Chapter 516: Enter the Golden Phoenix Borsalino
Many contestants now considered God Killer Equipment and Mythical Beast Fruits to be the most coveted treasures.
Sky-Bound Crystals, which could seal a Mythical beast to create a Jinchūriki, and Contract Stones, used to form pacts with Mythical beasts, were deemed less desirable.
The primary reason was that both sealing and contracting a Mythical beast required the strength to defeat it. To draw a Mythical beast's blood for a contract, one needed to injure it, which demanded significant power.
Those capable of defeating a Mythical beast often had little interest in becoming a Jinchūriki, as sealing a monster, even a Mythical beast, inside one's body was unappealing to most.
Similarly, contracted Mythical beasts were seen as external forces, lacking the allure of personal power. Stronger individuals dismissed them, while weaker ones lacked the ability to subdue them. Naturally, the weak desired these treasures but could rarely obtain them.
Elsewhere, a golden light streaked through the sky, closely pursued by another.
"Hey, hey, I've been chasing you for so long. Can't you pay a toll or something?" Borsalino said casually, his tone laced with complaint, "I'm losing motivation here!"
He had been trailing the Gold and Silver Monkey King across the sky, but catching it seemed increasingly difficult.
If this continued, he might end up with nothing.
Seeing Akainu's success had stirred Borsalino's envy, yet he pressed on, determined to catch the monkey.
Perhaps hearing his complaints, the golden light ahead slowed and landed on the canopy of a dense forest.
The Gold and Silver Monkey King materialized, its form solidifying.
It hadn't stopped solely because of Borsalino's words. A troublesome figure was approaching.
"Hahaha, for your hard work, I'll give you this Phoenix Fruit." the Monkey King said.
Whoosh!
A fiery red afterimage flashed through the air. Borsalino caught the thrown Phoenix Fruit, staring at it in disbelief. It felt surreal.
Had the monkey really handed it over just because he complained? Was this fruit a fake, or was it a trap?
Borsalino's mind raced with suspicion.
"Damn it, Kizaru! That's the fruit Pops won! Give it back!" Marco's voice thundered as he swooped in, wreathed in cyan flames.
He launched a fierce kick at Borsalino, who stood atop the forest canopy.
"Hey, hey, hey! That ferocious look is terrifying, Phoenix Marco." Borsalino said slowly, dodging the attack with ease.
He focused on the fruit in his hand. Real or fake, he decided he would eat it soon. But before he could act, a furious voice interrupted.
"You bastard! That's my fruit!" Kaki Tamago roared, leaping toward him with explosive flames erupting from his body. His murderous expression made Borsalino wonder if he'd desecrated the man's ancestral grave.
The real threat, however, was the overwhelming sense of danger washing over him.
Borsalino faced a dilemma: eat the Phoenix Fruit and risk the incoming attack, or dodge and potentially lose the fruit. The crisis was so intense that he feared evading would cost him the treasure.
He decided to take a gamble, trusting the monkey hadn't deceived him. If it had, he swore he'd haunt it even as a ghost.
Gulp!
Borsalino opened his mouth as wide as he could—wider than ever before in his life.
Under the bewildered gazes of those around him, he swallowed the cantaloupe-sized Phoenix Fruit in one bite.
Before he could register any changes in his body, an invisible breeze swept in from behind. A stream of cyan light flashed past.
Whoosh!
Countless slashes enveloped Borsalino, instantly reducing his limbs to pieces, leaving him as a human stump.
"Too late?" a voice asked as the wind coalesced into a figure on a nearby canopy. It was Fūki Aigolu.
Unlike before, Aigolu now wielded a different Scythe. Though still cyan, it was adorned with emerald patterns across its handle, marking it as the God-Destroying Wind Scythe—a God Killer Equipment crafted from the essence of the Mythical Beast Wind Weasel. To obtain it, Tamago had made a tremendous sacrifice.
Aigolu silently wondered if Tamago's sacrifice might backfire.
Whoosh!
Tamago arrived, glaring at Borsalino with a mix of sorrow and rage. "You bastard! How dare you!" he shouted. "Do you know how much I sacrificed for that fruit?"
Tamago vividly recalled the ordeal: being chewed, swallowed, and expelled from an indescribable part of the Wind Weasel. The memory of that humiliation burned in his mind.
"Uh… I don't quite understand what sacrifice you're talking about, but…" Borsalino's panicked expression calmed despite his mutilated state, "I feel fantastic!"
Blazing flames began to envelop his body, including his severed limbs. The scattered pieces merged, and fiery red flames radiated like the sun, dazzling everyone who looked at him.
From the magnificent blaze, a fiery red phoenix emerged, its form soon enveloped in golden light. The red flames transformed into a brilliant gold.
Thus, the Golden Phoenix Borsalino was born.
"Yasakani Sacred Jewel!"
Whoosh!
Countless light bullets, wreathed in golden flames, erupted from the Golden Phoenix, streaking toward Fūki Aigolu and Kaki Tamago.
"You bastard!" Tamago barely had time to protest before he was engulfed in a barrage of explosive golden flames.
On the other side, Aigolu deftly wielded his God-Destroying Wind Scythe, deflecting the light bullets aimed at him and redirecting them into the surrounding forest.
Rumble!
Rumble!
The forest shook with earth-shattering explosions. Aigolu remained calm, a stark contrast to Tamago, who was overwhelmed by the barrage of light bullets.
Though Tamago had entered his strongest Phoenix Duke form, Aigolu's mastery of the God-Destroying Wind Scythe gave him a significant edge.
Aigolu, a wind-attributed Mythical beast himself, already possessed combat power equivalent to a three-star gem-level hunter.
With the Wind Scythe, his strength reached the threshold of a demigod.
Whoosh!
As the golden flame bullets ceased, the forest fell silent, save for the lingering echoes of explosions.
"As expected, I can still use my Devil Fruit abilities in this form," Borsalino mused, reverting to his human form and touching his chin. "The Phoenix's flames enhance my light bullets significantly. Combining the speed of the Sparkling Fruit with the Phoenix's lethality… its flames are different from your cyan flames, aren't they, Phoenix Marco?"
He grinned teasingly at Marco, who hovered in the air, his blood pressure spiking. That was the Mythical Beast Fruit his pops had won, and now Admiral Kizaru had consumed it.
"You damn monkey! This is all your fault!" Marco roared, his gaze locking onto the Gold and Silver Monkey King, who was casually observing nearby.
If not for that monkey, none of this would have happened.
It was unforgivable!
(End of this Chapter)