Malphegor
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OP: AMP Ch. 26
🕑 Added 2025-08-18 01:33:57 +0000 UTC"Did you know..." Kuro said with a smile, "cats are nocturnal animals?"
The moment those words left his lips, he vanished from where he'd been standing. But because of the darkness, only a faint afterimage remained where he'd been just a split second before.
Marcus squinted hard, trying to follow Kuro's movement. He could barely make out the pirate's form as it moved through the shadows.
It was like trying to track a shuttlecock during a night game of badminton, you could see the white feathers leaving a trail of afterimages in the air, but following the object was nearly impossible.
There were no footsteps at all. Kuro completely disappeared from Marcus' field of vision, and when he reappeared, he was already behind their group.
Alvida shouted, "Marcus, I need my weapon!"
When Marcus spun around, he saw her cape slashed with five parallel gashes. Alvida's eyes burned with fury, she'd been ambushed. Fortunately, her Devil Fruit's passive ability made her immune to slashing damage, otherwise she'd probably already be bleeding out on the ground.
Without hesitation, Marcus immediately pulled her iron mace from his inventory and tossed it to her.
At that moment, he felt his scalp prickle.
Sure, in the original story, Luffy had eventually defeated this guy, but the way Kuro fought was far from simple brute force. Luffy had been forced to use a desperate fight-to-trade-injuries tactic to finally take him down, and even then it had been a close thing. And that had been during the day, with sunlight everywhere providing clear visibility.
Now it was night, and with the added advantage of his Pussyfoot Maneuver. Yeah, this was the name of his signature technique.
No footsteps. Nothing clearly visible. Just deadly strikes appearing out of nowhere.
Shit!
Marcus' scalp prickled again. This was something he hadn't really accounted. He'd foolishly assumed Kuro was just an early-stage small-time pirate who happened to know a technique similar to Soru. With both Luffy and Zoro here, he'd figured they could easily take him down in a two-against-one fight.
But now, thinking about it more clearly, he realized he'd been way too overconfident about their chances.
Without wasting another second, he immediately began constructing wooden barriers around Kira to protect her.
After all, the weakest people here were Kira and Kaya. They had to be protected first, then he could work on reinforcing everyone else's defenses bit by bit.
But just as he finished encasing Kira in protective blocks, Usopp let out a scream.
Five bloody gashes had appeared across his back.
Even so, he stubbornly continued shielding the unconscious Kaya with his own body, refusing to move.
"Damn it!" Luffy shouted angrily. "If you've got the guts, come at me instead!"
Meanwhile, Zoro's frown deepened as he assessed their situation.
Under the moonlight, trying to track an enemy who had no footsteps and moved faster than the eye could follow... This was going to be tricky.
What made it even worse was that Kuro seemed to be attacking completely indiscriminately, going after whoever was most vulnerable at any given moment.
That was the absolute worst-case scenario.
Zoro couldn't protect everyone in this situation. Defense was inherently reactiv, by the time the enemy attacked and he noticed, he would need to be faster than his opponent to block in time.
If this had been daytime, he might have been able to just barely manage it through sheer skill and reflexes. But at night, with limited visibility, the difficulty increased exponentially.
Crack.
The harsh sound of wood being scraped and damaged echoed.
The wooden barrier around Kira instantly developed wide, spreading cracks.
One more hit, and it would shatter completely.
Kuro's attacks weren't just quick, they packed serious force. At least enough to meet the minimum threshold for damaging the wood, and judging by the crack pattern, it looked like he'd already landed five strikes on the same spot.
Thankfully, the attack frequency wasn't too high.
Marcus immediately rushed to Usopp's side, preparing to construct similar barriers around him and Kaya. But before he could even start placing blocks, he caught a flash of white light in the corner of his eye.
SHRRRRK!
The sharp, grating sound of metal scraping against metal exploded across Marcus' chest as five razor-sharp blades raked across his chest.
"Damn... that actually startled me," Marcus muttered, touching his chest.
His clothes weren't torn or damaged, but there were five pale marks visible on his skin where the claws had made contact. More importantly, he could see that his chest armor's durability had dropped by 1 point.
"That's scary stuff," he said, looking directly at Kuro, who had also paused in mild surprise.
