027 Fight against Smoker!
Troyson D. Lin!
Although this name had only appeared in the pirate world not long ago, it spread throughout West Blue at an astonishing speed, far faster than ordinary bounty rumors!
Almost all the Marine branches and pirate groups in West Blue knew that there was such a vicious and dangerous pirate who not only slaughtered dozens of Marines in a bustling urban district, but even directly stormed a Marine Base, carrying out a bloody massacre and completely destroying an entire Marine branch base in the process. What was left behind were only broken walls, collapsed watchtowers, and smoking ruins!
Judging purely from the number of Marines killed and the scale of destruction caused, I am afraid that no pirate in the whole of West Blue, even among the notorious figures recorded by Marine Headquarters, could truly compare with him!
It was precisely because of this terrifying reputation that Lin Mu's name quickly crossed the sea routes, spreading from West Blue to the other three seas, eventually entering the intelligence archives of Marine Headquarters itself.
Smoker and Tashigi had been stationed in Loguetown in East Blue before, serving as officers responsible for guarding the town where the Pirate King Gol D. Roger was executed, and they had naturally heard fragments of Lin Mu's deeds through Marine intelligence briefings, even briefly glancing at his rapidly rising bounty poster.
However, because Lin Mu was active in West Blue, far from their jurisdiction, they had no opportunity to intervene, so they did not pay excessive attention to him. That was also why, when they first laid eyes on Lin Mu, they only felt a vague sense of familiarity rather than immediate recognition.
Smoker later entered the Grand Line and arrived in Alabasta, not because of Lin Mu, but in order to continue hunting down Monkey D. Luffy, the Straw Hat pirate who had slipped through his hands in Loguetown. As for Lin Mu, matters of West Blue pirates normally fell under the responsibility of Marine Headquarters task forces, and had nothing to do with Smoker directly.
But after truly seeing Lin Mu standing before him at this moment, Smoker found that he could not convince himself to simply turn a blind eye. His sense of justice as the "White Hunter" would not allow it. He immediately reached behind his back and pulled out his weapon - a jitte with a seastone tip, specially designed to restrain Devil Fruit users!
"I didn't expect you to flee all the way from West Blue into the Grand Line. Looks like the Marine forces hunting you are going to come up empty again." Smoker's voice carried a biting chill, thick with killing intent. "But since you've run into me, there's no way I'm letting you walk away without paying the price."
As his words fell, Smoker's lower body suddenly dispersed into a rolling cloud of white smoke, the distinctive ability of the Moku Moku no Mi, while his upper body surged forward violently, jitte in hand, aiming straight at Lin Mu!
Lin Mu showed a trace of helplessness when he saw that Smoker chose to attack without hesitation, but this outcome was completely within his expectations. Given Smoker's extreme hatred of pirates and his ironclad personality, it would have been far stranger if he had chosen to hold back.
However, Lin Mu had no intention of waiting passively. He was already worrying about how to draw out Crocodile, the hidden ruler of Alabasta and one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, and now the opportunity had conveniently presented itself.
As long as Smoker was defeated here, and his identity as a pirate was fully exposed in Alabasta, then Crocodile—who had painstakingly crafted his public image as a national hero—would absolutely be unable to remain calm. At that point, Lin Mu could simply wait for Crocodile to come knocking on his door.
With his plan rapidly forming in his mind, Lin Mu refocused all of his attention on the battle in front of him.
To be honest, among all known Logia-type Devil Fruit users, Smoker was actually the one who posed the least direct threat to Lin Mu at this stage.
First of all, Lin Mu is not a Devil Fruit ability user, and he is therefore not restrained by the seastone-tipped jitte—the weapon known as "Ten Hands"—held by Smoker. Because of this, he has no fear of the seastone itself, and the offensive power of the Moku Moku no Mi, which mainly relies on restraint, suffocation, and battlefield control rather than raw destructive force, is almost completely negligible against him, so Smoker has very few effective ways to truly threaten Lin Mu.
Seeing Smoker rushing toward him through midair while partially transformed into smoke, Lin Mu lightly shifted his feet, and his figure instantly vanished from its original position, reappearing dozens of meters away in the blink of an eye.
"What incredible speed!" Smoker's pupils contracted slightly, genuine shock flashing across his face as he reacted to the sudden displacement that far exceeded the movement of ordinary fighters.
But shock was shock, and Smoker's actions did not pause in the slightest.
White Fist!
Smoker's arm suddenly separated from his wrist, completely elementalizing as his fist detached and surged forward, transforming into a dense mass of compressed white smoke that shot toward Lin Mu at high speed.
Lin Mu stopped dodging the moment he saw this attack and instead calmly extended his fist, choosing to meet Smoker head-on.
Snapped!
With a crisp, light sound, Smoker's smoke-formed fist was struck directly and immediately collapsed, dispersing back into drifting white smoke!
Hulk's strength and explosive physical power were revealed in that instant.
If Smoker had not elementalized his fist in time, that single blow would have shattered his bones outright.
After landing the strike, Lin Mu's figure flickered once more as the Quicksilver speed fully activated, and he appeared in front of Smoker almost instantaneously.
Smoker had just personally experienced the terrifying force behind Lin Mu's punch, so he did not dare to allow a direct hit to his physical body. Having already confirmed that Lin Mu showed no signs of using Armament Haki, Smoker was momentarily confident, believing that intangibility alone would protect him!
However, Smoker clearly overlooked one crucial detail—although his body could be freely elementalized, the Ten Hands jitte, with its seastone tip, could not be transformed into smoke!
And Lin Mu's true target from the very beginning was the Ten Hands held tightly in Smoker's grasp!
Although Lin Mu lacked any direct means of harming a Logia-type user through conventional attacks, with seastone involved, restraining Smoker became entirely feasible!
Once Lin Mu's speed fully erupted, he was decisively faster than Smoker in close combat!
Even though Smoker attempted to use large volumes of smoke to bind and slow Lin Mu, the overwhelming physical power enhanced by Hulk's strength was simply not something smoke alone could restrain!
Although moving within the smoke felt similar to trudging through a swamp, the effect on Lin Mu's actual movement speed was minimal.
Quicksilver burst forth again as Lin Mu rushed straight toward his objective, seized the Ten Hands jitte firmly, and with a violent yank, tore it directly out of Smoker's control!
At this moment, Smoker had already released an enormous cloud of smoke and fully elementalized his body, concealing himself within the thick white fog.
However, even though Lin Mu had successfully captured the seastone-inlaid Ten Hands, that alone did not mean he could immediately defeat Smoker. Swinging the jitte blindly through the smoke would not allow him to land a solid hit on Smoker's true body.
In other words, Lin Mu still needed to determine exactly where Smoker's elemental core was hiding within the smoke!
If Lin Mu possessed Observation Haki, locating Smoker would have been effortless. Unfortunately, Lin Mu had not yet awakened or mastered any form of Haki.
Nevertheless, even without Haki, Lin Mu possessed Wolverine-level sensory perception, an ability refined through countless battles. Smoker's true position could not be hidden from that heightened awareness at all!
"Found you!" Lin Mu's figure flashed in an instant as Quicksilver erupted toward the right side, and the Ten Hands clenched in his grip shot forward like a spear!
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