One Piece: The Devil Fruit Collector-Chapter 245: Pursuing Souls in the Underworld, Teach’s Whereabouts!
Chapter 245: Pursuing Souls in the Underworld, Teach’s Whereabouts!
As one of the oldest crew members of the Whitebeard Pirates, having followed Whitebeard for decades.
’Phoenix’ Marco was currently somewhat nervous.
His gaze swept across his surroundings.
A Rat Mask, a Tiger Mask, a Monkey Mask—and a Sheep Mask that had left not long ago.
Yes.
On today’s sea, what it meant to have three full top executives of The Zodiac present went without saying.
Not to mention Marco.
Even an Emperor or an Admiral who encountered these three would be extremely vigilant.
Especially after personally witnessing Saru (Monkey) single-handedly overturn the entire Corrida Colosseum, taking out three God’s Knights along with a Warlord.
Marco genuinely felt that—perhaps the entire world had underestimated the strength of The Zodiac.
Moreover, this wasn’t even the crucial point.
The truly most important thing was the figure standing at the center of the three Zodiac members at this moment, surrounded by starlight with stars flowing across his mask.
That was the ’Star Lord’.
"He really came personally..."
Marco thought to himself—although he had already made some guesses based on what Saru had told him earlier.
But seeing the Star Lord appear before him in person still made his heart heavy.
However, he quickly calmed himself and carefully observed the Star Lord’s actions.
He saw that a corpse had been placed in front of the Star Lord.
It was the corpse of ’Balloon Vendor’ Asu Soria that Marco had brought over not long ago.
And now, the Star Lord was slowly reaching his hand out toward the stiffened corpse.
Then, Marco witnessed an incredible scene.
He saw that as the Star Lord’s hand touched Asu Soria.
The corpse began to ease from its stiff state at a speed visible to the naked eye.
His pale skin regained its color.
"He’s resurrected!?"
Marco was almost dumbfounded.
But he soon realized—it wasn’t a resurrection.
Because although Asu Soria’s body looked as if it had come alive.
There was still not a trace of vitality in him.
He had merely been reverted back to the state of ’just having died’.
Following this, the Star Lord raised his hand and reached out again.
VMMM!
An invisible chill began to permeate the air.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
The area around the Star Lord’s body even began to freeze rapidly.
That was not ordinary frost, but...
A coldness from the Underworld, capable of freezing souls.
Holding that coldness from the Underworld, the Star Lord gently squeezed.
VMMM!
An illusory soul was pulled out from the other side of the Underworld.
And the form that soul possessed was clearly...
"Asu Soria!?"
Marco’s eyes widened.
In that moment, he finally understood what Saru had meant by the words he had told him earlier.
For the Star Lord, even the boundary between life and death could truly be crossed!?
"This kind of power... Is this guy a ’God’?"
The shock in Marco’s heart needed no further words.
But clearly, he didn’t know.
"It actually works..."
At this moment, Roy was also marveling internally.
[Underworld Fruit LV5 - Extra Effect · This is the Underworld (Ci Ji Ming Tu): When possessing a complete and fresh corpse of the recently deceased, one can allow a fragment of a soul to briefly return from the Underworld to the present world and exist in soul form. The duration is three minutes. There is a one-month cooldown between each use.]
[The maximum existence time is fifteen minutes. The stronger the soul summoned back, the more intact its consciousness, and it can be placed into the body to fight.]
[The Devil Fruit abilities of the soul brought back will disappear.]
The special effect of the Underworld Fruit indeed possessed the power to cross the boundary between life and death.
Of course, its restriction was also very obvious—one must possess the complete and freshly dead corpse of the deceased.
But...
[Fresh-Fresh Fruit LV5 - Can revert nearby aged and rotten meat, water, vegetables, and biological corpses back to their freshest state.]
The ’Fresh-Fresh Fruit’ could restore the corpses of all living beings to their freshest state—this directly allowed Roy to bypass that restriction.
And after this experiment, Roy could also be certain.
"That new clone can be completed."
"And thanks to this operation, I even obtained extra ’materials’..."
He thought to himself.
But at the same time, his movements didn’t stop.
After bringing Asu Soria’s soul back from the other side of the Underworld, he raised his hand and stuffed the soul back into the corpse.
Thus...
The next moment, Asu Soria suddenly opened his eyes.
He appeared to have ’resurrected’.
But...
"￥%￥%"
Meaningless mumblings continuously issued from his mouth, and his body began to convulse.
Seeing this, Roy wasn’t surprised.
The stronger the soul brought back from the Underworld, the clearer its consciousness, the longer it could remain in the present world, and the more capable it was of engaging in combat.
