The Devouring Dragon-Chapter 102: The Yakuza Boss

"W-What the hell is going on?! Sir Alpacaman is dead-" A guard started to yell, pointing frantically at the corpse of Alpacaman, but he didn’t get to finish.

After all, dead men can’t speak.

His head casually rolled off his neck, and I stepped past him, flicking my sword as flecks of blood rolled off it. I didn’t want to kill all of Kaido’s crew, as they were more useful alive and serving me than dead, but for someone like this?

I wasn’t exactly a good guy, but as far as conquerors go? I might as well have been a saint. But, that didn’t mean I had patience of one.

If I spared and tried to force every person who went against me to serve me, then I’d be here all day. It wasn’t like these were good people anyway - they were guards at what essentially was an enslavement camp, where they worked the prisoners to the bone and had the authority to kill whoever they wanted.

It wasn’t like they were being forced to work here either, as most of the guards were ’Waiters’ who were trying to climb the ladder of power to become Gifters, and the few Gifters here were loyal crewmates of Kaido. When Luffy had been sent here, the guards had been far from kind, instead having no problems with mocking and kicking an injured man while he was down.

So, I wouldn’t waste time being merciful here.

The first guard’s death only caused more panic as the other guards realized that there was an intruder, and all hell broke loose soon after.

"Intruder! Stop him-"

Or, all hell tried to break loose, but I was simply faster than the feeling of panic. In a split second, the roughly two-dozen guards in the open area, all of whom were dressed in the same leather jacket, belt buckle, and who looked like rather normal people otherwise, were dead.

Heads fell to the ground, breaths inhaled, and I casually took a more in-depth look around the area as the corpses around me flopped to the ground. To my right, there was an iron door that looked similar to the one I had broken down, and probably led to the interior portion of the prison.

All around the open, circular area were similar iron doors pushed into the white-mineral walls, containing what I assumed were cells within them. I wasn’t sure if the more dangerous prisoners were kept inside the prison or in this courtyard area, but that didn’t really matter right now, because many of them weren’t in their cells.

Instead, to my left, was the mining area. There was a large white uneven wall, along with various men in handcuffs who should’ve been swinging their pickaxes into the wall, but instead were staring with wide, fearful eyes as the guards were slaughtered.

"Who are you?" One of the prisoners stepped up first, looking rather fearless as he looked at me curiously, "You have a sword, but your armor is not that of a samurai..."

The prisoner was familiar - very familiar, as he was essentially just an old man. He was short, very short, as he was around 3 feet tall in total, had a bald head with just a tuft of blue hair on top which was shaped like a flame, and overall looked very unintimidating. His body was thin, looking to not have a single muscle on it.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was an old man who’d fall over from a gust of wind. But, despite being far from his prime, and having been rotting in a prison without much food or clean water for decades, he wasn’t as weak as you would imagine.

[Hyougoro] [Yakuza] - Level 120

Reputation: Neutral

That wasn’t to say he was particularly strong in the grand scheme of things, as the former Yakuza Boss was a shell of his younger self, but he was still stronger than the average soldier in my army, and was close to someone like Vargan. He surpassed the level of the former Dwarven King when I first met him, but with my faction system empowering Vargan even as he wasn’t training much, he was close to reaching level 150 now.

"That’s true," I just hummed, casually walking towards the man. He tensed at my actions, holding up the pickaxe in front of himself defensively, and I resisted chuckling.

Even if he was in his prime, a mere pickaxe wasn’t possibly going to stop me if I really wanted to hurt him. But, luckily for the elderly man, I had no intention of killing him.

"I’m not from this country," I said simply, continuing to stalk towards him, and the other prisoners standing nearby stepped to his side.

He wasn’t a former Yakuza Boss for no reason, as he had the respect of the other prisoners. They weren’t much more threatening, as while they weren’t all old and tiny, their skinny bodies and thin faces let me know that they were similarly malnourished.

It was cute that they intended to work together to back up Hyougoro, but I should show them who their truly dealing with.

"Kneel," I said simply, [King’s Aura] activating as my presence filled the mining area.

