One Piece: The Legend of Beasts

Chapter 110 Stalemate

The dazzling green light gradually faded, and the blood-red thorns that almost filled the entire valley seemed to have lost their support. After a violent shaking, they began to dissolve rapidly. Before long, they turned into countless tiny red blood foams that disappeared without a trace in the wind, leaving only a faint smell of blood in the air.

"Huh...huh..."

The fine beads of sweat on his forehead slid quietly down his chin. Uno, whose face was as pale as paper, gasped heavily. He stretched out his right hand tremblingly and gently wiped his left cheek. At the same time, he felt the severe pain from the surface of his skin. At the same time, the corner of his eyes slowly fell on the purple blood stain on the palm of his hand. A trace of helpless regret flashed in his slightly closed eyes, "In the end, it was still scratched. In the end, I was too careless..."

After saying the word "be careful", Uno could no longer hold on, his limbs drooped down, and the whole person fell headfirst from mid-air like a kite with a broken string, and fell heavily on the devastated sea of ​​flowers with a dull "bang" sound.

"Well......"

Uno, who was lying on the ground, could not help but groan in pain as his throat was pierced by countless needles. The boy clenched his teeth tightly, bleeding, and tried hard to raise his head, but such a simple action seemed particularly stiff at this time, as if he had exhausted his remaining strength. He only raised half of his head and fell back into the muddy water with a "thump".

The stench from the soil filled Uno's nostrils, stimulating his stomach to churn and cramp. At the same time, an event from the past that he still remembered vividly came to his mind again.

"The so-called devil fruit awakening is an inevitable phenomenon that occurs in the ability user when the wavelength of the body and mind resonates with the ability."

Deep underground on Beehive Island, in a laboratory filled with an eerie atmosphere, Stussy in a white coat leaned back in a chair, crossed his legs elegantly, and rested his chin on his right hand. He looked at the boy in a black robe standing opposite him with interest, and said leisurely, "Of course, different types of devil fruits will have more or less different effects after awakening. Since you are a superhuman ability user, you can apply your abilities to the things around you after awakening and control them at will... For example, your decomposition ability can be activated directly without touching the object."

"..."

After hearing her words, the young man couldn't help but hold his breath, looked down at his outstretched palms, and his face hidden under the cloak showed an expression of disbelief. He never thought that the ability he was so proud of still had room for improvement.

As if sensing his thoughts, Stussy took a sip of hot coffee from the table beside him. An elusive smile appeared on his rosy lips, and his nonchalant attitude remained the same as before. "Having said that, it is generally very difficult to awaken a fruit. Many people with special abilities have spent decades training hard, but in the end, they still get nothing. Even on this strongest island, Admiral Rocks is the only one who has awakened his abilities, and it has never been confirmed."

"Never..."

Uno, who still had his head down and was looking at his hands, murmured something in a low voice. Then he raised his head and looked at the woman who seemed to be pouring cold water on him. His eyes were filled with fearless determination. He said word by word, "Even so, I can't give up. This is not a matter of whether I can do it or not, but a matter of having to do it!"

"Is this still the same little boy I knew...?"

Stussy stared at his serious expression, and was a little stunned for a moment. After a while, she pushed her glasses and smiled softly, "Although I don't know why you ran to this almost unknown place without telling others, and I don't understand why you deliberately asked me how to awaken the fruit. Although it is true that I have done research in this area... But as a recognized caring big sister in the pirate group, it is necessary for me to give you some advice."

Before she finished her sentence, she slowly stood up from the chair, walked to the boy who was at a loss for what to do with her sudden action, stretched out her delicate hands and gently climbed on his shoulders, leaned close to his ear and whispered softly: "As far as I know, there is only one way to awaken the fruit, and that is to survive in a desperate situation on the verge of death. In addition to the mastery of the ability, extraordinary willpower is also an indispensable condition.

"But, I've also heard of cases where people were forced to awaken due to constant traumatic experiences. This is an extremely rare situation. Out of curiosity, I secretly took a lot of effort to look up the information of those people, and finally found that they all have one thing in common."

She paused deliberately, and a hint of intriguing smile flashed through her charming eyes. It was a slightly malicious smile like a little devil laughing at stupid humans. "They all died of exhaustion in an instant because they overused their abilities!!"

What a joke... How could I die here...

Uno struggled to squeeze out these dry words from his congested throat, gritted his teeth, and squirmed his body to crawl forward bit by bit, dragging a long, trembling line of blood on the rugged ground, which gradually became sparse and blurred with every move he made.

His body felt weak as if all the water had been drained out, and his bones were in pain as if they were falling apart. The numbness in his facial muscles and the piercing pain in the wound on his waist made him lose the strength to even lift his head. The only thing that kept him going was his rekindled desire to survive.

However, no matter how strong the desire to survive is, it cannot change the fact that this broken body has reached its limit.

