Chapter 163: Finding the Mink Tribe
King's Plateau, in the clean and tidy plaza.
The group, spurred on by Katakuri's words, began to train. They hoped to quickly become stronger and, as much as possible, not hold the others back.
Louis fully approved of their thoughts and also gave them a certain degree of support. He controlled Gaea to cover each training person with a layer of compressed, high-density rock, adding a weight-training program to their regimen.
A moment later, Louis fell into thought. He was considering how to get to Zou. Now that talks with the Charlotte Family had broken down, if he wanted to get a Vivre Card from the Minks there, the only way was to send someone into their country to snatch or steal one. If he didn't use that method, then he would have to search the seas for other Minks who might be carrying a Vivre Card. But the Mink tribe was small, and even fewer were active on the seas. The probability of encountering one was extremely low.
Suddenly, a special idea flashed in Louis's mind. "Perhaps I can start with the slaves?"
It might sound cruel, but on the high seas, apart from the homelands of the rare races and Totto Land, the places with the most rare races were either Mary Geoise or the bases of slave traders. After all, rare races could be sold for a higher price, which naturally attracted the attention of slavers. Often, even the slightest bit of news about a special race would attract a large number of human traffickers.
Therefore, Louis felt he could start from this angle.
Thinking of this, Louis turned his head to look at Daz Bonez, who was guiding Baby-5 in her special training. "Daz, use the intelligence network you've developed to find out if there are any human trafficker bases near Dressrosa."
Daz Bonez heard him and, although he didn't understand what Louis was thinking, immediately took out his Den Den Mushi and dialed his contact in the underworld. After the call was connected, Daz Bonez relayed what Louis wanted to know.
Soon, Louis received an unexpected answer. "There are, and more than one."
"..."
The contact Daz Bonez usually used was one of the few who knew he served Archangel Louis. Therefore, after realizing Louis was on the other end of the line, the contact explained in a respectful but not fawning tone.
"The former master of Dressrosa, Doflamingo, besides being a Warlord of the Sea, was also a very famous broker in the underworld, known as 'Joker.' He also controlled a considerable share of the human trafficking market. Many of the human traffickers near Dressrosa have his shadow behind them. Not only that, but he even has a slave auction house on the Sabaody Archipelago."
Then, the contact respectfully told Louis the locations of those several slave trader bases.
After getting these addresses, Louis turned to look at Road, who was being beaten up by Hajrudin, and relayed the names of the islands. "Road, from the batch of Log Poses we confiscated from the Donquixote Family, find the Eternal Poses for these islands."
The sudden call made the highly tense Road take several punches from Hajrudin and fall down in a dizzy spell. His bruised and swollen face landed right in front of Louis. Then, he struggled to his feet and replied in a muffled voice, "N-no problem!" In an instant, he turned and ran off, disappearing from their sight.
Louis saw this and looked again at the Den Den Mushi in Daz Bonez's hand, posing another question. "Recently, is there any news of Mink slaves being auctioned nearby?"
"Please wait a moment, my lord."
After leaving these words, the contact did not immediately hang up, but began to search for information at lightning speed. Soon, the slightly panting middle-aged man's voice sounded again. "I apologize, my lord. We have not heard any such news. But it's also possible that some traffickers have Mink slaves but are keeping it quiet, worried that other competitors will come to snatch them. So they usually hide the information until the slaves are sent to the auction house."
Just then, Road returned with heavy steps, carefully holding several Eternal Poses and handing them to Louis. Immediately after, he drew his sword with a shing and charged at Hajrudin again.
After taking the Eternal Poses, Louis said again, "With Doflamingo's fall, his power in the underworld should be in the process of being carved up, right?"
"Yes, my lord."
"You should go and get a piece of the pie too, and expand your intelligence network while you're at it. If you can't handle it, contact Daz. He will help you. If he can't handle it, there are others. Without touching what you shouldn't touch, expand the intelligence network as much as possible, understand?" Louis said casually, examining the Eternal Poses in his hand.
"Un—understood!" a slightly excited voice came from the other end of the Den Den Mushi.
Then, Louis hung up and returned the device to Daz Bonez, who, after putting it away, returned to his spot and continued to guide Baby-5's training.
