Ch 42: Sneak Attack and Surrender

Chapter 42: Sneak Attack and Surrender

"Alright, tie them all up!" Blackbeard clapped his hands with a goofy grin on his face. But just as he turned around, he suddenly felt the ground beneath his feet shift.

Not good! Blackbeard's instincts flared, and his Observation Haki immediately swept below him. He sensed a human figure beneath the surface—just in time to feel a hand grab his ankle.

A surge of Armament Haki surged down his leg and exploded outward in a protective burst.

His goal was to break the hand gripping his ankle, but the figure below dissolved into a pool of mud the moment the Haki touched it.

Before he could react again, a sharp pain pierced his back—a clawed blade had sunk deep into his flesh.

Fortunately, Blackbeard had reinforced his body with Haki just in time. The claw blade dug into his muscles but didn't reach any vital organs.

Of course, there was another reason for his survival—the attacker had held back. If the chakra-enhanced strike had been delivered at full force, the extended energy from the claw would've gone seven or eight centimeters deeper, piercing straight through his lungs.

Having narrowly avoided a fatal blow, the enraged Blackbeard stopped holding back. He threw a massive Haki-coated punch behind him, aiming at a Spade Pirates crew member who had been pretending to be unconscious.

Boom! The punch connected—and the target exploded into a cloud of shattered wood and smoke.

"A substitution technique, huh? Good thing I was prepared. Even if I'd transformed my body into steel using the Baku Baku no Mi , that punch would've made me cough up blood."

A calm voice echoed from nearby. Ayaan stepped out of the shadows, eyes sharp and fixed on Blackbeard Teach. "I didn't expect someone like you to be hiding among the Whitebeard Pirates. Your strength is on par with one of their division commanders."

Blackbeard's expression tightened. The surrounding crew members looked at him in awe, while Ayaan's intense gaze made him uncomfortable.

He wasn't worried about losing to Ayaan. Given both their strengths, it would take at least a day or two of nonstop combat to reach a conclusion—and by then, Whitebeard's reinforcements would arrive.

The problem was, Blackbeard had spent years concealing his true power, and now, in one encounter, too much had been exposed. Against someone like Ayaan, he had no room for restraint.

"Hahahaha! I didn't expect myself to unleash such power at a critical moment!"

"But tell me—weren't you supposed to be fighting alongside your captain? How did you suddenly appear here?"

Blackbeard tried to sound casual, though the question was genuine.

"Just a trick. A bit of sleight of hand," Ayaan replied lightly. In truth, when Ace had created a wall of fire to obscure the battlefield, Ayaan had slipped away using a clone technique. The figure left behind was just an Earth Clone.

He hadn't originally planned to fight—he merely wanted to assess Blackbeard and try to acquire his body structure data.

After all, Blackbeard wasn't like Ace or Yamato. He was cautious, calculating. Injuring him was rare, and his hidden power made any direct confrontation risky. Ayaan couldn't just use medical treatment as a pretext to scan him like he could with other pirates.

If the timeline matched, Ace had only been with the Whitebeard Pirates for a year or two, and Blackbeard hadn't yet betrayed them or obtained the Yami Yami no Mi.

That meant Ayaan still had time, but opportunities like this—where Blackbeard acted outside his cautious character—were rare.

He didn't know what had triggered Blackbeard today, but he'd practically walked into Ayaan's trap by attacking the Spade Pirates crew.

Now, with Blackbeard clearly trying to stall and Ayaan himself uninterested in a prolonged battle, the situation shifted.

As strong as Ayaan was, the Spade Pirates were still too weak to contend with the Whitebeard Pirates. There was no victory in staying defiant.

His goal was to join the Whitebeard Pirates—and gain from within.

So the two powerful men stood, casually talking, each stalling for different reasons. Blackbeard assumed Ayaan was protecting his crew. Ayaan knew he was buying time until the captains arrived.

Roughly ten minutes later, a green light streaked through the sky and descended in a flash. It transformed into a man with golden, pineapple-shaped hair and half-lidded eyes—Marco the Phoenix.

"Huh? You're the doctor of the Spade Pirates? Weren't you on the battlefield just now?" Marco asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Ah… I tried sneaking up from the sea, but got caught. As expected from the Whitebeard Pirates. Even the least conspicuous among you are powerful and sharp." Ayaan waved his hand dismissively.

Blackbeard chuckled awkwardly beside him. Marco, trusting Teach fully, didn't suspect a thing. Instead, he replied proudly, "Of course. Teach has been with Pops for over twenty years. He's no ordinary pirate."

Then Marco shifted the topic. "So, what about it, little brother? Fire Fist Ace has already been defeated. Do you still want to fight?"

"Is our captain alright?" Ayaan asked calmly, head tilted slightly. His voice lacked hostility—as if they weren't enemies just moments ago.

"No worries. Pops took a liking to him. He plans to bring him aboard," Marco said sincerely.

"I see…" Ayaan sighed, retracting his claw blade and spitting out his weapon. "Then I surrender."

"Huh?" Marco was visibly surprised. This was the first time he had seen such a straightforward surrender.

After all, both Ace and Yamato had been full of pride and stubbornness, fighting fiercely even in defeat. Even now, they looked defiant and determined to overcome the Whitebeard Pirates.

Yet this third pillar of the Spade Pirates—Ayaan—had simply admitted defeat.

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