One Piece: The True Codex

"One Piece:The True Codex"William quickened his pace, and the Morgan Pirates followed suit. Dennis hurriedly caught up with them.

"Are we really heading there now?" he stammered, his words slightly disjointed. "Shouldn't we prepare first? The slums are dangerous—there are plenty of criminals and even pirates hiding out there."

"Don't worry about our safety," William replied with a nonchalant smile. Back when Barbarossa was still alive, William had lived and fought in the slums as a mere crew member. To him now, neither the factions nor the individuals in this place posed any threat. "But you're free to go back; you don't have to follow us."

Dennis glanced back at the carefree and relaxed expressions of the Morgan Pirates' crew members, their confidence palpable. Gritting his teeth, he said, "No, I'm not afraid of danger. As the sheriff, it's my duty to go with you!"

Dennis was indeed a gambler at heart. Like Sherlock, he was just an ordinary man with no means to protect himself in a place like the slums, teeming with criminals. However, if they could truly wipe out most of the criminal gangs in the slums, it would be a significant achievement. He bet that William and his crew's confidence was not without reason.

...

The stench of garbage and wastewater from both the slums and the noble districts lingered in the air, forming an ever-present miasma.

Illegally constructed buildings stood crookedly, blocking sunlight and turning the area into a labyrinthine maze.

Inside an unassuming small building, the pungent smell of cheap alcohol overpowered the stench from outside. Groups of poorly dressed, weary-looking workers bustled about, while a few burly thugs stationed around the building played cards or chatted idly, occasionally casting wary glances out the windows.

This was an underground distillery, producing various low-quality alcoholic beverages. While Arcadio had already seized control of most of Navia Kingdom's underground liquor market, there were always a few stragglers eking out a living in hidden corners.

These remnants often operated in places like the slums, areas beyond Arcadio's full control, and were usually under the sway of local crime bosses or violent gangs.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Suddenly, there was a light knock on the door from outside. The thugs playing cards near the door exchanged glances and grabbed their weapons. In the slums, there was no law or order, and clashes between criminal gangs were commonplace. Back when Barbarossa had turned the slums upside down in his search for Zeff, not a single person had stepped forward to intervene. While that was partly due to Barbarossa's fearsome reputation, it also reflected the chaos of the area.

A burly man wielding a long blade approached the door. He peered through the peephole to see who was outside, but all he saw was darkness.

Puzzled, the man leaned closer to the peephole. Before he could straighten up, a gunshot rang out.

The darkness outside the peephole was suddenly illuminated, and a bullet shot through, piercing the man's eye and leaving a gruesome, bloody hole.

The man's body fell with a heavy thud, but before the sound had even faded, another bang echoed as the sturdy door was kicked open from the outside.

A figure darted into the building. Before the thugs inside could react, the intruder raised a finely crafted revolver. With one hand holding the gun and the other rapidly cocking the hammer, the room was filled with the rapid, popping sound of gunfire, so fast that the shots seemed to merge into one continuous roar.

Three consecutive shots, three thugs still clutching their weapons, all dropped to the ground simultaneously, each with a bullet hole squarely in the center of their foreheads.

The gunman whistled and adjusted the headband tied across his forehead, which bore the name "YASOPP."

This was none other than Yasopp, an officer of the Morgan Pirates.

Some of the workers who had witnessed Yasopp's deadly precision screamed and bolted for the back door.

At the staircase opposite the entrance, a flurry of footsteps echoed. Two thugs with brutish faces appeared from the second floor. However, before they could even get a clear look at Yasopp, two bullets found their marks, sending them tumbling lifelessly down the stairs.

Yasopp showed no signs of tension, as if he were merely on a leisurely stroll. He casually walked toward the staircase, ejecting spent cartridges from his revolver and reloading with practiced ease.

The old wooden stairs creaked with each step he took. Just as Yasopp was about to reach the second floor, his ears twitched. From behind a wooden wall around the corner, he heard the faint sound of suppressed breathing.

A smirk spread across Yasopp's face. He holstered his revolver and pulled out a bolt-action rifle slung across his back. Aiming at the source of the breathing, he pulled the trigger.

While the bolt-action rifle had a slower rate of fire, its accuracy and penetrating power far surpassed that of a revolver. The pointed bullet tore through the wooden wall, followed by a muffled groan and the sound of a body collapsing to the floor.

Yasopp lovingly caressed the rifle's walnut stock, savoring the intoxicating scent of gunpowder and gun oil. For a moment, it seemed to mask the acrid stench of alcohol that permeated the building.

The interior of the building grew increasingly chaotic, while outside, a group of Morgan Pirates had already surrounded the premises.

Leading them was Diego, who sniffed the air and waved his hand. The pirates immediately charged forward.

...

Two streets away in the slums.

Harden moved like a leopard, sprinting through a hail of bullets. From the building ahead, countless guns were trained on him, but the speed of his movements rendered their aim useless.

In the blink of an eye, Harden reached the front door. Lowering his shoulder, he barreled into the door with unstoppable momentum.

The makeshift barricade of debris piled behind the door proved utterly ineffective, shattering under Harden's brute force. Inside, Harden's body rebounded slightly before he lunged into the midst of several burly men on the first floor. With a single, brutal swing of his blade, he decapitated one of them, then used the headless corpse as a shield.

Thud, thud. Several muffled gunshots followed. The panicked enemies had poor aim, and the few bullets that did hit Harden struck the corpse he held in front of him.

Taking advantage of their need to reload, Harden hurled the corpse at one man and roared as he pounced on another—a young man clutching a curved blade, his face pale with fear.

Harden's voice, raspy and guttural from severe vocal cord damage, sounded like the growl of a wild beast.

...

Similar battles erupted throughout the slums, shattering the area's usual silence and plunging it into chaos.

The local gangs, pirates in hiding, and other criminal organizations quickly received word: the kingdom's newly appointed militia captain was coming for them!

~~~❃❃~~~~~~~~❃❃~~~

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