Night deepened.
A thin crescent moon hung high, occasionally swallowed by drifting clouds, making the ground flicker between pale light and heavy darkness.
At the Dog-Dog Pirates' base, a huge bonfire burned in front of the main house. Pirates sat around it, feasting and drinking, rowdy as ever—no tension, no war footing.
After all, their "enemy" was just a kid.
Even the onlookers who'd come to watch the show had mostly left. It was already late. That kid—Hermes Jormungandr—probably wasn't coming.
His daytime declaration?
Just big talk.
What they didn't know was that Hermes—fed, rested, and sharp—had already slipped into the house without anyone noticing, his target set on one man:
Captain Joya, bounty 38,000,000.
Ruthless. Few words.
Walk in and swing at the strongest first.
That was Hermes.
That was how this world worked.
Inside the lavishly decorated house, Joya was alone, sprawled on a throne draped in tiger pelts. Empty bottles lay scattered around—he'd clearly been drinking.
Outside, the party noise was deafening.
Hermes stayed at five millimeters, darting and hopping like a flea on borrowed legs—fast, clean, absurdly nimble.
Joya was snoring.
Hermes didn't hesitate.
His body expanded to fifty centimeters—and his Finger Pistol snapped out, so sharp the air almost seemed to rip, aimed straight at Joya's throat.
And of course—
Nothing in this world ever went exactly "as planned."
Joya's eyes flew open.
His body shifted in a single twitch.
Hermes's strike slammed into the shoulder instead.
Blood burst into the air, the smell instantly thick.
Hermes froze for half a heartbeat.
He hadn't expected that.
"Brat," Joya snarled. "I've been waiting."
His entire arm was painted red, yet he acted like it didn't hurt at all. His face twisted—then his body began to swell.
Fangs grew.
Fur exploded outward.
In seconds, what stood before Hermes was a humanoid pug, nearly four meters tall.
It looked ridiculous.
Almost cute, even.
But the aura pouring off it was violent—rabid, feral, like a dog gone mad.
"So you were pretending to sleep."
Hermes flipped backward three times in a row, widening the distance. He stood calmly, staring at Joya's half-beast form.
No panic.
Just focus.
"In nature," Joya said coldly, "a dog's nose is the sharpest."
His massive frame cast a shadow over Hermes's 1.77-meter body, crushing pressure rolling off him.
Not long after Hermes entered the house, Joya had already smelled something unfamiliar and woken up. He'd simply kept acting asleep.
The only surprise was Hermes's speed—Joya lost the initiative and still got wounded.
But to a Zoan user, that kind of injury would heal in a couple days.
And judging by his setup, Joya already knew Hermes could shrink.
That was why the house had been emptied.
It was intentional.
Joya wanted Hermes to lower his guard.
More than that—
He wanted to personally crush every bone in Hermes's body.
Only then would he feel satisfied.
"Brat," Joya said, stepping forward with claws extended, shining with cold light. "You're going to die painfully."
"A pug is still just a pug."
Hermes launched first.
He charged straight in—brave to the point of insanity—pouring all his strength into both hands, striking for Joya's throat and kidney in the same breath.
Every move aimed to kill.
Bang!
Joya didn't meet him head-on.
He retreated fast, rolled, then planted one hand and whipped out a sweeping leg.
That single move screamed experience—this wasn't some soft thug. Joya had fought and killed plenty.
Hermes got clipped.
He fell—
and the moment his body hit the angle of collapse, he shrank to five millimeters, slipping under Joya's claw swipe like smoke.
As Joya recovered his stance, Hermes snapped back to normal and fired a Finger Pistol toward the kidney again—
But Joya's reaction was sharp.
His tail swung and blocked it.
They collided once, separated, and stared each other down.
Pressure.
Real pressure.
Hermes's heart was pulled tight like wire.
This "pug" wasn't even in the same world as the pirates Hermes killed during the day.
Add Zoan-enhanced speed, power, and toughness—
and this was easily the strongest opponent Hermes had faced since setting out.
He just hadn't expected his first real wall to be…
a dog.
A pug, at that.
Joya, too, felt a spark of surprise.
This kid looked fragile.
But he had teeth.
They lunged again at the same time.
As they closed, Hermes shrank to fifty centimeters, dodging Joya's grab and driving his Finger Pistol toward two "quail eggs."
A filthy strike.
Joya's tail went stiff. Every hair stood on end.
He aborted his second move and hopped back, trying to avoid it—
But Hermes chased like glue.
Back to full size—Finger Pistol aimed at Joya's heart.
A heavy impact cracked through the room.
Blood dripped onto the floor.
Two clean holes opened in Joya's chest as he staggered back into a support pillar, pain flashing across his face.
Before he could breathe—
Hermes came again.
Joya barely dodged; the pillar behind him gained two deep finger marks.
"Looking to die?!" Joya roared.
Fury surged. He slapped aside Hermes's follow-up, then twisted and kicked—
Hermes shrank to thirty centimeters, slipping under it, then leapt high, snapped back to full size midair, and whipped a brutal roundhouse into Joya's head.
Crash-crash-crash!
Tables and chairs shattered. Joya slid five or six meters across the floor, braced with one hand, then flipped back up, shaking his head.
A thin line of blood ran from the corner of his mouth.
But it wasn't a serious injury.
Not even close.
Hermes saw it too.
Zoans were "meat"—their durability was disgusting.
"Tch… what an annoying ability," Joya spat, face ugly.
That grow-and-shrink power let Hermes bypass too many attacks. If Hermes didn't have it, Joya could beat a hundred of him without trying.
"Kill!"
They crashed together again, trading blows in a brutal rhythm.
No fancy stances. No polished forms.
Just reflex and instinct.
If there was an opening, they went for vitals.
If there wasn't, they guarded.
Slowly—
More cuts opened on Joya's body.
And Hermes's chest took several claw marks too, flesh split open wide enough to show bone.
As the fight dragged on, Joya began adapting.
He started anticipating Hermes's size shifts—his dodges, his entries, his angles.
Hermes's situation grew worse by the second.
Outside, the party noise was so loud that no one noticed the fight inside.
That—and Joya's earlier order not to approach the house.
Most importantly, the pirates were too drunk.
Deep down, they never took Hermes seriously.
They didn't believe he'd actually show up tonight to die.
BOOM!!!
A violent explosion rocked the base.
The wooden wall of the house burst apart.
A dark figure shot out like a cannonball and crashed into the pirate crowd, triggering screams.
In that instant, everyone sobered up.
"My arm! My arm's broken!"
"Who the hell is on top of me?!"
Cursing erupted everywhere.
The figure sprawled among them—
Hermes, blood spilling from his mouth.
But before anyone even understood what they were seeing, his body shrank to five millimeters again and vanished into the chaos, slipping through legs and shadows.
At five millimeters, at night, in a panicked crowd—
it was basically impossible to spot him.
Only the few pirates he'd slammed into even had a chance of noticing something.
"Captain!"
"Captain—your injuries?!"
Joya stepped out of the shattered house, battered and bloodied, eyes sharp as knives as he scanned the crowd.
"That brat came," Joya growled. "He's in the crowd. Find him."
"What?!"
"That kid really dared show up!"
"Everyone, watch carefully—he can shrink. Small as a flea."
"…Huh?"
A lot of pirates just stared blankly.
Flea-sized?
In this pitch-black mess?
How the hell were they supposed to find him?
But the captain's command was absolute.