Luffy cast a brief glance at the Pirate Empress, but then turned away, completely ignoring her once again as he calmly walked toward the wreckage where Moria lay unconscious.
This cold indifference only made Hancock even more furious.
Still, she was in desperate need of time to recover her strength, so she held back and refrained from provoking Luffy any further.
"Moria-sama?! Moria-sama!!!"
Nearby, Perona cried out over and over again, her voice tinged with panic. But as a soul projection, she had no tears to shed, just an open, trembling mouth and a contorted, grief-stricken expression that looked almost grotesque.
Luffy walked calmly past her intangible form and knelt beside Moria without a word.
He wasn't worried.
Because he knew Moria was still alive.
It wasn't just his Observation Haki that let him hear Moria's faint heartbeat…
He also noticed that Hancock had deliberately slammed Moria toward the Sea King's body below. Whether it was to give Moria a softer landing and spare his life, or simply to destroy the Sea King and prevent it from threatening the Kuja Pirates, Luffy couldn't say for sure.
With a quick mental command, a small red vial appeared in Luffy's hand, summoned from the system's store. It was a Life Potion, something he had just purchased.
[Small Life Potion]: Restores 1,000 HP. Usable by all living beings.
Price: 10,000 gold.
Yes, you read that right, ten thousand gold.
For a potion that only restored 1,000 hit points, barely 1/20th of Moria's total health, if that.
Still, it was more than enough to keep him alive.
Truth be told, Luffy didn't think Moria would've died even without it.
But Moria was worth the investment. To Luffy, Moria was like an interest-free bank, a source of endless credit, no need to repay the principal.
Whatever gold Luffy spent today, he'd earn back tenfold, maybe even a hundredfold, in the future.
He gently tilted Moria's head and fed him the potion.
Almost instantly, Moria's wounds began to mend. His sunken belly slowly puffed back into its bloated roundness.
"Huh... I think I just made Moria look even more pregnant," Luffy quipped silently to himself with a touch of mischief.
Perona stopped sobbing, stunned by the miraculous recovery. Her wide eyes locked onto Luffy, watching as if witnessing magic.
Seeing that Moria was still unconscious, Luffy tilted his head thoughtfully.
Then, with another flick of his mind, he summoned nine more Life Potions.
If you're going to save someone, might as well go all the way.
Since he didn't urgently need his gold at the moment, he decided to use some of it to earn Moria's goodwill.
Perona, practically nose-to-nose with him, had clearly seen everything. There was no way she wouldn't tell Moria what Luffy had done. It was, in some small way, compensation for the times he'd forced Moria into action.
In the world of pirates, people were generally straightforward.
Evil was evil, good was good. If you helped someone, they'd usually help you back.
Luffy didn't worry about Moria being ungrateful.
One by one, the red potions appeared like magic in Luffy's hand, and one by one, he carefully fed them to Moria.
The system store actually had other healing items, but if he wanted something compatible with Moria's physiology, he had to pay the steeper price for these Life Potions.
For himself, Luffy had far cheaper and more efficient options:
[Small Life Pill]: Restores 1,000 HP. Usable only by host, approved allies, or system-designated pets.
Price: 1,000 gold.
[Medium Life Pill]: Restores 10,000 HP. Usable only by host, approved allies, or system-designated pets.
Price: 10,000 gold.
There were also large variants of both pills and potions, but the prices skyrocketed, and Luffy hadn't yet needed them.
When the day comes that he has over 100,000 HP, there won't be many in this world who would dare mess with him anyway.
The Life Pills were one of the main reasons Luffy had the confidence to throw himself into danger so recklessly.
Without them, a single full-power strike from ten Warlord-level fighters would be enough to instantly wipe him out.
That's why Luffy always favored sudden bursts of power and quick battles. His true strength lay in the X-Gloves and their explosive attack capabilities, not in his defense or endurance.
As the ninth potion went down, a full 10,000 HP of life energy surged through Moria's broken body.
His caved-in belly returned to its original swollen shape. His broken horn reformed, sharper and brighter than before. Even his shattered tusks began to regrow. Bones snapped back into place, cracks disappearing as though time itself had reversed.
Aside from the tattered, dusty clothes on his back, Moria now looked just as he had before the fight.
"L-Luffy-sama?"
Perona's voice trembled with disbelief as she watched Moria's miraculous recovery. Her ghostly face stared at Luffy like he'd just performed a resurrection.
The empty potion vials slowly faded into the air, dissolving from Luffy's hands as if they had never existed.
He stood up, offering Perona only a quiet smile. He said nothing else.
A few moments later, Moria stirred. His eyes fluttered open.
He examined his body, checking his wounds, then looked up at the sky, confused.
"Perona… how long was I out?" he asked.
His last memory was of Hancock's devastating final attack crashing down like a mountain, the overwhelming force making it clear he had lost.
Now, waking up like this, he assumed a long time must have passed.
"Huh?" Perona was momentarily caught off guard but quickly replied,
"Moria-sama, you were unconscious for… about five minutes."
Moria stared at her, dumbfounded. He checked his body again.
He could still feel faint traces of pain, but he was fully healed.
"Could it be… that woman was all bark and no bite?" No, that pain had been all too real.
Before he could process further, a voice cut through his thoughts.
"Alright, Moria. You should be able to stand now, right?"
It was Luffy, walking away toward Hancock as he spoke.
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