"You say that as if you can't do it too!" Charlotte Linlin couldn't help but retort.
Their battle had shifted from the initial sharp confrontation to something akin to mutual sparring.
Zephyr knew it would be difficult to capture her today, and Charlotte Linlin only wanted to stall the Marines. Neither had a reason to fight to the death, so they tacitly turned the battle into a way to validate their respective techniques.
Charlotte Linlin's Armament Haki had improved significantly, and each of her slashes was sharper.
Zephyr, whose Armament Haki was already stronger than Linlin's, utilized various combinations of the four techniques—hardening, wrapping, emission, and internal destruction—making him superior in the application of Armament Haki.
If not for Charlotte Linlin's special weapons, she would have had to find three new blades after this battle.
After all, the Armament Haki she wrapped around her weapons had been shattered by Zephyr's Haki many times, leaving her unprotected weapons to take the brunt of his powerful attacks.
Had the weapons themselves not been extraordinary, they would have long since shattered under such impact.
Zephyr raised his fist again, wrapped in black Haki.
"Charlotte Linlin, why did you become a pirate? There is no ambition in your Haki!"
Why are most powerhouses in the pirate world so bellicose? It's because in this world, where heart and will are manifested through Haki, those who clash using Haki can feel the will contained within each other's Haki and understand what kind of person their opponent is.
"You'll have to ask your own Marines for that!" Charlotte Linlin swung her nine-meter-long blade, and a gale emerged, holding Zephyr's fist at bay several meters away.
"What does this have to do with the Marines?"
Zephyr threw another punch, which was steadily blocked by Charlotte Linlin's other tachi.
"If it weren't for you Marines, those escapees wouldn't have become Slaves. And for those who became Slaves, there is no path left but resistance or death.
Once they resist, they are given bounties and wanted posters by you Marines. Because of the Marines' existence, the World Government only gives them this one way out! If they don't go to sea to become pirates, what else can they do?"
A purple light flashed in Charlotte Linlin's eyes as she twisted her body, her long, slender leg kicking directly toward Zephyr's face.
Zephyr, mid-air, was not to be outdone, meeting the attack with his right leg wrapped in Armament Haki.
Bang!
The two collided, and Zephyr, with no point of leverage, was kicked into a wall somewhere in the Colosseum.
Rumble!
With Zephyr's impact, like a falling row of dominoes, the historic Colosseum of Dressrosa completely collapsed amidst a deafening roar.
"Cough, cough, cough!"
As the dust settled, Zephyr walked out, limping.
He looked resentfully at the high heels on Charlotte Linlin's feet. When they had kicked each other just now, the Armament Haki attached to her heel had concentrated its force on a single point, successfully breaking through the Armament Haki defense on Zephyr's sole.
Now, a clear lightning element heel print was stamped onto Zephyr's heel.
Using Life Repair to heal the injury on his leg, the battle-crazed Zephyr finally stopped his attacks and stared at Charlotte Linlin, saying:
"That is mere sophistry! The Marine is an indispensable force for maintaining the seas!"
"Yes, it is indeed sophistry," Charlotte Linlin said frankly as she retracted her twin blades, her Dragon Wings appearing behind her.
"But it does make a lot of sense, doesn't it?"
After all, she wasn't the one looking for the answers to these questions, nor did she care about them.
Besides, they were enemies now; she would say whatever it took to break the opponent's composure. If she could make him start reflecting, her goal was achieved.
Her will was already clear—to put it in the old words of her past life, it was "to see an injustice on the road and draw one's sword to help"; to put it in current terms, it was to "fight for all that is beautiful"!
She was a transmigrator. In a world that already had a Deliverer, why should she do something so redundant?
After all, unless the consciousness of everyone in the world awakened, the person who would overthrow the World Government decades from now would surely be Joy Boy, regardless of who that person was or what abilities they used.
Just as in future history, the great hero of Wano Country is Momonosuke. The people who held out for eight hundred years would also definitely call the hero who saved them—Joy Boy.
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