Chapter 287: My Power Is Above Yours
"Yes, how could you possibly understand me... Only by making you experience the exact same agony will you understand! An immortal zombie is the only true eternity!
"Emperor of Shadows... Shadows Asgard!!"
On Thriller Bark, beneath the towering main mast.
Moria's body began to undergo a horrifying, massive transformation. His physical form mutated into something completely unrecognizable from moments prior.
The shadows he had violently plundered from across the island rapidly detached from the bodies of the zombies one by one, surging through the air before being aggressively absorbed directly into Moria's own shadow.
As the sheer volume of shadows flooded into him, Moria's body began to rapidly, grotesquely inflate. Five meters, ten meters, twenty meters...
Originally only slightly shorter than Kuma, Moria now towered like a colossal giant. Once the horrific expansion finally ceased, his bloated body resembled a small, grotesque mountain.
His massive silhouette stretched menacingly across the ground in the dim light. Moria supported his massive weight with his hands pressed against the earth, his breathing incredibly heavy and labored. With every single breath he took, the muffled, overlapping roars and wails of countless other voices echoed eerily from deep within his throat.
The shadows Moria had plundered possessed their own individual consciousnesses. Currently, Moria's bloated body served as a suffocating prison for these souls. Although they could not defy the absolute, conceptual rule of the Shadow-Shadow Fruit, these shadows would absolutely never willingly lend him their strength.
If this were the Moria of the past—back when he sailed the New World—beneath a darkened sky, his fiercely loyal comrades would have willingly entrusted their shadows to him, allowing their captain to carry their combined hopes and strength into battle.
That version of Moria was the true "Emperor of Shadows." But those glorious days had long since become nothing more than a pathetic, unreachable fantasy.
Radiating a suffocating, immense pressure, Moria didn't utter another word. He simply raised a colossal fist and violently smashed it down toward Kuma.
BOOM!
The ground instantly fractured, and the surrounding structures were entirely obliterated by the sheer kinetic force. Kuma's figure calmly emerged from the swirling dust and ruined rubble, completely unscathed.
His pace remained steady, his tone absolute.
"I do not understand you, nor do I have any desire to. I will protect my companions. They are my treasures, as precious to me as family, and they will not be destroyed by a man like you."
Moria's pupils violently shrank. Every single word Kuma spoke seemed precisely calculated to mercilessly tear at Moria's frayed, agonizing nerves.
"Kuma... that's your name, isn't it? I'll remember that... It's been a long time since anyone... made me this furious!"
Moria's vocal cords vibrated grotesquely, producing a terrifying, overlapping echo of countless voices.
He was going to turn Kuma into a zombie...
No, he would rip Kuma's shadow away and turn all of his precious companions into zombies instead! Only then would Kuma truly comprehend his pain! Only then would Kuma embrace the eternal, undying companionship of the undead!
Completely devoid of the refined martial arts and Haki he had wielded in his prime, Moria's enlarged, bloated body was incredibly clumsy as he threw another massive punch.
There was absolutely zero technique behind the strike; it was purely a wild, uncoordinated swing fueled by his artificially enhanced brute strength. The colossal fist tore through the air, emitting a piercing, deafening screech.
If Moria were allowed to rampage wildly like this, the entire island ship would eventually be smashed to splinters. But this time, Kuma didn't dodge.
Kuma simply raised his right hand, gently meeting the descending, house-sized fist with his pink paw pad.
Thud.
A muffled sound echoed across the ruins. Moria's colossal fist completely stopped in mid-air.
More accurately, it wasn't just stopped; it was perfectly, effortlessly caught.
Compared to the massive fist, Kuma's palm seemed completely insignificant. But the very instant they made physical contact, the absolute rules of the Paw-Paw Fruit activated.
"Pad Cannon (Ursus Shock/Pressure Cannon)."
Kuma's lips parted slightly.
The air directly within his palm was instantaneously compressed to its absolute physical limit, forming a visible, transparent bear paw print that violently repelled Moria's fist.
