Chương 88: He Becomes Light!

With a determined scowl, the man with a top hat began his search around the Home of the Devil Fruits, flipping through every nook and cranny. After all, he'd been paid to do a job and wasn't about to question it. But… nothing. He scoured the entire place, but there wasn't a trace of any fruit, much less anything that looked remotely out of the ordinary.

'Display cases? Empty. Shelves? Barren.' Sighing in frustration, he whipped out his phone and dialed a number. It rang once before a deep, gravelly voice answered, "Did you get it?"

"There's nothing here," the man spat, annoyed.

"Are you sure your intel was good?" The voice on the other end hesitated, then spoke with a firmer tone.

"Nothing? Are you absolutely certain?"

"Absolutely. I turned this place inside out; nothing but empty cases. It's as if this 'Devil Fruit' was never here in the first place." Realizing who he was speaking to, the man with the top hat quickly backpedaled.

"Did you leave any trace behind?"

"Of course not. I'm a professional, and I've wiped down everything. No one will know I was ever there." the man muttered, frustrated by the question.

"Good. Get out of there now."

"Understood." He ended the call and turned to leave, only to freeze in shock when he saw someone standing behind him, watching him with an amused, taunting smile. The young man gave a mocking shrug.

"Sneaking around in my shop for so long and then leaving empty-handed. Now you think you can just waltz out of here? Don't you think that's a little rude?" Rosh crossed his arms, one brow arched, looking at the man with an unsettling calm. The top hat-wearing man cursed under his breath. He'd been so careful! And yet, here stood the shop's owner, catching him red-handed. And over a simple fruit shop!

'How paranoid could one guy be?'

"Get lost, kid," the man sneered, reaching into his coat to brandish a wicked-looking knife.

"Or else…" But before he could even finish the threat, Rosh raised a hand, aimed a finger at his assailant's wrist, and with a faint flash, a golden ray of light shot out. Zap! Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

"Argh!" The man gasped, clutching his wrist in pain, blood oozing from a clean, cauterized wound where the light had pierced his skin. His knife clattered uselessly to the ground. He was dumbfounded.

'What the hell was that?' He couldn't see a weapon, yet he'd been struck with pinpoint precision. Then panic started to set in.

"Y-You're a mutant!" he finally grasped what had happened, his face pale with fear. With his uninjured hand, he drew a pistol from his belt, aiming directly at Rosh's chest. He fired rapidly, muffled shots thudding into the stranger's chest. Bang! Bang! Bang! But instead of piercing his body, the bullets sparked a golden glow as they hit him. The bullets passed harmlessly through his target's body and embedded themselves in the wall behind.

"What… what are you?" the intruder gasped, his voice trembling.

"Aiming guns at people isn't very polite either," Rosh smirked, then extended a finger, firing two more bursts of light that sent searing pain through the intruder's hand, disarming him completely. Thud! The gun fell from the intruder's hand, landing next to the fallen dagger.

"So," Rosh said while kneeling before the intruder, "Care to tell me who sent you?" He then dusted his hands as if dealing with the man had been nothing more than a minor inconvenience. The man stammered, his face a mix of confusion and terror. Bang! But before he could respond, a muffled gunshot rang out from somewhere nearby, and his head jerked back, blood splattering as he fell to the ground, lifeless.

"Fuck, there's someone else here!" Rosh spun around, his gaze narrowing as he scanned the area. Moving quickly, he lifted the intruder's body, inspecting the bullet's point of entry and tracing the likely trajectory.

"Got you motherfucker." Rosh muttered as he traced the trajectory of the bullet to a nearby rooftop, specifically the rooftop of The Crown Hotel. Whoosh! Without a moment's hesitation, Rosh's body transformed into a streak of light, shooting straight toward the hotel's rooftop. On the rooftop of the Crown Hotel, a lone gunman in a trench coat was busy disassembling his rifle, preparing to make his getaway.

"That… that light—is it him?"

"This… it can't be!" The gunman erupted in disbelief. When Rosh had used the power of the Glint-Glint Fruit to rush over from his apartment earlier, the gunman had noticed a strange flash of yellow light. To someone unfamiliar with the Glint-Glint Fruit, it would be hard to link that light with a person. The gunman had merely dismissed it as a spark or an ordinary firework. But now, seeing that light transform into a human form again, he realized that it wasn't ordinary at all.

'That was him. What kind of monster is he?' Whoosh! Before the gunman's stunned mind could process it fully, the beam of light stopped right before him. The gunman watched in shock as the light coalesced into a human figure. Rosh stood there with an expression that was anything but amused. ⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘ Next Chapter: Ding! Shaun Lee Has Joined the Chat Next Next Chapter: I'm A Laser Man! Next Next Next Chapter: S. H. I. E. L. D.

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