Facing a Marine Admiral, You Have to Bring Out Your Dominance!

"I never expected a Marine Admiral to come deal with me personally. Looks like the World Government thinks pretty highly of me, sending out its most vicious dog."

Brando replied with a smile.

This generation's Marine Admirals were all powerhouses with both absurd abilities and overwhelming stats.

Faced with a monster like that, Brando had no confidence in winning.

Still, Brando was glad that it was not Borsalino, that pure ability-based monster. Kuzan's Ice-Ice Fruit was not quite as hopeless; it was still possible to fight against. The troublesome part was an Admiral's physical stats combined with two types of Haki.

"Sorry about this, kid."

"I'm not interested in this assignment either, and I'm supposed to be on vacation. But a working man has no choice."

Kuzan looked as though none of this had anything to do with him, as if he had been forced into it. Brando's trash talk did not provoke him.

However, the way he removed the sleep mask from his head and slipped it into his pocket did not look like he was planning to go easy on Brando. He was preparing to make a move.

Yet, seeing him like that, Brando felt a surge of dominance rise from within his body for some reason.

Fearing the strong was not his Will of the Overlord.

"So when the Buster Call was carried out on Ohara, did you follow orders and kill ordinary people who had no power to resist?"

Brando immediately rubbed salt into Kuzan's wounds. Although it was not Kuzan's fault, he had been involved.

Sure enough, after hearing Brando's words, Kuzan's lazy eyes changed instantly, and a trace of cold air even leaked uncontrollably from his body.

For a powerhouse, that was a sign that his power had slipped slightly out of control. At his level, there was no way he normally could not control his own strength.

"Looks like you know quite a lot."

Kuzan could no longer keep his tone calm. He was clearly angry.

"Yeah, I know a lot. Don't underestimate my intelligence."

Brando nodded as well, acknowledging his status as an intelligence king.

At the same time, pale red chakra emerged around him and wrapped around his body. Brando was borrowing Shukaku's chakra to recover from his previous expenditure.

When facing a Marine Admiral, naturally he had to stack every available buff to the limit.

"A single Shichibukai shouldn't warrant the World Government sending a Marine Admiral after me. After all, the Shichibukai are also meant to keep the Marines in check."

"So it has to be the Celestial Dragons, the 'gods' of this world."

"And you Marines are merely those 'gods'' watchdogs, working yourselves to death for them. You talk about peace on the surface, but you're really just a pack of war criminals, destroying countries that cannot pay the Heavenly Tribute."

"I get the feeling the pirates on these seas are deliberately being kept alive by the Marines, all to force those member nations to pay the Heavenly Tribute. If they refuse to pay, you let pirates plunder their countries. The Marines are the ones who drove those pirates there, aren't they?"

The more Brando spoke, the more excited he became.

Provoking the nerves of a true powerhouse like this was simply too thrilling.

Kuzan's expression grew uglier and uglier under Brando's barrage.

He clearly knew about such things too, but he had no way to change them. That was why his justice had shifted from burning justice to the lazy justice of his later years.

Compared to Borsalino, Kuzan was the one who truly seemed like a clock-punching employee.

"The Marines have done everything in their power to protect civilians!"

Kuzan did not attack immediately. Instead, he spoke up to refute him.

He understood these matters too, but the Marines were not as Brando described them. At the very least, he was not.

"Really?"

"Then who matters more, civilians or Celestial Dragons?"

"One civilian might not compare to a Celestial Dragon, but what about a thousand? Ten thousand? Could one hundred thousand civilians compare to a single Celestial Dragon?"

Brando continued questioning him.

He had already entered his strongest normal state and could attack at any moment. But before fighting, he needed to break this Marine's resolve a little.

Though breaking his resolve might make his anger surge and send him into a berserk state during the fight, that was exactly what Brando wanted to see.

Kuzan did not answer, but his expression looked quite grim.

"Crocodile has been plotting to take over all of Alabasta. Recently, he has been stockpiling Dance Powder, planning to use it to plunge Alabasta into drought and pin the blame on the King of Alabasta."

"One of the okama in that group just now ate the Copy-Copy Fruit. When the time comes, he'll impersonate Cobra and leave behind video evidence of him using Dance Powder, making the people of the Alabasta Kingdom believe it."

"At least hundreds of thousands would die or be injured because of this. But since I took down Crocodile, those people no longer have to die. Does that count as saving them?"

Brando began resorting to moral coercion.

He had not come to save those civilians in the first place. He had simply been targeting Crocodile.

But that did not stop him from using it as material for moral coercion. After all, he really had saved those people.

"Who knows whether what you're saying is true or false?"

Although Kuzan said that, he already believed it somewhat.

After all, how could a pirate possibly become a hero and work so hard for a country?

But he did not believe Brando was a good person either.

"If you don't believe me, forget it."

"Then if a Celestial Dragon ordered you to kill one hundred thousand civilians, would you obey the order or refuse it?"

Brando continued provoking Kuzan.

"Celestial Dragons wouldn't do something like that."

Although he said so, Kuzan had no confidence at all.

"Save this nonsense for Impel Down, where you can talk about it slowly."

At the same time, Kuzan prepared to make his move. Continuing to argue with someone like this would not give him any answers.

The sand beneath his feet froze from the leaking cold air, which gradually spread outward.

"Looks like you really are a fine dog of the Celestial Dragons. Then let me tell you a secret."

"Besides plotting to seize this country, Crocodile had another goal: obtaining Pluton, one of the three Ancient Weapons. Only the Nefertari Family, Alabasta's royal family, knows the location of the Poneglyph recording where Pluton is located."

"So, will you keep being the Celestial Dragons' dog and tell them about the thing they care about most, or will you conceal it to avoid a war, Marine Admiral?"

Brando directly revealed the matter of Pluton.

He was not interested in that thing anyway, so he had no problem using it to make an issue of it. In his eyes, most people in this world were NPCs; he did not possess that kind of righteous heart.

"You!"

Kuzan clenched his fists.

Clearly, the Poneglyphs had reminded him of what happened in Ohara.

Back then, in order to prevent the ability to decipher Poneglyphs from spreading, the World Government had directly used a Buster Call to destroy an island, killing vast numbers of civilians and scholars.

To conceal that hundred years of history and the Ancient Weapons, the World Government would stop at nothing.

If this were truly exposed, Alabasta would have no way to avoid war.

"It seems you truly are a despicable and vile person, Red Eye."

Kuzan stared seriously at Brando.

This blond brat was truly vile, like he had no bottom line whatsoever.

Perhaps only someone like that could attack Celestial Dragons without a single reservation.

"Ice Age!"

At the same time, Kuzan directly altered the terrain. The desert within a radius of several kilometers around him froze solid, transforming into a world of ice and snow.