Without the reinforcement of Haki, a punch swung purely with physical brute force posed absolutely no threat to Kuma. When an opponent's Haki proficiency was insufficient, the conceptual, rule-bending power of a top-tier Devil Fruit was virtually absolute.
And the raw physical strength of Moria's bloated body was nowhere near enough to shatter that absolute limit.
BOOM—!!!
The shockwave violently erupted forward. Moria's colossal body was struck head-on as if he had been rammed by a massive siege engine, violently blowing him backward.
The foundation of the castle beneath Moria's feet instantly collapsed, debris cascading like a waterfall. That massive, shadow-stuffed body traced a clumsy, parabolic arc through the air before crashing heavily into the distant forest, utterly crushing swaths of zombies that had already lost their shadows.
Amidst the billowing dust, Kuma slowly lowered his hand and walked calmly toward the distant ruins, his footsteps echoing rhythmically against the rubble.
"Whoa, Kuma! You've gotten even stronger! It looks like all that extra night training really paid off!" Ginny called out, grinning.
"Not just at night! Ever since the incident at Little Garden, Kuma has been training obsessively every single day. His stamina is completely monstrous," Inuarashi chimed in.
When there were no active battles, maintaining one's edge required sparring partners. Kuma had trained so relentlessly that Inuarashi and Nekomamushi literally had to take turns fighting him in shifts just to keep up.
The horrific incident where CP agents had temporarily kidnapped Ginny had instilled a profound, lingering sense of crisis within Kuma.
"No, it's just that this man's control over his own power is deeply flawed," Kuma replied with a faint smile, offering a calm, clinical critique.
"That technique he called 'Shadows Asgard'... It relies on forcibly stacking external shadows to enhance physical strength. His raw power has indeed multiplied many times over, but..."
Kuma paused, adjusting his glasses as he looked at the massive figure struggling to rise from the dust.
"His reaction speed completely fails to keep up with this stolen power. For me, a giant, clumsy opponent like this is actually much easier to deal with."
Moria struggled violently to pull himself from the ruined crater, both hands clamped desperately over his mouth. Between his fingers, panicked black shadows constantly tried to leak out, desperately trying to escape, but Moria violently forced them back down his throat.
"Hah... hah..."
Moria panted heavily as he forced himself back to his feet.
In truth, Moria's condition was arguably even more pathetic than Crocodile's. Although Crocodile had been stuck in the "rookie zone" of Paradise, he still frequently fought to maintain his heroic reputation and actively utilized his Devil Fruit.
But in the Florian Triangle, anyone with genuine strength was typically annihilated by Harald long before they reached Thriller Bark, leaving Moria to prey exclusively on incredibly weak, defenseless rookies. Combined with a much deeper, psychological level of depression, his combat strength had regressed to a truly shocking degree.
"However, a body that large is remarkably durable," Kuma noted objectively. "I'm afraid it will take a few more strikes to completely finish this."
"By the way, Kuma," Ginny asked, tapping her chin. "This guy got so big and gained all that crazy power... entirely because of all those shadows he swallowed, right?"
"That appears to be the case. Why?"
"Oh, nothing. I just had a little idea. Maybe... I can help you handle this situation."
Battles between Devil Fruit users were fundamentally battles of intelligence. Uncovering the specific mechanics of an opponent's Devil Fruit and devising highly targeted countermeasures could instantly turn the tide of battle.
For example, Crocodile's elemental intangibility could be neutralized not just by water, but by juice, beer, or even blood scattered during combat. If Crocodile happened to suffer from night sweats, he might accidentally disable his own powers while sleeping.
While Moria was still frantically struggling to suppress the violently rioting shadows inside his bloated stomach, Ginny silently utilized an Air Door, stepping out of her alternate dimension directly beside him.
Almost seamlessly, Ginny's body blended into her own shadow on the ground. Without a sound, she reached out and plunged her arm directly into Moria's massive shadow.
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