Caesar Clown was dead.
Faced with an enraged Big Mom, he, who had played a considerable role in the original story, failed to make his escape as he had in the manga. His Logia Gas-Gas Fruit proved utterly useless, too. Already scared out of his wits, he did not even put up any meaningful resistance before Big Mom pulled out his soul, and just like that, he "died of old age."
Xie Wen silently rubbed Klee Meow's little head, then scratched Ai Haibara Meow under the chin, praising the two little cats who had just worked together to bring all this about.
Although this had cost him a chance to "draw a card," Xie Wen did not feel the slightest regret.
As the saying went, the longer things dragged on, the more could go wrong.
Especially with someone like Caesar, who carried weight in the plot. Who knew when he might suddenly activate some sort of "supporting character halo"?
Like Cavendish, whom Aokiji had rescued earlier, and... those future members of the Blackbeard Pirates.
During his voyage, Xie Wen had actually made a point of searching for their whereabouts, but either he could not find any information, or various circumstances happened to make him miss running into them.
Of course, Xie Wen had never tried pursuing them at all costs, so it might simply have been coincidence. After all, it was not as though he had never killed important supporting characters from the original story.
But in any case, being able to get rid of scum like Caesar as soon as possible made losing one Devil Fruit draw no big deal to Xie Wen, even if it was a Logia that could give him a whole Summon Ticket outright.
Besides, whether he could even get it in a draw was