"Are these people brain-damaged?" The Teddy Devil couldn't help but remark.
He genuinely couldn't understand what was going on in this blonde's head.
'We've already come to kill you at your own front door. Do you think you can threaten us with some random person?'
The Teddy Devil shook his head, unable to comprehend.
He could only say that Garling lacked experience.
Or rather, he didn't understand this world well enough.
The main issue was that in the One Piece World, once you took out a hostage, the opponent, especially the 'protagonist group', would absolutely stop right there.
Kozuki Oden, for the sake of the hostages held by Kurozumi Orochi, obediently danced naked for five years.
In the end, he just wasted a good pot of boiling oil for Kaido.
Jaguar D. Saul, for the sake of a giant child taken hostage, put down his weapon and was killed in return.
As long as you have a hostage, the other side will obediently stand down.
That was the supreme power of a hostage.
Unfortunately, if Garling had encountered Oden, or Saul, or even Luffy or Roger today, this tactic would have worked.
But using it on Makoto, the other side just thought he was an idiot.
Garling hadn't yet recovered from the impact of the Yasaka Magatama. His consciousness was still a bit fuzzy, and his physical reactions were sluggish.
The moment he let his guard down—
Bang!
A gunshot rang out.
Yu, looking annoyed, raised his arm and fired.
The bullet hit Garling's chest, piercing his left thoracic cavity, leaving a smoldering bullet hole.
"Gah—"
Garling's expression changed drastically. He retreated rapidly like a cat whose tail had been stepped on, stumbling over a stone and falling flat on his backside.
Not because the shot was particularly painful… at least, the power of Yu's shot was far less than Makoto's Yasaka Magatama just now.
But after falling, he stared fixedly at the bullet hole in his chest.
Seeing this, both Four Gay Bros and Ishigami Yu, who had fired, were stunned.
After several exchanges, they had roughly figured out some patterns of the God's Knights' immortality—
The stronger the attack received, the slower the recovery speed.
In the original work, it was once said that only attacks imbued with Conqueror's Haki were effective.
But actually, that was simply because Conqueror's Haki-infused attacks were powerful enough.
What truly worked wasn't the 'Conqueror's Haki' itself, but the 'intensity of the attack'.
As long as your attack met a certain standard, it could affect the God's Knights' immortality.
That standard was basically 'Emperor-level'.
And currently, among the subordinates Makoto had brought, only Yu and the Teddy Devil could reach that level.
But even so, it shouldn't have scared this guy this much, right?
Yu narrowed his eyes, staring at the bullet hole in Garling's chest.
Then, he noticed.
The location of the bullet hole—
Was precisely the left thoracic cavity.
The location of the heart.
"Oh."
Makoto's figure appeared out of thin air in front of Garling.
The Mangekyo Sharingan in his left eye slowly rotated.
Garling didn't even have time to react before Makoto kicked him to the ground.
Thud!
The back of his head hit the stone floor with a dull sound.
Makoto placed his foot on Garling's face.
Pressing his face out of shape, making his teeth grind together in his mouth.
"Do—"
Garling tried to speak, but with his face stepped on, his voice came out muffled and unclear.
Yu, Beam, Four Gay Bros also came over to watch.
"Did you notice?" Makoto asked.
Yu nodded. "When his heart was hit, this guy's expression changed completely."
Beam looked thoughtful. "So... the weakness of their immortality is the heart?"
The four heads of Kito leaned in, four pairs of eyes fixed intently on the bullet hole in Garling's chest that was still slowly healing.
"Foreign Teacher," Makoto called.
The Teddy Devil's eyes lit up.
"Got it!"
He crouched down, extending his sharp nails.
"Heh heh heh heh..."
Making a sound that made one's hair stand on end, the Teddy Devil inserted his nails into the bullet hole in Garling's chest.
Squelch.
The nails pierced the flesh.
The Teddy Devil's fingers stirred inside Garling's chest cavity, as if searching for something.
Garling's body began to tremble violently, his mouth opening wide to scream, but Makoto's foot on his face only allowed muffled whimpers to escape.
"Found it."
The Teddy Devil's fingers hooked onto something.
He yanked hard—
"Ahhh!!!"
Garling's body arched up like a fish hooked out of water.
The Teddy Devil held up the extracted heart.
But this wasn't an ordinary heart.
It had a metallic luster, reflecting a cold gleam in the sunlight.
A steel heart.
"..."
Yu leaned in for a closer look, his brow deeply furrowed.
"If we just destroy this thing," The Teddy Devil speculated, "these guys' immortality won't be able to regenerate, right?"
As soon as he said this, Garling's expression changed drastically.
That reaction said it all.
"Just hold onto it for now," Makoto said.
"Huh?" Yu was taken aback. "Senpai, aren't we going to destroy it?"
Makoto looked down at the face under his foot, which shared a ninety-nine percent similarity with Shanks.
"We're going to be in this world for a long time. If they die, what will we play with?"
"Oh!" The Teddy Devil realized.
"Yeah! What would we play with?"
After placing Garling's heart into his own player inventory, the Teddy Devil rubbed his hands together and looked down at the man.
His gaze swept back and forth across Garling's face, his look so greasy it gave the other man goosebumps.
The Teddy Devil leaned close to Garling's face, scrutinizing him.
"I notice this pretty boy isn't bad looking, you know."
Garling's pupils contracted sharply.
"Boss," The Teddy Devil looked up at Makoto, his smile reaching maximum sleaze, "How about we take this guy back to our ship and let the brothers have some fun with him?"
As soon as he said this, Garling's body began to tremble violently.
Not only was his heart taken, his life at risk at any moment—
But he also had to endure such humiliation?
That Celestial Dragon, who had always been high and mighty, arrogant, and who took pleasure in slaughtering slaves—
Was now like a bug trampled underfoot, trembling all over, tears and snot streaming down his face.
Yu's mouth twitched. He knew Teddy Devil and those idiots would make a request like this.
Makoto said with disgust: "If you want to play, play here. Taking him on the ship is too disgusting."
Garling was so terrified he couldn't speak.
At this moment, he finally understood what those slaves he had slaughtered felt like in their final moments.
Behind them, drenched in blood and barely alive, Bartholomew Kuma lay in the rubble of the collapsed ruins.
His eyes were half-open, his vision already blurring.
But he still saw that man stepping on the Celestial Dragon's face, digging out his heart.
"...Ni... ka..."
Kuma's lips moved, his pupils slowly losing focus.
But before his consciousness completely sank into darkness, a thought flashed through his mind—
That person was not Nika.
Even though he killed a Celestial Dragon, he was definitely not Nika.