Chapter 182: Showdown at the Manor: The Mafia’s Reckoning
by xennovel“How could a small place like mine possibly hold two giants such as yourselves?”
Standing at the manor gates Clyde sized up Stac and the Batoia man on either side and threw out the question.
Stac didn’t bother playing nice. “Old man, do you ever stop talking?”
“Don’t you know bad guys die from running their mouths? Open fire.”
“Bang bang bang!”
“Ah!”
Almost instantly both sides erupted in a firefight, bodies piling up across the ground.
Clyde brandished his longsword charging straight at Stac.
“Clang!”
Soon the two were locked in close combat.
“Kid, you think you can take my place? You’re still way too green.”
“Swish!”
Clyde suddenly stepped back just in time to dodge a powerful downward slash.
“Old folks really aren’t built for this. Maybe it’s time to step down and let someone else take over.” The Batoia man stood by with a blade in hand.
“Yeah, the old man doesn’t want to move, but the youngsters force his hand.”
Even though Clyde was well over sixty he was still going strong, his muscles firm as ever. Swinging his longsword he said with a wry smile, “This sword just doesn’t feel right in my hand.”
He drove the sword into the ground and in that instant his whole aura changed. Blood boiled as he slid into the starting stance of the Eight Extremities Fist.
The Batoia man actually showed a measure of respect for the elder.
He too stabbed his weapon into the ground and launched forward with the Dragon Tiger Fist, meeting the old man head-on.
“Eight-Level Fist—Heart-Piercing Elbow!”
“Dragon Tiger Fist—Tiger’s Roar in the Forest!”
Their blows turned into blinding afterimages that flickered across the spot.
Meanwhile the Mafia thugs nearby had already lost all sense of who was fighting who. Thousands tangled together in a whirlwind of gunshots and chaos.
Stac watched the duel in silence, not interfering—he was just waiting for his chance.
“Dragon Tiger Fist—Tiger Descends the Mountain!”
After hundreds of exchanges the Batoia man finally spotted an opening. Clyde’s age was starting to show. Short bursts were fine but in a drawn-out fight his stamina began to falter.
With a sudden punch he slammed it into Clyde’s waist.
Clyde staggered from the blow, his body thrown off balance.
In that split second a cold flash cut through the air.
“Slash!” Stac appeared by Clyde’s side, sword swinging down.
“Thunk!”
“Ah!” Clyde clutched his right shoulder, wailing in agony.
In that moment Stac took advantage of the gap and chopped off Clyde’s right arm at the shoulder.
Stac jeered, “At your age, you shouldn’t be playing the public face anymore.”
“Leave some opportunities for the younger crowd.”
“Tch!”
“You old fossil!”
The Batoia man stood silently not far away, not saying a word.
He didn’t like sneak attacks, but this wasn’t the time to pick a fight with Stac.
“Coward! You attacked from behind!” Clyde roared in anger.
Stac just sneered, “Who told you not to take a hint? At your age, why keep stirring up trouble?”
With his blade swinging Stac dove at Clyde again, while the Batoia man didn’t idle either, his Dragon Tiger Fist took him in close.
Everything fell into place from there—after losing his right arm, Clyde clearly wasn’t a match for the two. Within moments he was dead by their blades.
“It’s done. So, when’s your Bartow Family heading back to East Blue?” Stac’s words hinted at a deeper meaning.
“If you’re not in a hurry, neither am I.” The Batoia man answered coolly then vanished into the turmoil.
The fighting raged on into the night.
By dawn the manor of the Fricks Family was littered with thousands of corpses. Most belonged to the Fricks, but their attackers had lost over half their numbers as well.
Both groups stood over the ruins, locking eyes.
“Pururu pururu!”
“Pururu pururu!”
The trilling of two Den Den Mushi broke the tension. The two men looked at each other, then reached for the snails in perfect sync.
“Hello?”
“Hello?”
“Yes, understood.”
“Yes, understood.”
After hanging up Stac glared at the Batoia man. “Why are you copying everything I say?”
The Batoia man calmly sheathed his sword. “I could say the same to you.”
Both had received a mysterious call, and withdrew from South Blue soon after.
The call came from Cake Island in the New World.
A few hours earlier, Karl had set foot on Cake Island.
He’d spoken briefly with the locals, quickly getting a sense of all the disruptions that had unfolded during his absence.
He ordered his men to send a message out to all the members in the Four Seas.
The message: After clearing out the Mafia in South Blue and North Blue, everyone was to retreat to their own seas. No more meddling in South or North Blue.
Karl’s plan was to breed powerhouses by letting the Mafia families fight it out. Since every clan was so ambitious anyway, why not let them battle until only the strongest survived?
Now, he was losing interest in just handing over resources to the Mafia for nothing.
That’s why the Batoia man and Stac could both leave in one piece.
Without that call the two groups might have been at each other’s throats again.
Karl sat alone atop the Cake Castle.
Only now did he have a moment to calm his mind and think back on the strange attack at God Valley.
The attack had come from the heavens.
It had to be the Heavenly King Uranos.
The attack was pure energy. He rubbed his chin, pondering the possibilities.
Could it really be just like the netizens suspected—some kind of UFO?
He remembered a side story: Enel journeyed to the moon and discovered all sorts of advanced tech there, even more sophisticated than anything on Blue Star.
Thinking about it that way, maybe the Heavenly King Uranos being a UFO wasn’t so far-fetched.
But what powered it?
Even Roger became Pirate King, but Uranos still didn’t erase him.
Karl replayed everything that happened in God Valley in his mind.
“Maybe this is it.”
“According to an anonymous netizen, the secret to activating Heavenly King Uranos is the blood of a Celestial Dragon.”
No telling how much blood would be needed to trigger a single attack.
If he remembered right, the assault on God Valley seemed massive, but if you really counted, there were only about fifty strikes in total.
Maybe that’s why the weapon stayed silent after so many Celestial Dragons died there. When Roger became King, maybe it wasn’t that he wouldn’t strike, but that he couldn’t.
“So now, the key is finding out just how many Celestial Dragons died at God Valley.”
And just how strong did you have to be to survive that terrifying pillar of light?
Still, knowing the reason behind the mystery made the road ahead a lot clearer.
He looked up at the moon hanging over the horizon.
Murmuring to himself, “Even in another world, the moon’s just as big.”