Chapter 157: On How Big the Darkest Blame Can Be and How Dark the Biggest Blame Is (Part Two)

The entourage of the Celestial Dragon could easily be described as massive; when she went out for a stroll alone, her retinue numbered well into the hundreds.

She was seated atop the back of a robustly built man who was, of course, crawling on all fours.

The other end of the leash she held in her hand was looped around the neck of a young woman. Judging by her features, the latter was far prettier than the former, which was perhaps the very reason she had been enslaved.

The Celestial Dragon walked at a leisurely, quiet pace down the street, causing the entire block and everything within it to grind to a total halt and paralysis. Every single passerby was prostrated on the ground, not daring to move even slightly.

They did not even possess the qualification to raise their heads and gaze directly at a Celestial Dragon; merely being able to hear the sound of the Celestial Dragon's footsteps passing by was already an immense, supreme grace.

The Celestial Dragon yawned. This was yet another boring outing. She was practically getting tired of the Sabaody Archipelago, and she was beginning to ponder whether her next step should be a round-the-world voyage. At her age, she had never yet ventured beyond the confines of the Sabaody Archipelago circle.

What were the Four Blues like? She was deeply curious.

Everything remained as it always was, until three people stood before her... three people who were actually standing.

The entire procession came to an instant halt.

She patted the head of the man beside her, and he immediately handed her a flintlock pistol.

"Kneel," she commanded.

Qiubai had no desire to observe this person's expression, but what made her more "advanced" than the average Celestial Dragon was that she didn't open fire without saying a single word. The reason he called it advanced rather than restrained was because the gaze she cast over felt as though she had simply stumbled upon a new toy.

"Within my body, there is an organ more important than my heart. Although I cannot see it, it truly exists, because I can feel it at every waking moment. Because of it, I can stand tall; even when my steps falter, I can walk straight ahead. That is my backbone. And compared to my heart stopping its beat, I value it far more..." a certain pure-hearted swordsman had once said. "Little girl, you really are in need of re-education."

There were times when Qiubai's brain simply couldn't keep up... he actually attempted to converse with a Celestial Dragon.

What answered him was the fire bursting from the slender gun barrel, a flame reeking of gunpowder, and a scorching hot projectile.

"Clang!"

Yet the bullet was deflected by something right before Qiubai's eyes.

The Celestial Dragon narrowed her eyes. Then she raised her hand, prompting her guards to raise their weapons in unison and open fire.

Like a storm lashing against banana leaves, a dense metal tempest assaulted their direction, yet... it failed to inflict even the slightest bit of damage.

The Celestial Dragon's "guards" were merely ceremonial and nanny-like in nature. To actually expect them to fight? Heh.

"So, is it impossible to even speak here?" Qiubai tilted his head with considerable helplessness. "Law, leave it to you."

Law slapped his own forehead with one hand to express a sentiment of "if we're going to go crazy, let's go crazy together," and then thrust that same arm outward:

"ROOM!"

"Shambles!"

In the exact spot where the Celestial Dragon had previously stood, a small pebble now rested in her place, while the Celestial Dragon herself appeared right beside Qiubai.

What had happened?

The Celestial Dragon had no idea, but upon seeing the enemy at such close range, her first reaction was to raise her gun and aim it straight at Qiubai's head.

What did she have to be afraid of? She was a Celestial Dragon!

"Bang!"

Yet the moment the muzzle spat flame, the figure in front of her had already vanished. Immediately after, someone twisted her arm from behind...

Ouch!

This wasn't even a matter of her daddy never having laid a hand on her since she was born; merely having her arm twisted like this was the single greatest pain she had ever experienced in her entire life.

The chaotic gunfire slowly died down, and as the smoke and dust cleared, the scene before them... was utter chaos. The Celestial Dragon's underlings fell into complete and total disarray.

The female "pet" quickly discovered that the chains and restraints on her body had been entirely undone, and she immediately began fleeing toward the crowd—while Law was teleporting the Celestial Dragon, he had casually freed the two slaves as well.

