Chapter 248: Another Personality
Axel's action immediately turned Marco's simple choice into a difficult one.
Previously, with Sugar in Axel's hands, Marco believed that as long as he stopped Axel, he would not have to worry about Doflamingo taking the opportunity to slip away.
Even after Doflamingo said those words earlier, Marco still did not suspect that this was Doflamingo's true nature.
Because Marco lived on a ship like the Whitebeard Pirates, where comrades were valued as family, it was difficult for him to understand Doflamingo's way of thinking.
He simply assumed Doflamingo had been forced into that position by Axel.
After all, Doflamingo had clearly been restricted because of Sugar earlier, so it was only natural to infer that this girl named Sugar was extremely important to him.
But now, things were different.
The moment Axel threw Sugar out, Marco locked onto both Doflamingo and the little girl.
He could not be certain whether Doflamingo would flee.
If Doflamingo chose to escape, then Jozu and the others below would not be able to stop him.
That meant Marco had to choose between Axel and Doflamingo.
Clearly, Marco chose Doflamingo.
His purpose in coming here was to uphold Pops Whitebeard's reputation and announce to the world that the Whitebeard Pirates did not care about some bullshit Seven Warlord.
Finding the mastermind was only secondary.
In a sense, Axel was merely an incidental bonus.
The dispensable kind.
Once everything else was settled, Marco could naturally come back to capture Axel.
Similarly, just as Marco wanted to capture Sugar to prevent Doflamingo from escaping, Doflamingo also wanted to rescue Sugar.
Although he had put on a show of being magnanimous just now, in truth, Doflamingo did not want to lose Sugar.
Sugar's significance to the Donquixote Family was far too great.
All the toy laborers in Dressrosa existed because of her.
They accounted for roughly half of the nation's workforce.
Losing Sugar meant losing those tireless workers who never complained, never stopped, and never needed rest.
Other parts of the family's operations would also fall into paralysis.
She alone supported almost the entire family's operation.
That was her strategic significance.
Her strategic position was like a power plant in Red Alert.
Since there was a chance to take her back, Doflamingo naturally would not give it up.
Almost at the same instant, Marco and Doflamingo both burst forward.
Their collision created sparks in the air.
If Axel were still in his normal state, he would have definitely joked about Spider-Man fighting Birdman.
But Axel, the one who had caused this fight, did not flee as they expected.
Instead, he charged violently downward.
This move caused both Doflamingo and Marco to pause for a moment, but they immediately withdrew their attention.
For Marco, Jozu was below.
Trusting his comrade, he had no need to worry too much.
For Doflamingo, Sugar's status was far more important than the other family members.
He had merely chosen his direction after weighing the benefits and losses.
At this moment, both of them had only one goal.
Crush the opponent before them.
Diving down from thousands of meters in the sky, Axel was like a meteorite, carrying fierce and majestic momentum as he fell straight down.
The friction from the high-speed descent generated immense heat, igniting the air around him and drawing a fiery red streak across the sky.
The people who had originally been fleeing in panic were attracted by that blazing scene and looked up one after another.
It was not a scene of hope.
The fiery red sphere had not come to rescue them.
It brought high temperature with it.
Even those who had already fled far away could feel the heat, and the houses directly beneath it began to burn under the intense temperature.
Yet it was also a scene of hope.
Because that fiery red sphere carried boundless heat and pierced straight through the giant that was destroying their home.
It all happened almost in an instant.
The people even forgot whether they should cheer or grieve.
The stone giant had no time to defend before it was pierced through.
"How could you...?"
Inside the rock, Pica looked at the scene before him in terror.
The thick stone armor around his body had been melted by the high temperature, turning into scalding red liquid that flowed through the narrow space.
A young boy stood coldly in the center of that molten liquid.
The high temperature caused him no harm.
Even the clothes on his body had not melted.
"How did I find you?"
Axel asked the question Pica wanted to ask but could not.
Pica, who possessed the Stone-Stone Fruit, was shocked precisely because of that.
His fruit ability allowed him to assimilate with stone, which was how he could control the castle and the ground.
However, assimilation did not mean elementalization.
In reality, he was only hiding his body inside the stone.
And yet, facing such a massive body, Axel had pierced directly into the critical location and found him.
This was not quite the same as finding a needle in a haystack, but it was not much different from finding a needle in a pond.
The other reason for Pica's shock and terror was that Axel's arm had already pierced through his heart.
At last, he felt what Diamante had felt.
He had once mocked that kind of powerlessness because he did not believe he could lose to a child while protected by the thick armor granted by his ability.
However...
There were no howevers.
Axel slowly withdrew his hand.
The blood on his arm receded.
Then he said coldly, "A person's body can be hidden, but the electrical waves of the body cannot."
The powerful vitality granted to Pica by the Stone-Stone Fruit prevented him from dying immediately after his heart was pierced.
Instead, he slowly asked, "You... clearly... could have... left... Why... do this...?"
"I wanted to vent all the trouble Doflamingo gave me."
Axel's expression darkened.
"That's all."
Then he finished Pica's life with a follow-up strike from his wooden blade.
If Axel were still in his normal state, he would surely be shocked by his own words and actions.
It was not justice.
It was not redemption.
It was merely venting.
These increasingly extreme words and actions were not like his original self at all.
It was like a beautiful, holy angel turning into an evil fallen angel simply because its white wings had been dyed black.
The transition was so fast that even he had not noticed it.
The castle, having lost Pica's control, could no longer maintain its current form and gradually began to collapse.
Axel quickly smashed through the layers of rock, heading toward the direction of the Tontatta Tribe's electrical signals.
He did not know why he wanted to save the Tontatta Tribe.
It was troublesome and brought no benefit.
But another thought in his subconscious was telling him that this feeling was not bad.
In an instant, he smashed through the rock layers blocking his way and reached the place where the Tontatta Tribe was imprisoned before the castle truly collapsed.
Feeling somewhat irritated, Axel did not explain anything to them.
He blocked out the screams of the Tontatta Tribe and roughly wrapped them all in a curtain he had picked up along the way, tying them tightly to himself.
This way, the effect of his ability could also be applied to the fabric of the curtain.
Any falling stones that struck it would have their force diverted away.
.....
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