He picked up the wine gourd resting on the sandy ground.
He lifted it and poured it into the air.
Beneath the blood moon, the wine seemed stained with an unsettling red, gleaming with a cold light as it slowly flowed into Kong Tai’s mouth.
His throat bobbed as Kong Tai took several large gulps. He set down the gourd, his eyes filled with thought.
“Where is this guy?”
He still couldn’t find the fellow anywhere.
The moment the space shifted, his Observation Haki had swept across the entire island. Aside from countless animals and a horde charging at him, he had detected no other suspicious aura.
“Strange.”
Oh well. What was meant to appear would eventually appear. Once he dealt with this horde charging at him, that guy would naturally show himself.
No longer pondering it, Kong Tai simply retracted his Observation Haki that had enveloped the island. He narrowed his eyes, admiring the unique blood-red night sky.
The rustling behind him grew closer.
Soon, Kong Tai could even hear heavy panting.
WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH!!
The monsters burst from the forest, their blood-red eyes growing even more crimson under the blood moon. Without any hesitation, they lunged directly at Kong Tai.
Clearly, Kong Tai had been their target from the start.
Dark shadows obscured the moonlight, allowing the reclining Kong Tai to see clearly what was above him.
He saw that the approaching creatures were bats, but of an exceptionally large size.
The bats opened their massive mouths, their sharp teeth glinting coldly in the moonlight like the edges of swords. Their blood-red pupils held no extraneous emotion.
Only madness, a madness so intense it sought to tear apart anything in its path.
Kong Tai’s gaze sharpened. With seemingly slow but actually swift movements, he stood up.
“Sword, come.”
Zankou, which had been quietly stuck in the sand beside him, trembled. With a “Zheng” sound, its blade unsheathed, drawing a cold arc through the air and landing in Kong Tai’s outstretched right hand.
He curled his fingers, firmly grasping the hilt, and swung upward.
The cold blade light instantly sliced through the bat diving towards him.
With a “Puchi” sound, the blade light easily cut through the bat’s body. He sidestepped, avoiding its body, which split into two as it fell, and the blood spraying from it.
Then, he looked up at the countless bats that had obscured the moon, plunging his location into complete darkness. Within his azure pupils, nebulae swirled, and an unmatched, world-dominating aura radiated from him in all directions.
*Buzz~*
The space itself seemed to vibrate, creating ripples like waves on water.
However, these bats acted as if they possessed no fear. Their bodies merely paused for a second within the ripples before they red-eyed, quickly diving towards Kong Tai.
“Hmm?”
Kong Tai’s eyes narrowed. “These fellows aren’t afraid of Conqueror’s Haki?”
Truly formidable.
“This is getting more interesting.”
He withdrew his Conqueror’s Haki, rotated his right wrist, and stepped forward, slashing a diving bat.
Then, with a sidestep, he plunged his sword into the brain of another bat.
After that, it was as if countless figures of him appeared. Amidst the flashes of his sword, bat after bat, like moths, fearlessly threw themselves into Kong Tai’s blade light.
They were consumed by fire, yet paid with their lives.
Even in death, the madness and bloodlust in their eyes did not diminish in the slightest.
Gazing at the growing pile of bat corpses on the ground, Kong Tai’s sight, for the first time, turned towards the jungle behind the beach.
Because he heard more rustling.
He retracted his gaze, swung his sword, and sliced through the body of the last bat. Kong Tai stood in place, looking up at the sky where the full moon had completely turned blood-red.
“Is this thing causing trouble?”
He could feel that these animals had all become heartless monsters.
They knew nothing of fear.
*Pfft—!*
With his right hand, he swung to the right, flicking the blood from his blade.
Then, with a thought, the sword stuck in the sand in the distance flew over, automatically attaching itself to his left hip.
*Clink—!*
He sheathed his sword, then bent his body slightly, leaning forward into a iai-drawn stance.
He looked up, his gaze locked onto the blood moon in the sky.
“If you’re still not appearing, and I can’t find you, I’ll break this full moon first.”
*Zheng—!*
A clear, ringing sword cry echoed across the entire beach. Then, as if blocked by something, it was confined only to the area around Kong Tai, unable to spread further.
His companions were asleep, and Kong Tai certainly didn’t want to disturb them.
Whether he was killing bats earlier or drawing his sword now, he had controlled the sound within his spatial domain, not allowing it to spread.
Accompanying the sword cry was a massive, crescent-shaped, silver-gray slash.
The slash moved against the light, like teleportation, cutting through the air, and instantly flew upwards, as if truly aiming to shatter the moon.
As time passed, the slash struck a spatial layer enveloping the island, and then the entire sky rippled.
It was like a stone suddenly dropped onto the surface of a calm lake.
And the slash was that stone.
There was no earth-shattering roar, nor overwhelming pressure. The slash struck the moon, and like a reflection in water, it suddenly vanished within the ripples emanating from the moon.
“Huh?”
Kong Tai stared at the moon in the sky, at the gradually subsiding ripples, his expression changing. It became grave.
“It didn’t break.”
He felt no danger.
What was this thing?
And even now, he hadn’t sensed any human presence.
“Could that guy be mixed in with the animals?”
It could block, no, it absorbed the power of his slash. This guy shouldn’t be hiding from him!
After all, with his current strength, a slash imbued with Armament Haki was not something ordinary people could block. Even elite Vice Admirals in the Marines would have to exert considerable effort to withstand it.
Sensing the animals on the island completely rampaging, Kong Tai knew he couldn’t wait any longer.
These guys weren’t afraid of Conqueror’s Haki. If he truly wanted to kill them, how long would it take!
Even with his spatial domain, he couldn’t contain them all. It would eventually disturb his companions.
This was something he would not allow.
Gazing at the blood moon, Kong Tai sheathed his sword and his figure gradually vanished from his original spot.
He then appeared directly at the location where the slash had struck.
Reaching upwards, he felt as if he was touching the actual moon. Then, a red energy, like flowing water, quickly coiled around his arm.
Cold, mad, chilling – this was the sensation he felt.
However, no matter how hard the red energy struggled, it could not enter his arm. It could only spread outwards, and soon it had enveloped Kong Tai entirely.
Then, the blood moon seemed to come alive instantly.
Darkness gradually appeared around him.
A darkness blacker than this night.
If someone were to look up from the ground, it wouldn’t look like a blood moon at all, but a colossal eye.