Chapter 157: Gaea and the Approaching Golden Lion
Dressrosa - King's Plateau.
Louis folded his wings and landed, then walked step by step toward the dilapidated and crumbling royal palace. As he walked, a golden holy light emanated from his body, landing on the ground beneath his feet and infusing the towering rock and earth with life force.
The Fantasy Species - Gaea was thus born.
With a slight tremor, an unignorable life signature flickered, announcing its existence.
Inside the royal palace, Yelena and Uta, who was sitting on an ice slide, both lowered their eyes to look at the ground beneath them, a look of understanding in their eyes.
Behind them, Kuina looked at their strange behavior and subconsciously asked, "What's wrong?"
"It's nothing. Louis just created another Fantasy Species. This time, it should be the power of the earth," Uta turned and explained concisely.
After hearing her explanation, Kuina nodded slowly, indicating she understood.
Then, Uta turned her head again, just in time to meet Baby-5's eyes, instantly scaring her so much that her face turned pale and her eyes filled with tears as she backed away repeatedly. It seemed that Uta had become another psychological trauma for Baby-5, besides being abandoned.
Seeing this, a look of disbelief flashed in Kuina's eyes. "Uta," she said, with a complete lack of personal boundaries, "it looks like she has a very deep impression of you!"
Uta: "..." Uta was speechless. With a huff, she turned her head away.
To this, Yelena, who was walking at the very front, shook her head helplessly. Then, she walked slowly with her war hammer, smashing the ruins that blocked their path. She used her ice to reconnect the broken road, allowing the ice slide carrying the Donquixote Family's collection to pass smoothly as she quickly headed for another warehouse.
At the same time, Louis stood at the edge of the King's Plateau, controlling the Thor construct that was high up in the clouds, picking off the various spies and pirates who were trying to escape from the underground port with stolen ships one by one. Although Louis looked down on the things placed in the underground port, they had now become part of his spoils of war and naturally could not be given away so easily. Louis could sink them into the sea or distribute them to his future subordinates, but he would absolutely not allow outsiders to steal them.
Soon, the group that had gone to collect the spoils under Baby-5's guidance walked out of the royal palace, pulling a train of connected ice slides, and came directly before Louis.
"We've already looted all the treasure spots that Baby-5 knew of and have moved all the treasure here," Yelena said as she stepped forward.
Louis glanced at the ice slides, which were mostly filled with gold and jewelry. As I thought, robbing our peers is the fastest way to get money, he thought to himself.
"Good work. Besides these treasures, is there anything particularly valuable?" Louis asked with great interest. He remembered that Doflamingo was very resourceful and had gotten his hands on many powerful Devil Fruits multiple times. He had even almost obtained the Op-Op Fruit and the Gold-Gold Fruit, which was enough to prove his incredible means.
"Didn't find any," Yelena shook her head slightly. "Perhaps because of Baby-5's own personality, Doflamingo didn't tell her where the treasury for the most important things was located."
Although they hadn't been in contact for long, the group had already completely figured out Baby-5. She was exactly as Violet had described, with an extreme people-pleasing personality. If she wasn't watched closely, it would be a light matter for her to be deceived ten or eight times with just a moment of inattention. She could even do things like point a gun at her own head without a second thought if someone casually said "go die." If she wasn't watched, she could be coaxed into suicide in the blink of an eye.
In this situation, even Doflamingo, who treated his subordinates as family, would not dare to easily tell Baby-5 the location of his most important treasury.
To this, Louis didn't care too much. If Doflamingo had placed those things in Dressrosa, as long as Louis spent a little time, he would find them eventually. However, the most important matter at hand was a place for everyone to live.
After confirming with his Observation Haki that there were no more life signatures inside the royal palace, with a thought, Louis controlled the Fantasy Species, Gaea, to fully activate.
Except for the small piece of land under everyone's feet, all the rock and soil of the King's Plateau began to tremble violently, and rolling clouds of dust rose everywhere. In the sky-blotting dust, an irregular figure as high as a mountain range slowly materialized on the King's Plateau, controlling the rock and soil to rapidly compress and form, constructing all the architectural structures that Louis wanted.
Then, Louis multi-tasked, quickly erecting the prototype of a super-large Gothic building.
Not far away, the group who had witnessed this was speechless. Yelena and Uta were completely numb to it. As for Kuina, her eyes were filled with shock. Although it had been a while since she had joined, seeing the use of Louis's ability again still left her utterly shocked. On the other side, Baby-5 now looked as if she had been scared stiff.
