Chapter 642: Arest's Terrifying Ability
Just as Aokiji and the others were leaving, the warship carrying Arest had already arrived at the port of Gran Tesoro.
Stepping ashore from the ship, Arest looked around. The Golden City was now shrouded in gloom; the once brilliantly lit buildings had lost their neon colors.
After being swept by the tsunami, Gran Tesoro was littered with corpses. Among them were Tesoro's original enforcers and some greedy pirates who had lingered. These bodies were half-hidden in the rubble, faintly visible.
Arest walked over to a pirate's corpse, bent down, and picked up a soaked bundle from the corpse's back. With a light shake, the bundle opened, and a clatter of gold items spilled out, striking the ground with a metallic ring.
"The Lord says, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world yet lose his own soul?"
Shaking his head, Arest dropped the cloth from the bundle, checked his spotless white clothes to ensure they hadn't been stained, then pulled out a handkerchief to wipe the cover of his Bible, brushing off the water droplets. Only then did he say to the marines behind him, "Find Tesoro!"
"Yes, Admiral Arest!" The marines snapped to attention, saluted, then quickly spread out with their weapons to search Gran Tesoro.
During the search, the marines soon found a dying World Government intelligence agent. From him, they learned Tesoro's location, so Arest led the marines there.
When they found Tesoro, he was lying in a pile of rubble.
Tesoro, once dressed in stylish, luxurious clothes, was now in a sorry state. On his right shoulder were three bloody holes, slowly oozing blood. These were wounds from his reckless fight with Dragon, where Dragon had used a Dragon Claw strike to pierce through Tesoro's Armament Haki defense!
Tesoro was panting heavily, soaked through, with scattered fragments of gold around him.
He had completely miscalculated. Not only could he not defeat Ian and the other big shots, but when he fought Dragon, he suddenly realized Dragon was even stronger than Aokiji!
Though the World Government called Dragon the world's most wanted criminal, his low profile meant few had ever seen him fight, so few knew his true strength. Tesoro had made the same mistake. When the tsunami struck, he lost even his home-field advantage!
That's how people are—they cling to wishful thinking. Facing Dragon, with no clear idea of his power, Tesoro had thought, "Maybe Dragon isn't that strong."
The result? Dragon taught him a lesson...
Fortunately, Dragon hadn't killed him, only severely wounded him. When the seawater receded, Tesoro survived, gasping for breath here.
Hearing footsteps, Tesoro struggled to look up at the newcomer. When he saw Arest's Marine Admiral uniform, he couldn't help sneering, "You're too late. But who are you?"
"Heh!" Arest chuckled. "Allow me to introduce myself. I'm the new Marine Admiral, Arest. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Tesoro."
"The World Military Draft?" Tesoro had heard of it. He sneered, "You must be the first civilian recruited as a Marine Admiral. The World Government moves fast, huh?"
Arest handed his book to a nearby Marine Captain to hold, then stepped closer to Tesoro, looking down at him. "Mr. Tesoro, I regret to inform you that you are under arrest."
"Hahahaha!" Tesoro burst into laughter. Struggling, he held his bleeding shoulder and stood up. "I figured you were here to catch me. But do you think I'll just give up?"
Arest said nothing, watching him calmly.
With a wave of his hand, the shattered gold on the ground flowed like liquid, swirling around Tesoro's arm. Now that the seawater had receded, the gold was still a bit wet but didn't hinder his Devil Fruit ability. Controlling the gold, Tesoro regained some confidence. "You're a Marine Admiral, so I might not beat you. But if I want to escape, you can't stop me."
"Mr. Tesoro, where else can you run?" Arest said calmly. "Please don't make this difficult for me."
"Anywhere is fine! I don't want to be locked up in Impel Down!" Tesoro sneered. "I barely got my freedom back..."
With that, Tesoro moved. He swung his hand, and the flowing gold shot toward Arest like a bolt of lightning.
