Chapter 148: Tian Ke (Part 1)
"Hmph, not bad. You have a good eye. I'm a genius of explosions, hmm." Deidara said happily, "I'll make an exception and let you be my little brother."
[Deidara's affection level increased slightly, bond level unchanged]
'So, just complimenting his explosions makes him like me? That's too easy...'
Upon hearing that Deidara wanted Eric to be his subordinate, the other three members' expressions froze.
Deidara, completely unaware, then asked, "Pirate world? What do you mean?"
"It's different from the world of Naruto, anyway, it's no longer the world you were in before."
"Hmm?" At that moment, fragmented information entered Deidara's mind from the system. "Pirate King? Great treasure? How boring."
"But since I've been reborn, I can study art better now. I wonder how the big explosion I left behind turned out..." Deidara muttered to himself, preparing to leave. "Although I don't know who you are, you must be the one who revived me, right? Thanks~"
"Wait a second."
"Hmm? Is there something else?" Deidara turned around and faced the four.
"Since you know I revived you, are you really just leaving?" Eric smiled and said, "Shouldn't you join us? You're all alone now, and your Akame organization isn't in this world anymore."
"Oh? You know the name of my organization? That's strange..." Deidara squinted his eyes, "It's a bit odd. Since you're from the pirate world, why would you know the name of my old organization and also know my name from a world that's not even here?"
"Ah, so you look like a fool, but your intelligence is actually quite high," Eric rested his chin in his hand. "Indeed, from capturing the One-Tail to fighting in other battles, you were very strategic."
"Hey, what's with calling someone a fool on the first meeting?!" Deidara angrily scolded Eric, his expression changing from anger to seriousness. 'This guy not only knows the name of my organization and my name, but he also knows the things I've done. He probably knows my abilities too.'
'The worst part is, he might even know the weaknesses of my techniques…' Deidara immediately took up a battle stance, his right hand with a mouth on it stretched behind him, blocking his hand's movement. 'I can even make clay from my hands now? I don't need to waste time, I can just take it from my waist pouch. Hmm.'
"Clang."
Akame, Esdeath, and Kurumi instantly drew their weapons, ready to jump into action if Eric gave the command to charge at the newcomer.
'There are four people on the opposite side, three of them are women… who should I deal with first?' Deidara's right hand created white clay, which was immediately eaten by the mouth in his palm. The teeth chewed it finely, then he spit out a white centipede he had just molded.
His left hand clenched into a fist, the mouth chewed and pushed out a fat flea.
"Let me handle this, recruiting new members is the captain's job," Eric stepped forward and said to the tense Deidara, "You were also defeated by Itachi in a 1v1 before joining the Akame and worked hard for them, right?"
"So what?"
"How about this, let's have a 1v1 battle. If you win, I'll let you go and you can save your life for free. If I win, you join us and become my subordinate."
"Do you really think you can beat me?" Deidara's face darkened. 'He knows about my fight with Itachi. He probably knows the entire process. Looks like I can't use the trick of luring him and then attacking with the centipede from the ground.'
"Deal." Deidara loosened his right hand, and the centipede burrowed into the ground, since he had already molded it, he couldn't waste it.
His left hand threw the fat flea towards Eric, "Take this!" Before it even got close, it exploded.
"Hmm? Trying to block my vision?" Eric said unhurriedly.
[Heart Network] could clearly see Deidara's movements. He still retained the combat experience from the Naruto world.
With both hands free, he combined them and molded more clay.
'Is he making a C2 giant dragon now? I still need to be careful of the centipede hiding underground.'
"Boom!"
A large amount of white smoke appeared, and a white giant dragon, more than twenty meters long, appeared behind Deidara.
Deidara jumped onto the dragon's head and curiously asked, "Why aren't you attacking yet?"
'Anyway, you don't have Armament Haki, you can't hurt me.' Eric obviously couldn't speak the truth, so he smiled and responded, "It's fine, I'll let you make the first move, I'm not in a hurry."
"You better not regret it!" Deidara became very angry, feeling like Eric was looking down on him. He made hand seals, and the last segment of the giant dragon's tail was sucked in.
The giant clay dragon's mouth opened, and a small flying dragon shot out.
[Shave]!
Without using Thunder Strike for teleportation, Eric instantly vanished in front of Deidara and dodged the flying dragon.
"So fast!" Deidara could only see a blurry figure, and in the blink of an eye, it moved to the left. He immediately manipulated the giant dragon to fly high, trying to get away from Eric.
The small flying dragon also took the chance to circle around and fly toward Eric again.
"Take this!"
"Boom!" A violent explosion, many times stronger than the previous flea, created a dust cloud that expanded tens of times.
'This guy is so fast. If I don't limit his movement, my bombs won't even touch him.' Deidara thought hard about his strategy, 'I'll have to slow him down… that's it! I'll use the bombs to force him over the centipede. If I injure his legs, he won't be able to move as fast!'
With his strategy in mind, Deidara controlled the giant dragon and sucked in more clay from the tail, creating more flying dragon bombs.
There were now six flying dragons in the sky, gradually forcing Eric's movements toward the centipede's position.
'Trying to force me into a trap?' Eric scoffed, taking the long spear from his back, and blue lightning covered the tip.
'He really knows that my explosions are afraid of Lightning Release!' Deidara gritted his teeth, 'Who leaked my information… no, he's not from the ninja world, he can't have gotten it from the Akame members, so how does he know? Damn!'
Eric also felt like he was done playing around. While the flying dragons were pretty cool, unfortunately, Deidara's dragon head looked like a pig's head. He didn't dare say it to Deidara's face, though—if Deidara got angry and retaliated, his Devil Fruit powers would be wasted.
"Whoosh, whoosh."
Eric used [Shave] to quickly approach the low-flying flying dragon. He shot several times and knocked the flying dragon down. Since he used lightning, the flying dragon didn't explode on impact.
"Damn!" Deidara gritted his teeth and decided to carpet-bomb the ground below.
"The power of these bombs can't even compare to the one from before!" He sucked in two more segments of the tail, and now it really was a dragon with a pig's face, forming in the mouth of the giant dragon...
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Three massive explosions shook the entire mountain.
...
"What's that sound?"
"It's the sound of an explosion!"
The people at Dadan's house heard the violent explosions and quickly ran out of the cabin to check.
"Is it another uncertain destination?"
"It's not in that direction, it's down the mountain!"
"Wait, you two little brats!" The fat Dadan, worried about their safety, quickly followed with his subordinates.
(END CHAPTER)
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