Undoubtedly, Asu Soria was not a particularly powerful fighter—even without fighting or expending energy, he could only stay in the present world for a few minutes at most, and his consciousness was completely unclear.
But for the Star Lord, this was enough.
Because...
VMMM!
He raised his hand again, and an invisible force pinned down the struggling Asu Soria.
He gently patted the latter’s head.
Something resembling film strips was extracted from Asu Soria’s mind.
After doing all this, the Star Lord looked at Marco.
"Come and see."
"This is the memory you wanted to know about."
"...Memory?"
At this point, Marco was already watching in a daze.
It was only when he registered what the Star Lord was saying that he instantly became serious.
That’s right.
Bringing the soul back from the Underworld, stuffing it back into the corpse to let the person temporarily ’resurrect’, and then extracting the memory—this all-in-one process was clearly the trump card Saru had promised Marco to uncover the truth about Teach.
For Marco, this power had clearly exceeded the realm of comprehension.
But he didn’t hesitate, immediately walking up to the Star Lord.
He directed his gaze toward the film strip in the Star Lord’s hand.
Then...
VMMM!
As the film strip continuously expanded in his vision.
Marco was drawn into a fragment of memory.
He felt as if he had become Asu Soria—a Supernova who had only recently entered the New World.
He was ambitious, yet cautious, sailing through the perilous New World.
After entering the New World, he had defeated several rival pirates and even snatched a precious Devil Fruit—everything was going smoothly, and he seemed to be gradually approaching the dream of becoming the ’Pirate King’.
It was on that very day, as Asu Soria was holding that Devil Fruit and considering whether to sell it, that he saw someone.
It was a heavyset man.
He was missing a few teeth, rough in appearance, and looked sloppy and careless.
Asu Soria recognized the pirate flag on the other party’s ship; it was the flag of the Whitebeard Pirates.
So, he originally intended to steer clear—he had thought about challenging an Emperor, but it was still too early for that.
But to his surprise...
Upon seeing the fruit in his hand, that heavyset man excitedly brought his ship closer.
"Zehahahaha! I never expected—heading out to buy supplies for Pops, I’d actually encounter something like this. This fruit is actually in the hands of a rookie like you?"
He laughed heartily.
"As long as I have this, there’s no need for the Dark-Dark Fruit (Yami Yami no Mi). I can obtain that ’Supreme Mighty Power’ Father spoke of."
"This is truly destiny... hey, hand it over!"
Accompanied by those words, the two sides began to fight.
"..."
As the memory reached this point, Marco froze.
Because what he was seeing now contradicted what the Whitebeard Pirates knew.
As far as they had known, Teach was attacked by Asu Soria while out buying supplies and had unfortunately been killed.
But looking at this now... the truth was exactly the opposite.
It was Teach who had attacked Asu Soria.
"And then?"
Thus, the question arose in Marco’s mind—what had happened next?
And soon, he saw the answer.
During the battle, that companion named Teach, whom he had once been very familiar with, displayed a power far beyond Marco’s understanding.
In his memory, although Teach was a fairly veteran member of the Whitebeard Pirates, speaking purely in terms of strength, he could only be considered average.
He hadn’t consumed a fruit, and neither his Haki nor his physical strength was outstanding.
"Zehahaha! Commander Marco, don’t we have you, Pops, and the other commanders here?"
"I just need to stay by your side and help out... After all, I don’t have that big of an ambition."
He always spoke like this, seeming honest and simple.
But now, in Asu Soria’s memory.
The power Teach displayed was unbelievably strong.
Even...
Zzt!
During the battle, Marco also saw black-red lightning flashing around Teach’s body.
That was ’Conqueror’s Haki’, and its intensity was very high.
And naturally.
Facing Teach displaying his true strength, Asu Soria suffered a crushing defeat.
"Zehahahaha!"
In the memory, the scene of Teach laughing wildly and eating that fruit was vivid and clear.
But just after this scene...
"Hm?"
Marco noticed that the scene he was watching suddenly began to blur.
Asu Soria’s memory became fragmented.
Marco could only make out massive explosions from those broken fragments.
He saw the Whitebeard supply ship and Asu Soria’s own pirate ship, along with all the crew members on both vessels, utterly destroyed.
Following this was the scene of Asu Soria using his ability to escape to Dressrosa, and then being attacked.
At this point...
VMMM!
The memory dissipated.
Marco stood in place, and after a long stunned silence, he looked at the Star Lord: "Star Lord... Your Excellency, what happened at the end there?"
He asked.
"The memories within his soul were distorted by some kind of power."
The Star Lord did not conceal it: "By that man named Teach."
