The instant Sugar lost consciousness, the toys of Dressrosa suddenly regained their human forms, and memories buried for years flooded every citizen's mind.
Aboard Lucifer's Glory, Kyros, captain of the Riku Royal Family's guards, completed his transformation. Rebecca, standing beside him, suddenly remembered her father as well.
"Father... Father... You were here all along..."
The pink-haired girl stared blankly at her trembling hands as fragments of memory spun like a kaleidoscope-her grandfather wearing a crown, her gentle mother, and the Toy Soldier who had always stayed by her side, protecting her.
"I'm sorry, Rebecca..."
Kyros and Rebecca embraced and wept, while similar scenes unfolded throughout Dressrosa.
At that moment, every resident of the kingdom was experiencing an avalanche of memories.
With their memories restored, the people finally saw through Doflamingo's conspiracy. The arena fighters joined the kingdom's soldiers who had regained their memories, the slaves in the underground factory raised their pickaxes, and a wave of resistance suddenly swept across the entire country.
With Sugar's capture complete, Sephiroth charged up from the underground factory. His golden armor and radiant wings drew the eyes of the panicked crowds near the arena to the Great Angel.
"-!?"
-Something's strange. Has my Mantra grown stronger again?
Sephiroth's Emotion Absorption ability essentially worked by deciphering other people's brain waves. But human brain waves were extremely weak, and he could usually only receive them at close range.
Even when he actively used Mantra to probe and "intercept" them, there were considerable limitations.
The expedition to Dressrosa was Sephiroth's first large-scale military operation. Counting the pirate crews under the Donquixote banner, a conservative estimate put the combined forces fighting on both sides at over fifty thousand.
Moreover, although Dressrosa was not a large country, it still had several hundred thousand inhabitants. This was his first time