"Nightmare…"
Buck repeated the word, the muscles at the corners of his eyes twitching in terror.
He wanted to swing his blade, to hack this eerie boy in half, but to his horror, his arm no longer obeyed him.
A numb, itching sensation raced from the back of his hand to his shoulder, then surged toward his chest.
This wasn't poison; it was an incomprehensible erosion.
"What… did you do to me?"
Buck's voice lost its earlier boom, turning gravelly, as though his throat were lined with sandpaper.
He looked down at his right hand.
The palm that gripped the sword was undergoing a horrific change.
The once-hairy skin became shiny and black, as though wrapped in a hard layer of keratin.
His knuckles lengthened and multiplied, bone spurs jutting through the joints and tearing out thin, black blood.
"Aaaargh!"
Agony tore a roar from him, but it sounded more like the bellow of a beast.
"Don't scream so ugly."
Mordred dug a finger in his ear, grimacing. "This is evolution a gift many would beg for."
"Evolution?"
Buck jerked his head up; his left eye was bloodshot, while the right clouded over and the pupil stretched into an eerie vertical slit.
His thoughts slowed; a single notion called "slaughter" blazed like wildfire, devouring the last scraps of reason.
"Bastard! I don't believe in your sorcery!"
With his final strength, Buck seized the wrist of his mutated right arm, trying to stop the force reaching his heart.
As a pirate worth over ten million, his will far surpassed that of an ordinary man.
"I am Buck the Bone-Smasher! No one on these seas turns me into a monster!"
He roared, muscles bulging, pouring Haki into his right arm like water, trying to crush those restless black veins.
"Such spirit."
Mordred watched with interest. "Pity if your Haki were stronger, you might last a while, but that third-rate stuff can't even feed my virus."
"Shut up!"
Buck's eyes bulged, drool spilling from his lips. "I'll dice you into dog meat!"
Though his right hand had become a hideous claw, sheer survival instinct forced the heavy blade up.
"Die!"
The slash came with a howling gale, aimed straight at Mordred's face his strongest strike before his reason collapsed.
Yet
Mordred didn't even dodge.
He simply stood there, the mocking smile never leaving his lips.
The instant the edge touched his nose
Swish!
A black afterimage exploded in the air.
It was Mordred's right leg.
His trouser leg burst as the limb became a thick, barbed whip, sweeping out faster than the eye could follow.
Crack!!!
A sickening snap.
The hundred-pound steel blade shattered like glass, shards spraying everywhere.
The whip continued, slamming into Buck's chest.
"Gah!"
Buck flew like a torn sack, crashing into the mainmast.
Boom!
The mast shuddered, splinters flying.
He slammed to the deck, his chest caved in and his ribs in ruins.
But he wasn't dead.
The Blacklight Virus surged, mending his body while devouring the last of his humanity.
"Cough… cough…"
Buck lay vomiting black clots.
His body convulsed, muscles swelling and his spine arching until it tore his shirt.
"Why… why…"
He lifted his head, his lone human eye filled with despair.
He couldn't understand.
Just a ten-year-old brat, once too timid to kill a chicken
How could he wield such demonic power?
"Why?"
Mordred strolled over and looked down.
A pressure that made Buck's soul tremble rolled off the boy.
The aura of an apex predator.
"That's the sea for you, Captain."
Mordred crouched and patted Buck's half-monstrous cheek. "The strong eat the weak lesson one, from you."
"Only now, I hold the knife, and you…"
He gestured at the zombified pirates around them, "…are meat on the platter."
"Hck… hck…"
Buck tried to answer; only ragged breaths came.
Consciousness slipped away.
His last human memory was boasting in a tavern that after this job, he'd head for the New World.
Now, the New World was out of reach.
Hell, at least, required no ticket.
"Roaar!!!"
With a roar no human throat could make, his last human eye turned glassy white.
Bones cracked and reformed as the mutation completed.
His two-meter frame swelled to three; arms as thick as pillars ended in razor claws.
The product of the Prototype virus fused with a pirate's hardy body a Brawler.
"Good. Now you look the part."
Mordred nodded in satisfaction.
Common zombies were cannon fodder, but this Brawler born from Buck was several times stronger.
"Up."
At the soft command, the once-proud Captain rose like an obedient hound, head low, throat rumbling in submission.
The surrounding zombie pirates, busy gnawing on corpses, sensed their superior and knelt toward Mordred.
The deck fell silent.
Only the wind in the sails and the crackle of flames could be heard.
[Ding! Detected Buck's despair: +200 Astonishment Points!]
[Ding! Crew annihilated: "First Massacre" achievement complete +500 Astonishment Points!]
[Current balance: 1,880 points.]
"Only eighteen-hundred?"
Mordred curled his lip too little amazement from such small-timers.
He'd need a more impressive audience next time.