One Piece: Reborn in God's Valley

Back at the port, the scene was chaotic. 

Two enemy pirate ships had reached the shore, and hundreds of pirates stormed forward, weapons in hand, charging toward the entrance.

Boom!

The Helgrave Pirates and the underworld fighters held the high ground, raining bullets down on the invaders in relentless waves, as if their ammunition would never run dry.

Explosions lit the sky, and smoke choked the air. One pirate after another collapsed on the beach, only to be trampled by the feet of those behind them.

"Kill them all. Slaughter, urgh...."

A young pirate had barely shouted before a bullet tore through his throat, cutting his cry short forever.

"Tsk tsk tsk. So full of youthful fire. What the hell were you yelling for? See how that worked out?"

The speaker was clearly an older pirate, half his teeth missing. 

With practiced ease, he slipped a ring off the dying youth's finger and stuffed it into his own pocket, before calmly falling to the rear to take potshots from behind.

Bang!

A gunshot rang out. A bullet pierced clean through the old pirate's chest. He turned, stunned, looking behind him with disbelief before collapsing in a heap, unwilling to die.

"Useless trash. Keeping you alive is a waste of rations."

Standing at the prow of a ship, Begrin blew the smoke from his pistol's barrel, face dark as storm clouds. The fear in the pirates' eyes didn't faze him in the slightest.

"You bastard. Begrin, are you looking to die? You just killed one of my men."

Uges and Abbas were locked in fierce battle on the nearby beach. 

Uges, seeing his subordinate gunned down, flew into a rage. He took a blow from Abbas but shouted at Begrin anyway.

Bang!

"Is your pirate crew a retirement home, Uges? What good is it keeping this kind of garbage around?"

Begrin fired again. This time, he didn't shoot one of Uges's men, he shot his own crew member.

"Listen up, all of you. Anyone who dares slack off or play games, I'll aim straight for their skull."

His left eye gleamed with a strange crimson light, sending a chill through everyone who saw it. 

Uges went silent, recognizing the madness in Begrin's expression, he knew the man had entered a berserk state.

As a fellow pirate of the same era, Uges was well aware of Begrin's past.

Over a decade ago, Begrin lost his left eye while roaming the Grand Line alone. Back then, he was a renowned swordsman, already making waves. 

But once he found no more worthy opponents on the Grand Line, he dared to venture into the New World, hoping to find someone who could truly test his mettle.

And he did. Too worthy, in fact, his very first opponent was the Golden Lion.

At that time, the Rocks Pirates had just fallen, and Shiki was looking for someone to take out his fury on. When Begrin challenged him, Shiki didn't hesitate.

The result was predictable. Shiki severed Begrin's left arm and blinded his eye with ease. Begrin fled in disgrace.

But he didn't fall into despair. He replaced his ruined eye with a blood-red gemstone.

After founding the Doomblade Pirates, Begrin became even more unhinged, massacring both Marines and pirates wherever he went. 

His threat level became so high that the Marines placed a 520 million bounty on his head.

They called him Begrin the Red Eyed Swordsman.

"This guy's insane. He's even killing his own men." Salles was stunned by Begrin's ruthlessness.

"But it's working. If this keeps up, our defense line's going to fall apart." Jean looked on grimly as the enemy pressed harder, while his own side, already outnumbered, began to suffer.

They had barely two hundred fighters, including the Helgrave Pirates, against an enemy force of five hundred. Even with the advantage of terrain, attrition would take its toll.

"Leave it to me."

Parnell stepped forward from the line and crouched, plunging his hands into the sand with all his might. Bullets ripped through his body, but he didn't flinch.

"Lake of Death!"

In an instant, it was as if a hidden mechanism beneath the sand had been triggered. A surge of fluid burst outward from beneath Parnell, seeping into the ground beneath the enemy.

"Ah!! What the hell is this? Why's the ground going soft?"

Seconds passed before the enemy realized something was wrong. One pirate turned to his companion in alarm.

But before the other could respond, the ground beneath him gave way. 

He plummeted into the sand, and thick black liquid oozed up from around him, reeking with a pungent, toxic odor.

"Aaahh!! It's burning. Somebody, help. …ugh…"

He was gone in moments, swallowed whole.

And he wasn't the last. One by one, the ground beneath the tightly-packed pirates began to liquefy. Scorching black asphalt erupted like a geyser, forming a boiling, viscous lake.

Because the pirates had all charged forward, terrified of Begrin's earlier outburst, they were packed too closely together. There was no room to escape.

They sank rapidly into the bubbling asphalt.

Then, the mixture of sand and asphalt began to harden, encasing over a hundred pirates in solid death.

Salles and Jean seized the moment. With the enemy ranks thrown into disarray, they led the charge.

Their comrades followed, sprinting across the hardened terrain and plunging into the enemy's shattered formation. The battle entered a brutal stalemate in the blink of an eye.

"Hahaha... a Logia user."

Begrin had watched it all unfold. He knew the tide had turned, and if he didn't step in now, they'd be wiped out.

A sharp screech rang out as his boots scraped the wood. In the next moment, Begrin leapt over the heads of the battling pirates and landed beside Parnell.

Parnell had just been preparing to unleash his ability again when his Observation Haki flared, danger incoming. He pulled back and immediately shifted to his elemental form.

Slash!

A blade of compressed sword aura sliced through. 

Two puddles of liquid asphalt tried to reform, but Begrin's blade, wrapped in Armament Haki, came down again before they could reassemble.

…

Clang!

Abbas's claws clashed against Uges's spiked club, the sound ringing like metal on metal. Spreading his wings, Abbas slashed at Uges's throat.

But Uges had already undergone partial Zoan transformation. He tucked his head down into a shell of hardened turtle armor.

Abbas clicked his tongue and resorted to flinging air blades with rapid wing beats, hoping to break through Uges's defenses.

He'd thought of plenty of other strategies, dragging Uges into the sky and dropping him, for instance, to smash through that shell with sheer kinetic force.

Or throwing him into the sea and drowning him outright.

But Uges's body was like a living tank. Abbas had tried more than once, but never succeeded. Once, he almost got his claws bitten off.

He'd experienced the terrifying bite force of a snapping turtle Zoan firsthand. 

Since then, he never got too close. Instead, he relied on speed to strike Uges's weaker points, preventing him from linking up with Begrin.

Because if those two were allowed to join forces, one with monstrous offense, the other with impenetrable defense, their side would have no hope of victory.

So despite his injuries, Abbas stayed locked in combat, keeping Uges tied down.

…

The battle raged on, time slipping by like blood into the sand.

Above Dressrosa, the storm clouds began to part. Judging by the moon's position, dawn was still about two hours away.

In the skies to the west of Dressrosa, a great bird made of unknown substance slowly approached, gliding silently through the dark.

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