After getting the Eternal Poses, Louis turned to Yelena, who was fighting the others, and instructed, "I'm going out for a bit. If anything comes up, just contact me on the Den Den Mushi."
Yelena, who was in the middle of a merciless beating of the others, took a moment to reply, "I know."
Then, Louis spread his flawless white wings, rose into the air, and disappeared from their sight. After flying ten thousand meters high, the fiery halo lit up behind his head. Searing flames shot out from his wings, and after leaving two brilliant golden fiery trails, he disappeared into the sky.
?
Following the guidance of the Eternal Pose, Louis soon arrived at a seemingly deserted island.
Louis hovered above the island with his wings spread, using his extremely excellent Observation Haki to search for where the personnel on the island were hiding. Soon, he made a discovery and headed straight for the only mountain in the center of the small island.
THUD—
With a dull thud, a cloud of dust flew up, covering an area of several dozen meters. The sudden commotion attracted the attention of the Video Transponder Snails wandering around. They all looked in the direction of the dust and began to move toward it.
This situation also attracted the attention of the personnel inside the mountain. They gathered in front of the monitors, carefully observing the clearly abnormal cloud of dust.
Then, under everyone's watchful eyes, a pair of flawless white wings extended from the dust. With a powerful flap, a fierce gust of wind was created out of thin air, directly blowing away the dust and the trees in a radius, sending them flying to the horizon.
As the dust cleared, a tall and straight, golden-haired young man with pure white wings stood quietly. His terrifyingly calm eyes, through the Transponder Snails, met the eyes of the personnel in front of the screen.
"!!!"
"What's going on?!" someone asked, a look of utter confusion on his face.
Others seemed to have realized something, their faces pale. "Th-those wings look like—" they stammered.
Before they could react, the image on the screen changed again. The boy with the flawless white wings slowly drew the sword from his waist. Immediately after, the image from the Transponder Snails suddenly cut out.
SHING— With the clear sound of a blade cutting through the air, a strange flash of light flew over their heads.
The next moment, the airflow was suddenly disturbed. A blinding light flashed, causing everyone to be temporarily blinded. A deafening roar sounded, continuously bombarding their eardrums.
When the several human traffickers regained their vision, an almost unimaginable scene appeared before their eyes, leaving them dumbfounded. The mountain, which was over a thousand meters thick, had been cut by a sharp slash just inches above the heads of the traffickers who were sitting in front of the monitors.
The massive mountain had been cut with a smooth-as-a-mirror slice. Along with the heads of over a hundred standing people, it flew high into the air, carried by the gale toward the sea.
BOOM—
The massive mountain fell into the sea. With a violent roar, it kicked up a wave hundreds of meters high, forming a terrifying tsunami that crashed down on the small island.
Before the tsunami arrived, Louis flew to the top of the mountain he had just cut and took in the full view of the interior. With a glance, he saw many corpses that had been incidentally decapitated, as well as many trembling slaves and traffickers. Among them, there were only a few of the rare races, and they were all either Longarm or Longleg tribe members. He did not see the Mink tribe he was so eager to find. But Louis was not too disappointed. After all, this was only the first trafficker base he had come to.
Soon, Louis, after controlling the Anemoi to kick up a hurricane and place the slaves one by one on a ship at a hidden port on the coast, left with the vessel, letting the terrifying tsunami swallow the exposed trafficker base.
After flying a safe distance away, Louis broke the shackles on the slaves' hands, feet, and necks. He ignored their requests to follow him and went straight to the next island.
For the next half-day, Louis repeated this action on several islands in a row, destroying three human trafficker bases. In the end, at the fourth base, he found one mermaid and one Mink.
After rescuing them, Louis did not stop his actions. After infusing a ship with life force and having it follow him, he continued his cleanup. To this, Louis stated that since he was already here, he certainly couldn't just stop after finding one target.
Louis's cleanup was very fast, and most of his time was spent on traveling. In the end, Louis spent nearly eight hours and completely cleaned out all the human traffickers who had set up shop near Dressrosa due to Doflamingo's presence. He freed many imprisoned slaves, the vast majority of whom were human. The rest were from the Longarm and Longleg tribes, with two fish-men, one mermaid, and one Mink.
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