Naturally, including the World Government, more than one person or faction throughout history has coveted Captain Homans' treasure, but none have ever managed to collect all the complete fragments of the map, eventually having to give up.
Aeridar, on the other hand, was lucky. Through a series of opportune coincidences, combined with open theft and secret machinations, he managed to gather three fragments of the map, though it still didn't form the true, complete treasure map.
Initially, Aeridar had merely kept the three fragments in his personal vault to satisfy his collector's obsession.
However, after assassinating Redfield, the Crimson family acquired some of Redfield's private belongings and handed them over to Aeridar. It was then that Aeridar discovered a clue.
It turned out that Redfield had been searching for Captain Homans' treasure for a long time. Driven by interest, he had not only found two fragments of the map but also collected many ancient texts and related information about Captain Homans, such as tattered excerpts from the captain's diary and subordinate's casual writings.
But due to the immense passage of time, with the fragments of Captain Homans' treasure map scattered across the world, it was obviously impossible for any single person to gather them all.
When Aeridar, Millie, and Mina examined Redfield's private belongings, they not only managed to piece together the map but also discovered from the ancient texts and related materials collected by Redfield that an incredibly powerful Devil Fruit was very likely contained within Homans' treasure.
That Devil Fruit was a tribute offered by a certain kingdom to the Celestial Dragons in the past, which Homans had plundered and kept hidden in his vault ever since.
Mina had already consumed the Mythical Zoan-type Bat-Bat Fruit, Model: Vampire, but Millie had yet to find a suitable Devil Fruit.
Thus, Aeridar and Mina set their sights on the legendary Devil Fruit inside Captain Homans' treasure.
Mina utilized all the resources of the External Affairs Department of the Chris Investigation Bureau intelligence network, focusing all efforts on finding the location marked on the map. Finally, after expending significant manpower and resources, they arrived here.
However, since more than a hundred years had passed, Mina was not entirely certain of the location. But the skull-and-crown tattoo on the native Shaman before her now confirmed that the site of Captain Homans' treasure must be here.
This was because Redfield had once obtained a diary of Captain Homans, which mentioned that the Skeleton King, Captain Homans, had once visited a very primitive island, offered assistance to a local tribe, and was highly revered by the natives.
Now, it seemed this was more than mere reverence—they had essentially deified him!
"Let me show you the power of 'Certain Death'!"
Shaman Apuli crushed a skull ornament on his wooden staff, extracting a dark red pill from within. Mina, in her vampire form, possessed a keen sense of smell and caught a whiff of a pungent, slightly acrid scent.
Shaman Apuli knitted his brows and swallowed the dark red pill in his hand. Immediately, his entire face contorted, as if he had eaten something utterly vile.
In a matter of seconds, Shaman Apuli bent over in agony, his face flushed, and veins bulging on his forehead, looking as if he were enduring unimaginable pain.
"Hm? He's grown taller!"
Apuli soon straightened up, but Mina noticed something was wrong, He had clearly become much taller, a very strange kind of growth.
Before, he was about six feet tall, the type who looked thin in clothes but was muscular underneath. Now, he was nearly two meters tall, yet his body retained its original proportions. It was as if his internal structure had been forcefully stretched, and his bones had all gotten bigger.
"Could that be a Forbidden Drug?!"
Mina was startled, feeling that his aura had intensified significantly.
A Forbidden Drug is not something an ordinary person can invent, let alone the shaman of a native tribe. Moreover, the vast majority of these drugs endanger life and cause irreversible damage to the body.
BOOM!
Shaman Apuli, his expression savage, slammed his right foot onto the ground, causing the earth to tremble. He shot forward, leaving behind a deep footprint and large patches of radiating cracks.
"So fast!"
Mina was shocked. She felt a blur before her eyes and realized that the opponent had already rushed right in front of her. In desperation, she quickly crossed her arms to block.
"Get down here!"
Shaman Apuli roared. The wooden staff in his hand was instantly hardened with Armament Haki, making a whistling sound as it struck Mina's crossed arms.
BANG!
Whooosh!
Rumble…
A visible ring of energy burst outward. Mina felt an extremely powerful force hit her, and she was immediately sent flying backward like a cannonball, slamming violently into the canyon wall and kicking up a cloud of dust.
A crater several meters in diameter was left in the cliff face, its edges covered in dense cracks spreading outward.
"A Forbidden Drug! It really is a Forbidden Drug!"
Blood trickled from the corner of Mina's mouth as she lay embedded in the center of the large crater.
Clatter~
Shaman Apuli dropped to the ground from the air.
"Cough…"
Shaman Apuli coughed up a mouthful of blood, his face looking somewhat gray. He murmured, "There's only one strike's worth of strength left. I have to make it a killing blow!"
Rumble…
Stones and debris fell from the cliff face. Mina shook her bat wings and slowly flew out.
"Heh heh~ I slightly underestimated you."
Mina chuckled softly, wiping the blood from the corner of her mouth. Her ruby-red eyes narrowed slightly, revealing a cold gleam.
"Blood Wing!"
A flash of blood-red light swept out rapidly, and Mina instantly vanished from her spot.
Shhhlrrt…
Blood sprayed. A long, narrow wound appeared on Apuli's chest, still actively bleeding.
"Such hard bones!"
Standing behind Apuli, Mina looked at her outstretched bat wing, her expression slightly confused.
Logically, a strike like that should have cleaved even a hundred-meter-long Sea King in half.
Yet, this time, it had only sliced through the flesh and was then stopped by the opponent's sternum.
"Die!"
Shaman Apuli completely ignored the wound on his chest. Instead, he was overjoyed to see Mina standing on the ground.
He spread his legs and took a giant step forward.
Shaman Apuli gripped his metal-black staff, charged with a savage, desperate aura, and slammed it fiercely toward Mina's head.
"Hmph! Old fool, don't stand in the blood!"
Facing Shaman Apuli's all-out, life-risking attack, a cheerful smile spread across Mina's pretty face. Her slender finger pointed toward the ground.
"Oh no!"
Shaman Apuli caught a glimpse of the ground, which was already stained red with blood. A feeling of dread immediately welled up in his heart, and an intense sense of crisis made his scalp tingle.
"Blood Forest!"
A delicate shout.
PU-CHI! PU-CHI! PU-CHI!
The blood soaking the ground was instantly gathered by a mysterious force, condensing into three sharp, several-meter-long spikes. Each spike, formed from a large concentration of blood, instantly pierced through Shaman Apuli's body.
"I... miscalculated…"
Shaman Apuli opened his mouth, only for a large torrent of blood to pour out.
———————
Want to read ahead of schedule? Head over here ——— pa-tre-on.c-om/AlexandrusTL [remove the hyphen for normal access]