, his blood boiling. "Monkey King Form... MAXIMIZE!"
Bardock finally went all out. Channeling the absolute peak of his Devil Fruit, he transformed into his full Beast Form. A colossal, golden-furred Great Ape erupted from the ground, towering even higher than the bloated Moria.
Not stopping there, Bardock forcefully coated both of his massive, truck-sized fists in dense, black Armament Haki. He quickly estimated his stamina reserves; maintaining Haki on a body this massive was incredibly draining. He couldn't keep this up for long.
"Moria!" Bardock's booming voice shook the very air. "This is the final round! Make your move!"
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