The effect was instantaneous, as of the roughly fifty prisoners in front of me, all of them instantly fell to their knees, their eyes going wide.

"C-Conquerors Haki?!" Hyougoro stuttered, his hands clenching into a fist as he stumbled forward onto his knees, struggling a bit more than the other prisoners but still submitting.

I raised an eyebrow at his words curiously.

I definitely didn’t randomly learn how to use Conqueror’s Haki, but I guess the effect of [King’s Aura] was pretty similar. I wasn’t exactly forcing my will onto someone, but the skill definitely intimidated whoever it was used on, as raising my presence overall increased how ’large’ I seemed, not in a literal sense, but in an ’aura’ or ’spiritual’ type of sense.

The prisoners were feeling an extreme weight pressing down on their shoulders right now, demanding that they kneel before me as I towered in front of them. It wasn’t a mental skill, but it might as well have been as I suddenly seemed more powerful - my armor looked more daunting, my sword gleamed in the light a bit stronger, my helmeted gaze pierced into their souls, and my massive shadow cast over them.

My [King’s Aura] wasn’t so much so bending them to my will because they were mentally or spiritually weak, but simply forcing them to submit because I was simply stronger. With Conqueror’s Haki, someone with a strong will or spirit could remain conscious or fight against the Haki, but that wasn’t true with [King’s Aura].

Whether it was a literal ant or Kaido himself, as long as my power exceeded their own by enough, then they would be forced to submit to my presence.

Of course, that was only true at the first meeting, as it was definitely possible to become accustomed to the feeling of my aura. Raya had become a lot stronger and higher level since I first met her, but she still wasn’t a high enough level that she should’ve been able to resist the effects of [King’s Aura]. Despite that, she was pretty much unaffected whenever I used the skill.

She had both been around me enough and our relationship had developed enough to the point where she wasn’t affected unless I specifically used it to stare her down - which I would never do.

But, I pushed away the thoughts of Conqueror’s Haki as I towered over the group of prisoners, scanning over them with my eyes. Besides Hyougoro, none of them looked familiar, but that wasn’t unexpected.

The ’Prisoner Mine,’ which was the official name for what was essentially Udon Prison, was split into five different sections, overall having the layout look like a blooming flower. In the center was the Executive Tower, where the Warden of the prison and the other big shots hung out, with the petals of the flower being different labor camps.

This one was the Rock Quarry, where prisoners could mine massive blocks of white stone in exchange for food tickets. I didn’t know much about the other four labor camps, as they weren’t mentioned in-depth in the series, so I didn’t know exactly how moving between them worked, or if that was even allowed.

But, considering Hyougoro was here and none of the other former Yakuza were, either he really liked mining stone as he had also been here in the series, or the prisoners were assigned to specific camps and couldn’t move between them. Overall, this was fine, as it meant I wouldn’t have to deal with subduing all the big-shot prisoners at once.

Instead, I’d get to the one they respected the most first, and then getting them to fall in line would be pretty easy.

"Not quite," I finally answered Hyougoro’s shocked words, thinking for a few seconds as I towered over them and let them sweat, "But, you don’t need to be so tense. We’re on the same side."

Well, we kind of were - Hyougoro wanted to free Wano from Kaido’s control, and so did I! If we leave out the little detail that I want to replace Kaido as the ruler of the country and force the ’Strongest Creature’ to be my subordinate, then we were perfectly aligned!

"S-Same side?" Hyougoro grunted, forcing his neck to creak upward and look at me even as the weaker prisoners around him couldn’t raise their gaze from the floor.

"Indeed," I just grinned under my helmet, taking another step forward as I specifically towered over Hyougoro instead of the group as a whole, "You’re tired of being starved in a prison, working endlessly, aren’t you?"

"Of course," Hyougoro just grunted, "So, you’re here for a prison break? If that’s all you have planned, you won’t get far."

My grin twitched down into a frown at his doubtful words, "Why’s that?"

I could already assume what he was going to tell me, but I’d rather hear it from his mouth. If there was something different than I remembered, or a bigger problem than I expected, now would be a nice time to know about it.