Meanwhile, the male "mount" charged toward Qiubai like a madman... not toward the Celestial Dragon, but toward Qiubai, carrying a rather heavy implication of "loyalty protecting the master."

However, the moment he rushed in front of Qiubai, with a top-down wave of Qiubai's hand, a massive broadsword as wide as a door pierced vertically downward, impaling the man through the shoulder and pinning him firmly to the ground.

"A bit pathetic... or just foolish?"

One does not save those who refuse to save themselves; that was a perfectly normal principle. The shackles of the mind weighing heavier than the physical body was perhaps the natural result of prolonged enslavement, but since the fellow seemed rather accustomed to his current life, Qiubai would simply send him back.

Though it was all too easy to guess what kind of consequences this group of attendants would face precisely because the Celestial Dragon had been snatched away right before their eyes.

Twisting the Celestial Dragon's arm with one hand, tossing Cavendish's sword to Law with the other, and then draping his remaining arm over the Celestial Dragon's shoulder like a petty hoodlum... Qiubai flashed the most radiant smile imaginable toward everyone present.

Right after that, a blinding, violent blizzard that rendered vision impossible instantly ambushed this tiny street.

Once everything subsided, where was there even a shadow of the Celestial Dragon left?

Panic quickly spread—spreading on a global scale.

The three of them, together with their captive, used the blizzard as cover and rapidly made their way to the port, leaping aboard some pirate ship or another—whose original owners had already been shrunk down to the size of miniatures and tossed onto the shore.

And just as everyone gathered on deck, the ship began to sink straight down toward the ocean floor, timed with absolute, split-second precision.

This proved that when one's strength was insufficient, Celestial Dragons were simply far too arrogant. Swooping in, grabbing one, and running away was only natural—it was as simple as that.

Marine Headquarters Admirals, the World Government's highest fighting force—it sounded genuinely terrifying, but at its core, this was merely a reactive mechanism after the fact, and sometimes it was utterly useless.

Could an abortion clinic prevent you from getting pregnant the moment you took a burst of gunfire?

No.

So could a Celestial Dragon constantly keep an Admiral by their side? You must be joking; there was only a single Admiral in active service right now.

Yet this was, after all, right under the noses of the Marines, and what Qiubai had just done went far beyond simply poking a hornet's nest.

"Oh, Cavendish, you're back?" At this moment, Qiubai actually had the leisure to care about Cavendish, who hadn't even been gone for four thousand characters of the narrative.

"Give me back my sword! And besides... I want off this ship!" Cavendish was naturally furious at Qiubai's feigned innocence. Did he have zero self-awareness about what he had just pulled?

At the same time, he caught sight of the special individual whom Qiubai was twisting by the arm... These idiots had actually gone ahead and done it! This ship had now effectively become a powder keg—and moreover, a powder keg with a burning fuse that was bound to blow up.

"That being said, I still prefer Hakuba somewhat." Qiubai shrugged helplessly.

Law made no attempt to stop Cavendish from snatching back his weapon, and the sword quickly returned to its owner's grip. At this distance, setting sail immediately posed no problem; Cavendish wasn't a Devil Fruit user.

Just as Cavendish was preparing to leave, however, Law suddenly spoke up: "Cavendish, you need to think this through. This noble young lady has already seen your face, and I can guarantee you, she saw it crystal clear."

Cavendish's movements... came to an abrupt halt.

He turned his neck with some difficulty toward the direction of the Celestial Dragon. The result was self-evident: on this entire ship, he had been the one jumping around the most joyfully, so naturally, the Celestial Dragon's eyes were locked onto him.

So... once tied up with Qiubai, was there any running away left to do?

Cavendish couldn't run anyway; he was completely, thoroughly screwed.

As for Qiubai, he suddenly found that Law and Cavendish actually made a rather good match. Should they... be shipped together as a couple?