My hands and feet started to become cold and numb, the scene in my vision became blurred due to excessive blood loss, my consciousness gradually sank, and even the roar of artillery fire nearby gradually faded away.

In a trance, a series of familiar and unforgettable scenes once again appeared before his eyes, like yesterday's flowers, slowly becoming distorted as his physical strength gradually drained away.

Is this the end... I finally rekindled a little hope for life... but in the end I couldn't escape the fate of dying together with that guy... It's really ironic when I think about it...

As if he had accepted his fate, a tragic smile gradually appeared on Uno's face. He slowly closed his eyes, allowing his consciousness to gradually sink, and finally fall into bottomless darkness.

Just at the moment when Uno's head touched the ground, a black shadow suddenly appeared behind him, holding something in his hand, and slowly approaching the unresponsive boy.

"what?"

Stussy seemed to sense some kind of change and suddenly raised her head, looking up at a clearly visible green tornado in the distant sky. In the blink of an eye, it disappeared into thin air from her sight. She couldn't help but reveal an expression of disbelief on her face, and even her speech became a little stammering, "Is this true... I will never make a mistake about that ability... Could it be...?"

Before she could finish her words, a fierce force attacked her from behind. Stussy quickly jumped to the side, raised her pistol and fired a series of bullets, shooting a puppet that flew towards her original position with holes all over it. The strong impact of the bullets caused it to fall on its back to the ground.

"He is a world noble, but he has no manners..."

Stussy adjusted his crooked hat and couldn't help but point at the girl who was surrounded by a dozen puppets not far away and complained loudly, "Hasn't anyone taught you not to interrupt others when they are thinking about something, little puppet girl?! Or..."

"Because that brat you had high hopes for didn't meet your expectations, you feel a little unbalanced." Before Stussy could finish his words, Guroliosa turned around and kicked the head of a puppet next to him away, speaking first. His tone was sarcastic, and he kept complaining to him without caring about the furious Stussy who was beaten to the punch.

Sally, with no trace of joy on her face, completely ignored the sarcasm of the two of them. She just closed her eyes and stood quietly on the stone platform like a sculpture, with the ahoge on her head standing up like an antenna, as if sensing some kind of signal.

After a long while, the hair trembled slightly, and then fell down again. At the same time, Sally slowly opened her eyes, her face was so gloomy that it seemed as if a layer of frost had condensed on it. She said in a deep voice as if she was talking to herself: "I can't feel his breath at all, Xiaoya... seems to have been really killed..."

As she spoke, her voice seemed to become a little choked up, and in the end she simply rubbed her eyes and burst into tears, tears pouring down from her eyes like a waterfall, as if she was really sad, "Wow! You promised solemnly that you would impress others in this battle, how come you were defeated so easily! Even if you die, at least leave some corpse or something for others as a souvenir!"

Seeing her almost heartbroken, Stussy and Guloliosa felt a chill instead of sympathy. After a while, Guloliosa, who was always impatient, could no longer stand the other's crying that seemed to never stop, and he turned into a shark mouth and roared at her: "Is it going to stop? You are not a child. How long are you going to cry? Now that you are on the battlefield, you must be fully prepared!"

Hearing this, Sally suddenly stopped crying and her attitude changed 180 degrees, like a fox that couldn't reach the grapes on the tree and tried to find excuses to comfort itself. She waved her right hand with a look of disgust, "Forget it, forget it. I can't change anything if I die. The worst that can happen is that I can just find someone else to replace me. Anyway, there are so many guys of that level. As for you two——"

At this point, she jumped up like a pet with its fur standing on end, and even the hair on her head folded into a horizontal "W" shape. She pointed at the two opponents who were in a stalemate with her and asked angrily, "How come it's useless to be hit by others' moves so many times? Even if a giant is hit by them, he will be turned into a puppet very quickly!"

As if she was getting angrier and angrier, Sally spread out the five fingers of her right hand, and a bean-sized purple light ball condensed from the tips of her five fingers, flashing a dim and strange luster. As she pushed her right hand out suddenly, five balls of light shot towards Stussy, who was closest to her, like bullets.

Perhaps because he did not react for a moment, Stussy stood there indifferently, seemingly having forgotten to dodge, and watched those light balls hit him one after another.

Strangely enough, the moment those light balls touched her body, they disappeared without a trace. Stussy still stood there calmly, not to mention any injuries on her body, even her clothes were not damaged at all.

"Why? Don't you think it's incredible?"

Stussy, who seemed to have anticipated all this, made a face at Sally, who was stamping her feet in anger, and then poked her glass-like skin with a determined smile on the corner of her lips, "At the moment when you were attracted by the blood clones that melted into a puddle of mud, that idiot and I took the opportunity to take a drug called 'Concentrated Crystal Ball'. Just taking one pill can make the human body acquire the same properties as the sea within a certain period of time, and no matter what kind of devil fruit ability it has, it will not be able to have an effect on it. Of course, if a capable person eats it, he will immediately faint."