Lie

Lie

He had taken the bait, just as expected.

Leo couldn't help but smile.

The reason he had stayed on Lily Island for so many days without "preaching" was Gloriosa.

Perhaps because they had lived on the island for so long, the girls of Amazon Lily were all a little naive and far too trusting of others.

That was also why Luffy and the others had received help from so many innocent, simple natives along their journey.

In theory, the female warriors of the Amazon Lily Archipelago were no different from those innocent, simple natives.

That was why they needed protection, and why men were forbidden from setting foot on the island.

There were far too many smooth talkers outside. If even one person came to the island, who knew how many women might be tricked away?

The Empress's psychological defenses could be said to be the strongest of them all.

And Gloriosa was clearly the pillar holding the Amazon Lily Archipelago steady. The Empress and the others could go out and raid because Amazon Lily left no survivors in its raids. If he had not borne the hoof mark of the Celestial Dragons, the Empress would never have shown him mercy.

But now that he had won over the Empress, and they were about to set sail on a long voyage, his intelligence and abilities were enough to keep the Kuja Pirates on course. Yet Nine Snake Island still needed someone like Gloriosa to stabilize its people.

Especially now that the Empress was setting sail.

Leo had long forgotten the details from the manga. What normal person could remember such minor details? Everything he knew had been deduced from the clues himself.

If Gloriosa remained on Amazon Lily Island, then he would be able to call the shots aboard the entire ship.

In truth, the Empress usually did not bother with affairs anyway. Once he boarded, he would be the only one with any real say.

And without Gloriosa's restrictions, he could preach however he pleased throughout the ship.

Since Gloriosa had said so, the matter was basically settled.

The Guardian Warriors would stay behind. The ones heading out on this routine raid were only the regular warriors of the Kuja Pirates, fewer than fifty people in total.

Five of them were cooks, and another five were shipwrights. The actual fighters numbered only forty.

But despite there being only fifty of them, every single one could use Armament Haki.

In a real fight, not one of them would be weaker than a pirate with a bounty under one hundred million.

With such a lineup, they would carry weight not only in the first half of the Grand Line, but even in the second half.

Traveling backward through the Grand Line was actually very difficult for them. Fortunately, their long years of raiding had left them with plenty of Log Poses in storage. Naturally, many of those were Eternal Poses. Some pointed toward Water 7, while others pointed toward the Alabasta Kingdom.

When the sails were lowered and the two sea snakes plunged beneath the water, the Empress's floating palace reached its top speed. Standing at the bow and watching the ship suddenly accelerate, Leo felt an uncontrollable sense of exhilaration. Now, he had truly set foot on the Grand Line and officially begun the second phase of his plan.

He had lied to both Gloriosa and the Empress.

His true destination was not the Alabasta Kingdom. Although the Alabasta Kingdom was indeed one of the starting points of the Grand Line, one of the nations founded by the Celestial Dragons, and the base of the Shichibukai Crocodile, where it would also be easy to develop gemin, Alabasta was not his target.

His true target was the next stop after the Alabasta Kingdom: Sky Island.

That place had an overwhelmingly powerful fighter who had yet to mature. More importantly, if Enel had not yet eaten the Lightning-Lightning Fruit, then that thing would be perfectly suited for Leo.

Just like the Wind-Wind Fruit of Dragon of the Revolutionary Army, it would allow him to appear anywhere in the world at any time, help the majority of its people, and establish bases the Marines could never find. Whether for self-preservation or combat, it would instantly raise him to a level second only to the very strongest people in the world.

And even if Enel had already eaten the fruit, there was no need to worry too much. The current Enel was someone Luffy could utterly crush. Even if he possessed Mantra and Observation Haki, he was probably only at the level of a minor tyrant in the first half of the Grand Line. There was simply no way he could fight the Empress, one of the strongest in the second tier.

Because the Empress possessed not only Armament Haki and Observation Haki, but Conqueror's Haki as well.

With only Observation Haki and Mantra, Enel was probably no match for the Empress.

If they really had to be compared, the current Enel could probably fight Crocodile to a draw. The Empress was still above both of them.

When would I finally become stronger? He lowered his head and gripped the railing. His freshly cut hair whipped wildly in the sea breeze. The waves had little effect on the massive ship, and he barely felt any rocking. The two Yuda strained beneath the sea, easily dragging the vessel along at thirty knots—roughly fifty-five kilometers per hour. In terms of actual sensation, it felt more like sixty kilometers per hour.

On flat ground, that speed would naturally feel effortless. But at sea, the waves constantly lifted the ship before slamming it back down, making it feel as though they were surfing, endlessly rising and falling.

At sixty kilometers per hour on the sea, with the headwind blasting against them and waves crashing from the front, the experience had an entirely different kind of thrill from boring travel on land.

If he had to put it into words, it was like a building racing across the ocean at sixty kilometers per hour...

Then one could probably understand how it felt.

And some things simply could not be understood without seeing them firsthand. The Kuja Pirates' floating palace resembled an ancient Chinese tower ship. But tower ships were not suited for naval warfare because their center of gravity was too high, making them easy to topple in strong sea winds.

But this was the Calm Belt. Building such a tall tower ship here posed no problem at all, and with the sea snakes assisting it, the vessel was truly both fast and stable.

Very soon, he saw why this place was completely uninhabited and why no one could leave alive. Less than twenty minutes after departing Nine Snake Island, a gigantic Sea King over two hundred meters long, shaped like a flying fish, shot into the air. It leaped from the surface as if it were flying, throwing up a massive spray. Like a rising dragon, it reached several hundred meters into the sky in an instant. The seawater it had carried up rained down with a crackle, striking Leo painfully.

But the next second, an even larger Sea King emerged from the water and bit it cleanly in two.

Blood and seawater rained down together, soaking Leo from head to toe.

PS: First update.

PS1:

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