In the direction of the town of Dressrosa, the crowd of pirate grunts gathered by the giants were now dumbfounded, feeling that their own cognition had suffered a violent blow.
After a moment, Hajrudin, who had already developed some immunity to Louis's ability, was the first to recover. He quietly watched everyone's reaction. Not long after, Road's excited voice was heard, "See that?! This is just one of our captain's insignificant abilities! Be proud! Be proud to have such a captain!"
The group of grunts heard him, were dazed for a moment, and then let out a clamor of exclamations.
"WOAH!!"
"THE ARCHANGEL!!"
At this moment, the Heavenly Yaksha they had served not long ago had been cast to the back of their minds. The more powerful Archangel had become their new master. For these low-level pirates of the New World, following a stronger captain and operating under them was their way of survival. Having been beaten up by pirates with powerful backings, they knew that without a backing, it was impossible to move an inch on the sea, and they would always be in danger of being wiped out. Of course, they were not very loyal to the person they served. If an even stronger person defeated the Archangel and wanted them to join, they would not refuse, but would quickly sever ties with the Archangel and throw themselves under a new master.
In the distant streets, the clamor of the pirates forced the citizens to come back to their senses. The citizens looked with contempt at the pirate grunts.
"Do they have no sense of shame?"
"Since when do pirates have that kind of thing?!"
"I guess that's true."
In a corner not far away, King Riku and his two companions looked in the direction of the King's Plateau, at the prototype of the building that was faintly visible in the sky-blotting dust, and sighed in their hearts.
"The long-standing home of the Riku family... has come to an end today," King Riku sighed slightly.
Beside him, Violet looked at the scene that was challenging human cognition and muttered to herself, "No wonder he refused to repair the royal palace on the King's Plateau—"
On the King's Plateau, Louis stood on a raised rock, operating the Fantasy Species Anemoi to kick up a fierce wind, blowing away the dust that was surging toward them. His eyes, combined with his Observation Haki, sensed the building that was being constructed, and he operated Gaea to work quickly.
The still-not-completely-forgotten memories of manual labor, combined with the high-precision operational ability of this life, made his action of building a base go very smoothly. He quickly created a super-large Gothic building, excluding, of course, the fine interior decorations.
"..."
A dozen or so minutes later, after Louis had controlled Gaea to create a wide passage from the base to the ground that could accommodate a giant, he stopped his work. Then, the Anemoi hovering beside him once again kicked up a fierce hurricane, sweeping the dust that had covered the entire King's Plateau to the horizon.
As the sky-blotting dust was carried away by the hurricane, the new Gothic building on the King's Plateau was also revealed to everyone. A massive, seamlessly constructed building stood majestically, its towering spires piercing the sky, its flying buttresses supporting the magnificent stone walls like a skeleton. Although the whole was lacking in detailed carvings, it still showed a majestic and grand aura, as if it were a holy fortress suspended between heaven and earth.
Louis looked up, took in the majestic building, and nodded with satisfaction. "The overall structure of the base is complete. The next step is to hire people to perfect its interior decoration and the detailed carvings on the exterior."
Then, Louis's gaze fell on the distant sea, a profound light in his eyes. "Golden Lion - Shiki... I hope you will offer me satisfactory terms—"
Meanwhile, Marine Headquarters - Marineford.
CREAK. With the sound of a door being pushed open, Sengoku, wearing a seagull military cap and a neat uniform, walked out of the Fleet Admiral's office with a headache, heading straight for the high-level conference room. At this moment, Sengoku was holding a stack of intelligence reports that were still warm from the printer, an unshakable gloom in his eyes.
As he walked, the one after another Marines who were walking quickly in the corridor instantly stopped, saluting him one after another. Seeing this, Sengoku suppressed the gloom in his eyes as much as possible and nodded back at the group of officers.
"Fleet Admiral, we have major intelligence from the CP department!" Suddenly, a shout came from behind him, making him stop and turn his head.
"Major intelligence?" A bad feeling flashed in Sengoku's mind. At a time like this, something that could be called "major intelligence" would surely be something that endangered the situation on the seas.
A Rear Admiral in a Justice cape and a suit was running quickly, stopping before Sengoku, panting. He handed a crumpled intelligence report to him.
Sengoku quickly took the report, frowned, and opened it. However, the first line of words that met his eyes made his vision go dark, and he felt unwell.
It read: "A floating island has crossed the Red Line and entered the New World!"
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