As he said this, beneath the Star Lord’s mask, Roy’s expression was genuinely surprised.
He could naturally assess the situation.
From the moment Teach ate that fruit, Asu Soria’s memory had begun to distort and blur.
This was clearly abnormal and was very likely related to the fruit Teach had eaten.
Roy couldn’t be certain of exactly what had happened.
However, he could be certain of at least one thing.
"Teach didn’t eat the Dark-Dark Fruit. He ate a different fruit entirely."
This was the most unexpected revelation in the memory.
Because according to what he knew, Teach had lurked within the Whitebeard Pirates for so many years specifically for the special Dark-Dark Fruit.
Or to be more precise.
Roy believed that in a certain sense, the Dark-Dark Fruit might be just as special as the ’Nika Fruit’—it very likely could also break free from the ’Restraints of the World’.
The basis for this guess was simple.
In the original story, Teach, relying on the Dark-Dark Fruit, simultaneously possessed two fruit abilities and seemed capable of obtaining a third.
This was a unique situation in the original story.
And in Roy’s current view—this very fact was evidence of breaking free from the ’restraints’.
Therefore, he could draw an inference from this.
"The reason Teach in the original story pursued the Dark-Dark Fruit was because he wanted to break free from the restraints of the world. After all, he inherited Rocks’ ambition and wanted to become King of the World."
"Breaking free from the restraints is a necessary part of that ambition, an indispensable first step—otherwise, even someone as powerful as Rocks could only meet defeat when confronting Imu."
"If he couldn’t even complete this most basic first step, he’d rather remain in the Whitebeard Pirates for the rest of his life."
This could reasonably explain Teach’s behavioral pattern in the original story.
But now...
The Dark-Dark Fruit was not Teach’s only target—it seemed another fruit was also acceptable to him.
This was very strange.
"Assuming his ambition hasn’t changed... could the fruit he obtained be as special as the Dark-Dark Fruit, granting him a way to break free from Imu’s restraints?"
Roy found this hard to believe—special fruits like the Nika Fruit and the Dark-Dark Fruit were not something you simply came across.
And besides that, there was another key detail in Teach’s words.
That was...
"He mentioned Rocks."
Obviously, the ’Father’ Teach referred to wouldn’t be Whitebeard, but must be his biological father, ’Rocks’.
"The supreme mighty power that Rocks mentioned to him?"
Roy frowned.
"When did he mention it?"
"Was it before the God Valley Incident, or after?"
But just as countless thoughts were running through Roy’s mind.
On the other side, Marco was also frowning deeply.
THUD!
At the same time, with his memories fully extracted, Asu Soria collapsed to the ground once again.
His body grew stiff again, experiencing the process of death once more.
And his soul drifted out of his body accordingly, returning to the other side of the Underworld.
Of course, this time, no one would disturb his eternal rest again.
Asu Soria’s second death also interrupted the thoughts of both Marco and the Star Lord.
Thus...
"I remember you said before—that guy named Teach, his Vivre Card..."
Saru looked at Marco and asked.
"Mm... his Vivre Card has completely disappeared."
Marco nodded.
This was precisely what he couldn’t understand.
From the power Teach had hidden, Marco could see his ambition—just thinking about the purpose and danger of such a powerful man hiding within the Whitebeard Pirates for so many years sent a chill down his spine.
So he naturally also understood that Teach had not been killed by anyone.
On the contrary, he had actively chosen to trigger the current chain of events.
But the problem lay exactly here.
Teach’s Vivre Card had truly dissipated—Marco had made it himself; it couldn’t possibly be fake.
So, this meant his body had indeed died.
What kind of plan and ambition had Teach harbored to let things develop to such an extent?
"..."
Marco’s expression shifted continuously, then—
"I have to leave."
He looked at the Star Lord: "I need to report this to Pops."
He made his decision.
This was the consistent way of the Whitebeard Pirates.
Encountered an unsolvable problem?
Then leave it to Pops!
However...
"Regarding Pops’ invitation..."
Although his mind was filled with doubts about Teach, Marco naturally didn’t forget his Pops’ invitation to the Star Lord.
"Mm... Saru has already relayed it to me."
The Star Lord nodded upon hearing this and said calmly: "However, I still have matters to attend to in the near future—after some time, I will pay a visit to ’Whitebeard’."
Hearing the Star Lord’s reply, Marco had no objections.
After all, he also knew that after reporting Teach’s situation, the Whitebeard Pirates would certainly not be at peace for a while.
So...
"In that case..."
Marco spread his arms.
Flapping his wings wreathed in the Undying Flame, he soared into the sky.
"The Whitebeard Pirates shall respectfully await your arrival!"
☆☆☆
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