"If this prison was the only problem, I would’ve left a decade ago," Hyougoro scoffed, staring up into my helmeted visage, "If you’ve made it this deep into Wano, then you already know. Kaido has ruined this country, and breaking out of here to run would be meaningless."

That had been what I expected, and I was glad he was just worried about Kaido and not something I didn’t know about.

Hyougoro was a man of Wano - he’d grown up here, lived here his whole life, and would die here. He could’ve broken out of this prison whenever he wanted during his younger days, before he was weakened and malnourished from decades in captivity, but he didn’t.

He didn’t want to be free if it meant leaving his country behind to rot under Kaido’s rule, and at this point, he didn’t think there was any chance of getting rid of Kaido. He was broken mentally, and the once vicious Yakuza leader was now an elderly man who’d given up.

Luckily for him, I was here to fix that problem.

"If you think I fear Kaido, then you’re underestimating me," I countered, grinning again. "Soon, the Captain of the Beast Pirates will be cut down by my blade, and this country will be under new ownership. I’ll fix all the destruction he’s caused, and the Wano you loved so dearly will return."

"You have a big head just because you killed a few Gifters, huh?" Hyougoro just scoffed again, but his lips twitched up into an interested smile, "But, I like your gall."

"You don’t need to act so confident. I killed them faster than you could blink," I deadpanned lightly, "So you don’t need to doubt my abilities. Come with me, former Yakuza Boss Hyougoro, and let’s free the rest of your comrades trapped here."

"Ha! If you need my help, then you’re definitely underprepared," Hyougoro just smirked again, not seeming surprised that I knew who he was without asking, "I’m just an old man now. An old man who hasn’t had a good meal in a decade, and who’s stuck in unbreakable cuffs. Unless you happen to have a key on you, I’m useless anyway."

I knew the man was far from useless even in his cuffs, but I just casually raised my sword.

"Unbreakable? You really have lost your edge," I hummed, holding my sword above him. freēwēbnovel.com

"These are made of seastone," Hyougoro explained, just shaking his head at my blade, "They harness the very power of the sea. I doubt even the world’s greatest swordsman could break through- WHAT THE HELL?!"

Hyougoro cut himself off, his eyes literally popping out of his head as I casually swung my sword, effortlessly tearing through the hand restraints as if they were made of butter and not seastone.

I had a [Legendary] sword made by the former Dwarven King himself - seastone cuffs were no problem. Besides, if seastone was really that hard to cut through, then how the hell would the World Government be making so many seastone items?

You needed to be able to change the shape of the seastone to actually make a spear or restraints out of it, so it couldn’t be all that hard to alter.

"H-How did you..." Hyougoro, along with the various prisoners kneeling around him, stared down at the broken cuffs, which had literally been sliced in half as they fell apart onto the ground in front of him, in shock, "Who... who are you?!"

Ah, I was waiting for that question.

"I’m Valon - the Beast King, and Monarch of the Underworld," I said smoothly, grinning as I towered over the shocked man, "I’m the true King of all Beasts, and I’ve become a bit annoyed with Kaido. Seriously, having the gall to call himself the ’Strongest Creature...’"

It really wasn’t Kaido’s fault - he didn’t know I existed, and I hadn’t even been in this world until a few minutes ago. But that didn’t excuse him from being called the ’King of Beasts’ or the ’Strongest Creature.’

The true Beast King would have to show him his rightful place.

I raised my sword back up, casually resting it on my shoulder as Hyougoro just looked up at me with a mix of shock and confusion, "But, I wasn’t asking for your help. No, instead, I’m inviting you to come watch the show."

I casually turned around, showing my towering back to Hyougoro as I started to stride away from him, "If you want, you can continue to stay here, wasting away until you die a dog’s death. Or, you can follow me, and watch as the entire world is changed."

My face twisted into a hungry grin as I walked away from the kneeling Hyougoro.

"By sundown, this prison will be mine. Then, Wano will follow soon after."

Then, after Wano?

The entire world would be mine.

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