Chapter 551: Brook's Secret!
King moved first.
In an instant, he unleashed his divine weapon, the Spear of Life.
A colossal divine tree rose behind him, its branches stretching toward the sky like a living monument.
"Keshia, I know everything," the skeleton said, stepping forward without the slightest hesitation.
"I know why you hate me."
"I know what I came here for."
"I know what you want most right now is to kill me!"
"Even so, I will fight alongside you, and then die under your hammer!"
"Yohohohoho! Before I die… can I see your panties?!"
"Yohohohoho!"
Krul Busurud laughed as loudly as ever, spouting nonsense with the same carefree rhythm.
"Ha?!" King blinked, staring at the skeleton like his brain had stopped loading.
"Is this guy… seriously here to fight?"
King could not understand it.
Facing a terrifying opponent and a battlefield that could swallow lives whole, this man still had the leisure to ask for a girl's panties.
The confidence was so shameless it circled back around to admirable.
Honestly, if King had even half that courage with Diana, he probably would have won her over a long time ago.
Ahem. Focus.
"Damn it, Krul Busurud, what nonsense are you yelling?!" Keshia roared, her fury exploding like a cannon blast.
"You already left! Why are you coming back?!"
For some reason, the moment she heard his words, something twisted in her chest.
A strange feeling she could not name.
The discomfort made her even more irritable.
And when Keshia got irritated, she got violent.
Her attacks against Diana immediately became fiercer, heavier, more reckless, as if she wanted to smash that unease out of her own heart by force.
Diana sensed the shift too.
But instead of retreating, her eyes sharpened with satisfaction.
The cautious, restrained rhythm she had been using earlier was never her style.
Now the real Diana was awake.
Two violent women collided, and the sea itself trembled.
In the end, their battlefield shifted straight toward Laugh Tale.
Fighting on the open water came with too many inconveniences.
The moment they landed, their hammers met again.
The impact shook the island.
And on King side, the real fight had also begun.
…
"Captain, Krul Busurud is back," Meliodas reported.
"Right now, he's fighting King."
"Just now, he said some strange things. He said…"
Meliodas repeated everything to Ryuunosuke without missing a word.
"Hmm?" Ryuunosuke's eyes narrowed.
"He came back on his own?"
That alone felt wrong.
Based on what Ryuunosuke knew about Krul Busurud, that skeleton would never return out of goodwill.
Back when Keshia had taken Ryuunosuke to find him, Krul Busurud vanished without leaving so much as a footprint.
So why now?
Then Ryuunosuke caught the detail Meliodas emphasized, and his expression shifted.
"You mean… when he was facing Keshia, he said he wanted to see her panties one last time?"
Ryuunosuke asked again, confirming the exact words.
At first, he had assumed it was just Krul Busurud's bad habit.
But now it sounded like something else was buried inside that nonsense.
"Right," Meliodas replied.
"And he seemed very happy when he showed up."
"He kept laughing, yohohohoho…"
"You cannot really tell if a skeleton is emotionally unstable, but his fighting style makes it obvious."
"Why would someone be that happy when they are trying to die?"
Meliodas sounded genuinely puzzled.
"Happy…" Ryuunosuke murmured.
Then his eyes sharpened.
"I understand."
"Keep fighting. We're on our way."
With that, Ryuunosuke cut off the connection.
…
On the Ark of Eternity.
"Beru beru"
Ryuunosuke took out a Den Den Mushi and dialed a number.
"Captain Ryuunosuke." A calm voice answered on the other side. "Do you need something?"
"Mr. Mihawk," Ryuunosuke said directly. "Is Perona with you right now? I need to speak with her."
"Perona?" Mihawk paused. "She is here, but she may not be in a good position to talk right now."
"We encountered a terror ship. Perona insists Moria's final resting place must be here."
Ryuunosuke fell silent for a moment.
"This might involve Moria," he said slowly.
"Perona should be interested in this."
"But…"
Before Mihawk could finish, another voice cut in.
"Captain Ryuunosuke?" Perona's voice came through the Den Den Mushi, strained but clear. "What do you need?"
"How much do you know about Krul Busurud?" Ryuunosuke asked.
"Krul Busurud?" Perona repeated instinctively. "Brook?"
"Right," Ryuunosuke said, remembering that between him and Perona, Brook was the name everyone actually used.
"Back on Thriller Bark, he was already there when the captain brought me in," Perona said, sounding helpless.
"As for anything else… I do not know much."
Ryuunosuke paused, then asked the question he actually cared about.
"And Moria?"
"They made special arrangements for you before, and they treated you in a special way."
"Do you know why?"
"Special…" Perona hesitated.
"I do not know. But the captain has always been very kind to us."
"In the captain's eyes, we are all special beings!"
Her tone was firm, almost stubborn.
Even if Moria had used her, in Perona's heart, Moria was still Moria.
"I see," Ryuunosuke said.
"Perona, please give Captain Moria a flower for me."
He ended the call.
…
"Captain, it seems Perona does not know anything," Najenda said, appearing beside Ryuunosuke at some point.
She held a small notebook, already filled with clean, organized notes.
"So what is Krul Busurud's goal?"
"And what is the conflict between Keshia and Krul Busurud?"
"Why did they try to wipe each other out before, but now it is like this?"
Ryuunosuke's gaze turned distant.
"That Krul Busurud… he must have learned something," he said.
"These Guardians are all missing something."
"Maybe Krul Busurud found what he lost."
Roy had shown the same pattern before.
His earlier cooperation with Ryuunosuke was to retrieve Imu's body.
Now, even though the reason for Roy's betrayal was unclear, it likely tied back to the so called gift.
So Krul Busurud's abnormal behavior was probably connected to it too.
"Then we need to…" Najenda began.
"We go there first," Ryuunosuke cut in.
If they wanted answers, they did not need guesses.
They needed eyes on the scene.
"Also, the giants are almost here."
"Since all these problems want to pile up together, then we solve them all at once."
"After we deal with this, we go find Vegapunk."
"Understood, Captain," Najenda nodded.
She turned and left immediately to inform everyone of what to do next.
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