Chapter 62: Hunt

-Nael POV:

...

When our ship finally arrived at MarineFord, we were welcomed with a devastated and ruined version of the usually beautiful and impressive Headquarters of the Marine. Every building, wall, or fort, were been completely destroyed or ruined.

"Nael?"

In front of our group, Sengoku-san was watching us with an astonished expression, and he had an enormous amount of injuries spread across his body, a sight that I thought I could never see in my entire life. After all, even my whole group was unable to scratch him in our fight, and he obliterated us easily during our match.

"Sengoku-san! What happened here?!" I rapidly approached him and shook his shoulders hurriedly due to my confusion.

"Before that, did you, or anyone else saw a ship going out of here a few minutes ago?" Sengoku-san ignored my question and asked me with a serious face.

"E-eh? No, there was no ship in the surroundings, even Rory with his incredible view did not see a thing until we approached MarineFord enough, and discovered the chaos unfolding in this island... Who did this Sengoku-san? Was it a Yonko?"

When Sengoku heard my question, I noticed his body flinch a bit. But when I thought that my assumption was correct, he shook his head and sighed deeply.

"No, but that man is as strong as one, if not even stronger... I have yet to understand completely the full extent of his power"

"Who are you talking about Sengoku-san?" Arya, who was standing next to me watching carefully our surroundings, walked to the front and asked with furrowed eyebrows. 

"I'm talking about Shadow Raven"

"...!!" Every one of us gasped in shock after that revelation, after all, everyone in the Marine thought that although he was someone powerful, most of his power relied on his mysterious stealth-related abilities, and he could never stand against an Admiral or Yonko. However, seeing Sengoku-san like this, and the entire MarineFord in this state... It's pretty obvious that his strength goes beyond what every one of us expected...

*Sigh...*

Seeing me in deep thought, Sengoku-san sighed before he turned to look at me with a serious expression, and placed his hands behind his back.

"For now help to move all the injured towards the medical zone. I guess that must be the least damaged because it is the one most far away from here, either way, we need to treat all the injured rapidly, or we might face heavy losses after this battle..."

""Yes sir!!"" Hearing him, all of us saluted and soon dashed in different directions to help those injured after the fight.

Just how powerful are you, Shadow Raven...?... It doesn't matter, I must stop your rampage and turn this place into somewhere you will never dare to enter!

I clenched my fist and looked determinedly at the horizon as one more foe appeared and blocked my path to protecting the people in the entire world. And this time it was someone incredibly powerful...
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Darieru Island

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"S-sorry, I thought that the bathroom was in this way!!"

"Of course not! Now get out of here before I throw you into prison for invading private property"

"H-hiiiiii! Y-yes!!!"

As a black-haired youth ran away with an extremely scared expression on his face, the man who looked pretty much like a thug just looked at his departing back with narrowed eyes before he turned to look at a black figure hiding inside the shadows with a serious expression.

"I think they might be spies from the Marine, we have already taken care of a few of them a few weeks ago, but I didn't think they could send other ones so fast..."

The black figure, who listened to what the man said, just nodded its head briefly before his evil red eyes shone slightly.

"Prepare to kill him and his group at night when they don't suspect anything. In the worst case I will have to intervene if they are too powerful, but judging by the small amount of strength I felt from that brat, I don't think they are really worth too much... Either way, they will still work as sacrifices for our god" The black figure talked with a sinister voice, and soon merged with the darkness surrounding him. Disappearing completely, and leaving the thug-like guy alone.

Well... not completely alone.

On top of a tree, the black-haired youth from before was watching the whole situation from above with a grin spreading across his face. Soon enough, the black-haired youth disappeared from his previous spot and moved swiftly without being noticed towards the nearby village.

It wasn't long before his previous appearance changed to that of the Infamous Shadow Raven. Who even with his eye-catching appearance, was passing completely unnoticed by the guards and people on the street. As if he was just air passing by.

Soon enough, he entered inside a bar that was pretty much abandoned and saw Yasu drinking several types of old wines left there with a delighted smile on his face.

"Pack everything, we are going back to the residence, something big will happen tonight"

"Gah! Don't scare me like that boss, I thought you were Kuina..."

"She is indeed scary when angry, but nevertheless, our enemies won't wait for us to convince her. So hurry up here, and I will go back"

"Aye boss"

As Yasu started storing the bottles in a bag, Thanatos soon moved towards a small inn where all of his companions were staying during these few days.

Along the way, he noticed that many villagers around were looking at the inn with either hostile glares or vicious smiles on their faces. It wasn't hard to understand that they were all implicated in this somehow.

Soon enough, he entered the inn and knocked on the door where all of them were staying for the time being.

*Knock*

*Knock*

*Knock*

"Oh, You came back Thanatos-sama?" Kuent, who opened the door with a terrifying expression on his face, soon smiled gently and bowed respectfully as he signaled Thanatos to enter.

"Oh, boss! What did you manage to discover?" Tom, who was drawing a few blueprints on the table, turned to look at him and raised an eyebrow as he asked about how did everything go.

Just as Thanatos was about to answer, Yasu entered the room as well and passed silently to the back where they had all their belongings to leave the bag from before there, ignoring completely the sharp gaze of Kuina who was until now reading a book while practicing her swordsmanship.

Just as she was about to ask, Thanatos raised his voice and looked at everyone in the room with red glistening eyes.

"We were indeed correct, This is the den of the cultists infiltrated within the marine. And although I doubt this is the only one, this one might be where everything originated. So, if we manage to capture whoever occasionated all this, then we might also get a clue on where that Anomaly is..."

"What about survivors, did you manage to find any inside this island?" Kuina asked with concerned eyes, after all, living inside an island full of blood-thirsty cultists without ways to get resources was something almost impossible, but if there were to be people living in such conditions... then it could be a horrible view.

And unfortunately or fortunately, Thanatos nodded his head as the grip on his fist tightened slightly.

"I saw some hiding inside the caves at the north of the island. They are extremely malnourished and on the verge of starving. Not to mention that most of them have horrible injuries on their bodies, and are carrying a few diseases with them. Hiriluk, I will count with you in this job"

"No problem boss! This is what I trained for anyways!" Hiriluk who listened with a grim expression to all the horrible things those people were going through, clenched his fist and smiled determinedly while taking out his suitcase full of medical stuff.

"As for us, I discovered that they plan to try and assassinate us during our sleep at night. The entire village seems to collude, so no person worth saving is residing here. The leader seems to be someone with very good stealth abilities, and he covers himself with dark clothes that hide completely his figure when he is inside the shadows... As for his strength, I'm still a bit confused. Although I can feel that he is just in the level of a normal criminal from the Grandline, something tells me that his strength goes beyond that"

"Then what should we do?" As Kayn asked, everyone in the room gained serious faces as they tightened their fists unintentionally.

...

"We hunt them first, before they try to hunt us" 

...

Jarron7

More things have changed than what we originally thought! I will give you guys a small spoiler, there is an important character from the main story that also got infected with whatever makes the people worship the Anomaly.

Can you guys guess who?

Anyways, that's all for today.

Goodbye!