Not only that, but the rest of the gold on the ground seemed to come alive, surging toward the marines behind Arest.
As the marines panicked, trapped by the gold, Tesoro turned and fled.
But before he got far, Arest, whose body was bound by gold, spoke up. "Mr. Tesoro, you're bleeding. That's a dangerous thing."
Tesoro heard him but ignored it. A little blood loss wouldn't kill him, so he paid no attention.
However, at that moment, Arest squeezed his right hand out from the gaps in the gold and made a grasping motion toward Tesoro.
"Repel!"
The next second, Tesoro, who was running, suddenly felt a violent dizziness, his entire body went limp and weak, and he stumbled, crashing to the ground with a thud, sliding a short distance.
"Wh... what's happening!?" Tesoro lay on the ground, unable to think clearly, let alone stand up.
As Tesoro fell, the gold wrapped around Arest and the marines turned as soft as noodles, dropping off them. When it hit the ground, it clattered loudly, having returned to its hard state.
After freeing himself, Arest didn't rush forward. Instead, he first flicked off the dust from his white clothes, then walked toward Tesoro.
"You... what did you do to me?" Tesoro turned his head with effort, panicked, asking Arest.
"I told you, bleeding is dangerous," Arest said with a smile. "Especially in front of me."
As he spoke, Arest slowly rotated his right hand. A thin stream of blood flew from the wound on Tesoro's shoulder, heading toward Arest's palm.
This stream of blood stretched continuously, flying into Arest's palm, where it condensed into a red blood ball, growing larger and larger!
Tesoro stared in shock, unsure how to react.
"As you can see, I'm a Paramecia-type Blood-Blood Fruit user," Arest said, looking at the blood ball in his hand, smiling at Tesoro. "My ability is simple: control blood—my own or my opponent's. The reason you felt weak just now is that I forced the oxygen out of your blood. In other words, you were just oxygen-deprived."
"D... damn!" Tesoro understood. No wonder his Devil Fruit ability had failed. Without oxygen in his blood, he couldn't generate stamina, and without stamina, he couldn't maintain his ability. This new Marine Admiral, Arest, had a terrifying Devil Fruit ability!
But Arest wasn't done. He continued with a smile, "That's not all. There are many ways to control blood. For example... heat blood!"
As he spoke, Arest rotated his left hand toward Tesoro again. The next second, Tesoro let out a blood-curdling scream!
Pain! Unbearable pain!
Tesoro felt as if all the blood in his body had suddenly boiled, scorching hot blood flowing through his veins, intensely stimulating his nervous system. How could Tesoro endure such pain?
"I'm not done yet!" Arest smiled, even licking his lips, and rotated his left hand again. "Reverse flow!"
Then, all the blood in Tesoro's body instantly reversed direction!
"Ah——————!!!!"
Tesoro's screams echoed far and wide through the empty Gran Tesoro, reverberating endlessly!
The marines nearby watched Arest torture Tesoro like this, feeling their scalps tingle. They saw the excited expression on Arest's face and realized this new Marine Admiral wasn't as kind as a benevolent priest...
He seemed... bloodthirsty!
Watching Tesoro convulse and struggle on the ground, Arest showed no sign of stopping. The blood he had drawn from Tesoro's wound, which had formed a ball in his palm, now transformed into a blood-red dagger at Arest's will!
"10, Blood Stinger!"
Arest gripped the dagger made of blood with his right hand, pressed Tesoro's hand to the ground with his left, and stabbed down hard!
Though made of blood and thin enough to barely be called a weapon, the dagger was harder than steel. With a soft *shiiing*, it easily pierced through Tesoro's palm and the ground beneath!
Then Arest leaned down, whispering coldly into Tesoro's ear, "Understand now? Any living creature with blood flowing through its body is in extreme danger if it has a wound in front of me... If you can't stop the bleeding in time, you'll end up like this—completely defenseless."
With that, he ignored Tesoro's reaction, stood up, brushed off his clothes, and waved his hand. "Take him away!"