Chapter 246: Unknown Emotions
"What a spectacular battle."
Doflamingo clapped slowly from the side, clearly enjoying the misfortune.
"That brat's ability can reflect any attack that lands on any part of his body. As for the exact limit of force it can withstand, I haven't tested that yet, so I can't say."
He grinned.
"Hmm, don't doubt it. I do mean any part. I've already tested it with my threads."
His gaze shifted toward Marco.
"I suspect that arm-raising gesture just now was also meant to test you. After seeing that posture, most people would assume he had gone on the defensive and was afraid of the attack."
"You probably held back some of your strength then, didn't you?"
"After all, without knowing how much that kid could take, you were worried about hitting him too hard."
Doflamingo's analysis made Axel's face darken.
Not because he was talking nonsense, but because he was too accurate.
It felt like secretly liking someone, only to discover the whole world already knew.
His arm-raising gesture just now seemed meaningless, but it had indeed been a test for Marco.
After all, Axel currently lacked enough information, and facing a powerful enemy like Marco, he did not dare be careless in the slightest.
The only scenes he remembered from the anime were Marco's clashes with the Admirals.
But those exchanges had basically been one-sided abuse.
How could a fight between an adult and a child be used to judge a fight between two children?
It was impossible to measure the depth that way.
That was why Axel had deliberately taken a defensive posture.
The goal was to make Marco subconsciously reduce the power of an unavoidable strike while Axel probed the strength behind the attack.
Marco considered Doflamingo's words with a serious expression.
They sounded true.
But it was hard to imagine a child hiding so many schemes in a single movement.
And there was another point.
"Why are you telling me this?"
No matter how Marco looked at it, he and Doflamingo could never stand on the same side.
If anything, they were enemies.
For Doflamingo to choose to help him in this situation meant there had to be some ulterior motive.
Doflamingo placed a hand over his forehead, his wide palm covering part of his face.
Then he began to laugh like a madman.
That laughter seemed to mock the entire world.
A world just as broken as that crazed laugh.
Standing in the sky, he was only a tiny, insignificant black dot.
Yet he dared to laugh at the countless dense black dots below.
It was the laughter of one man mocking the world.
"Although I would love to see Whitebeard's old face sag, before that, I want to see this brat crushed even more."
Doflamingo's grin widened.
"And crushed by his own designs, no less."
"There's no show more theatrical than that, is there?"
Marco was stunned.
For a moment, he did not know what to say to this obviously unstable man.
But his face quickly darkened.
"After I'm done with that kid, I'll kill you."
"Fufufu. If you can do it, then try."
Doflamingo showed not the slightest fear.
In Doflamingo's eyes, the strong deciding the lives and deaths of the weak was common sense.
He simply did not believe he was on the weaker side.
This was Dressrosa.
His home ground.
Unless Whitebeard came personally, he feared nothing else.
"Whether I can or not isn't for you to decide," Marco said.
"Then I shall truly look forward to it."
Marco no longer wasted breath on words.
He simply added Doflamingo to his must-kill list.
However, before that, he turned his gaze toward Axel, who had been quietly preparing to slip away.
"I don't really want to get serious against a child."
Marco's voice was calm.
"So I hope you'll cooperate."
Axel shrugged.
Misfortunes truly never came alone.
How on earth had he ended up being targeted by Marco?
He had originally planned to dump the hot potato known as Sugar onto the Whitebeard Pirates, then sit back and watch the tigers fight.
But reality had gone in the exact opposite direction.
Not only did he have to drag this burden along, but he was also being targeted by Marco.
In this world, Axel only occasionally acted cool and scrounged for gourmet food.
He had never done anything truly heinous.
Why did trouble never seem to decrease?
Although logic and common sense told Axel that he had brought this upon himself, he decisively denied it.
A qualified man must first learn to deny his own mistakes.
"How about we negotiate?"
Axel lifted Sugar slightly on his shoulder.
"I'll give this little girl... no, I'll give Sugar to you. As for everything else, we can talk later."
He looked around with a troubled expression.
"It's windy up here. I'm scared."
"It's windy... and you're scared?"
Doflamingo could not help but interject.
Hearing those words from someone who had flown into the sky himself was about as shocking as hearing a butcher say he was a vegetarian.
"The world is vast," Axel said seriously, "and it wasn't easy for me to develop a fear of heights. So please allow me to take my leave."
After saying that, Axel moved the wind wings on his back, preparing to flee into the distance.
But Marco immediately blocked his path.
"Want to leave? No way."
Marco looked at him.
"If you're afraid of heights, then go down."
Below, Jozu was waiting.
If Axel went down, Marco would have even less reason to worry about him escaping.
"I'll say it again," Marco continued. "Come with me to see Pops."
"If Pops lets you go, I'll definitely send you back to where you came from."
Axel stopped playing the fool.
His expression returned to normal.
The humorous look vanished from his face, replaced by cold indifference.
His blood-red eyes revealed their true magic at this moment.
To Marco and Doflamingo, it felt as though the entire world was sinking into dark red.
Marco suddenly felt as if he had fallen into a pool of blood.
A faint sense of suffocation pressed against him.
At first, he instinctively thought this was Conqueror's Haki.
But he quickly dismissed that idea.
This feeling was different from Conqueror's Haki.
He had felt Conqueror's Haki from Pops.
It was a domineering presence that allowed no opposition.
A stubborn, overbearing will.
What he felt now was something else.
Indifference.
As if the boy had no interest in this world at all.
A weariness toward everything.
The two were completely different.
Marco could only classify it as unknown, and his guard rose slightly.
In contrast, Doflamingo laughed again.
But this laugh was different from his usual laughter.
Usually, Doflamingo laughed no matter the situation, but that was not a true smile.
It was only his mockery of this boring world.
This time, however, he laughed from the bottom of his heart.
He laughed happily, as if he had finally found a kindred spirit.
"I told you, didn't I?"
Doflamingo's voice carried genuine delight.
"You're the same type of person as me."
Doflamingo understood this feeling.
How was this weariness toward the world any different from his own?
He was always thinking of overturning this world.
Overturning the world ruled by fools.
That was why he managed the Donquixote Family.
That was why he engaged in underground trade.
To make this decaying ruling class rot faster.
To let this stupid world perish as soon as possible.
This thought, which others would see as foolish or naive, had finally found another person who shared it.
.....
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