"I didn't expect that you two would both turn out to be Devil Fruit users," Kuro said, sounding intrigued.
Devil Fruits were something he definitely knew about. He'd even encountered them before during his active pirating days.
It was said that Captain Smoker from Loguetown was one such ability user, and he represented a major obstacle for anyone in the East Blue who wanted to enter the Grand Line.
Before Kuro could speaking further, Luffy struck first.
"Got you!" he yelled, stretching his arm to grab Kuro's wrist. "Ow! That hurts!"
The moment his hand made contact, Kuro immediately retaliated with his Cat Claws, leaving five bloody gouges along Luffy's arm.
Fortunately, when Luffy's arm snapped back to its normal size, the wounds scaled down proportionally. What would have been long, serious gashes became five relatively small cuts.
Clang!
Zoro also seized the opportunity created by Luffy's distraction, launching his own attack with both swords drawn.
Having multiple fighters was definitely proving to be an advantage, even if they couldn't match Kuro's speed.
By this point, Marcus had successfully wrapped both Usopp and Kaya inside a protective barrier. After confirming that Kuro couldn't break through his defenses with a single attack, he grew bolder in his approach.
He drew his iron sword, narrowed his eyes, and prepared to face the Kura head-on.
Sure, he understood the basic principle behind Soru: stamp your feet multiple times in rapid succession to generate explosive speed. But knowing the theory was one thing, actually being able to execute the technique was something else entirely.
It was exactly like this:
Brain: "I've got this figured out."
Eyes: "Looks easy enough."
Hands: "No problem at all."
Feet: "Are you fucking kidding me?!"
Kuro, however, had no intention of clashing with Zoro head-on. After deflecting Zoro's initial strike, he immediately retreated to create distance.
"Three Devil Fruit users?!" Kuro's eyes widened.
Even dealing with one or two ability users would have been challenging enough for him.
One opponent he couldn't hit, another he couldn't damage, and a third who shrugged off his attacks like they were mosquito bites.
Before he could think of a plan, Zoro had already pressed forward again, not wanting to give his enemy another opportunity to use his Pussyfoot Maneuver.
At the same time, Luffy closed in on Kuro's flank, ready for close-quarters combat. He also had no intention of letting him back into the shadows where he held the advantage.
The coordinated two-pronged assault left Kuro scrambling to defend himself, unable to find the time or space needed to properly execute his Pussyfoot Maneuver.
Alvida, gripping her iron mace, watched with a complicated expression.
"I can't see that bastard at all. But those two can track his movements, they just can't match his speed. Still, when he gets close enough, they can fight back."
She tightened her grip on the mace.
Marcus scratched his head, feeling somewhat embarrassed about his own performance.
Honestly, he hadn't been able to see Kuro clearly either, especially when the pirate got close. He'd barely had time to register the attack before it landed. If he hadn't been wearing his iron armor, he would definitely have been wounded by now.
"The gap is so obvious," he muttered.
While they talked, the situation in the three-way battle began to shift.
After taking a solid punch from Luffy and a sword strike from Zoro, Kuro managed to break free from their encirclement.
Without hesitation, he immediately used Pussyfoot Maneuver again, vanishing into the night.
"Shit! He's trying to escape!" Alvida called out.
She stepped forward to help with the pursuit, but her speed simply wasn't fast enough to make a difference.
Both Luffy and Zoro attempted to give chase, but Kuro's speed advantage was simply too overwhelming for them to overcome.
"Damn it!" Luffy growled, waving his arm in frustration.
Zoro's frown deepened.
In terms of raw strength, Kuro was no match for him, but the enemy's speed was overwhelming.
That strange footwork technique gave him an enormous speed boost, even when he couldn't execute it perfectly during close-quarters fighting.
The nighttime environment made everything even worse. Kuro's cat-claw blades seemed to have been specifically polished to reflect moonlight. When swung quickly, they flashed. At first, it wasn't too bad, but over time, the constant flickers left countless afterimages in the eyes.
It was like staring at a bright light in the darkness, even after closing your eyes, you could still see the lingering glow.
The longer the fight continued, the more strain it put on their vision, until eventually their entire field of view became increasingly blurred and unreliable.
And that was exactly why neither of them had been able to take Kuro down decisively, despite their obvious advantages in direct combat.
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