???
Several question marks appeared above Luffy's head as he looked down at Zeno, who was shouting up at him, with a bewildered expression.
Come on?!
He was smart, so people shouldn't keep treating him like an idiot!
His identity and Zeno's identity were Marine and pirate.
That meant their relationship was definitely hostile; they were enemies!
You're asking your enemy for help to pull you up? What are you, crazy?!
If it were the Luffy from the original story, he might have actually done it, but the current Luffy, although still unable to change his foolish nature due to the influence of Kyle and the others, could still manage not to be that stupid when facing certain situations.
"What are you thinking, you stupid bird?!"
"How can you even say such nonsense?!"
"I'm your enemy, not your dad. You're asking the wrong person for help!"
Luffy's three consecutive retorts left Zeno below alternating between purple and green with rage.
He really couldn't understand why this kid, despite his young age, had a mouth so venomous.
Seeing that Luffy had absolutely no intention of saving him, Zeno's expression turned extremely gloomy as he glared at Luffy above.
"If you won't save me, then don't think you'll get off easy either!!"
As he finished speaking, Zeno bent his knees slightly, then abruptly leaped upward, his body lunging towards Luffy.
With Zeno's strength, jumping a few dozen meters was effortless, but he couldn't escape this wave of lightning just by jumping.
After all, this lightning wasn't just a small wave; it was continuous.
Who had ever seen a flood that was only a small stream?
Ace and the others could dodge because they could fly and remain airborne.
For someone who couldn't stay airborne, jumping would only hasten their death.
That's exactly what Zeno was doing now.
Originally, if he had kept running, the lightning would have taken a few more seconds to catch him, but by jumping like this, he was bound to fall into that ocean of lightning when he came down and take a lightning bath.
But he didn't care about that anymore.
What difference would a few more seconds make?
The situation was already very clear; even if he kept running, his end would still be to drown in that ocean of lightning.
His speed simply wasn't enough to support his escape.
So, if the final result was the same either way, why not drag someone down with him?
At least then he wouldn't be lonely!!
"Kid, get down here!!!"
Zeno roared, reaching a hand out to grab Luffy.
From their earlier fight, he had roughly gauged Luffy's strength; it was slightly weaker than his own.
But even though he was somewhat stronger, defeating Luffy wouldn't be easy.
The problem was, he didn't need to defeat Luffy at all now. As long as Luffy engaged him, he could drag the other down with him. He was confident in that.
What he hadn't calculated, however, was that Luffy, who usually loved to confront things head-on in battle, chose not to this time.
Seeing Zeno reaching for him, Luffy had no intention of fighting. Instead, he used Moonwalk to ascend directly to a position over a hundred meters up.
This was a spot Zeno couldn't reach.
Luffy made a face at Zeno.
"Idiot, who wants to fight you?!"
"If you want to go down, go down yourself. I don't want to get hit by Kyle's lightning!"
Well, case closed!
The reason for Luffy being so timid was his fear of Kyle's lightning.
It wasn't Luffy's fault, really; he had been traumatized by being shocked by Kyle once.
Ever since then, he got nervous just seeing Kyle's lightning.
He remembered it was about a year ago. He accidentally damaged the base's power cable, and countless electric currents burst out, surging towards him.
Only one thought crossed Luffy's mind back then:
I'm done for!!
Because he had been shocked by Kyle before, he was strangely afraid of electricity.
But contrary to his expectations, the imagined pain never came.
No matter how the currents raged, he felt absolutely nothing.
At the time, he was overjoyed, thinking his strength had increased to the point where electricity no longer affected him.
Without a second thought, he arrogantly sought out Kyle, intending to have an earth-shattering battle with him.
But the result...
Was somewhat unsatisfactory!!
With just one bolt of purple lightning, Kyle almost turned him into an unbeatable disco king!
That single attack shattered his as-yet-unrealized dream.
Later, he tried shocking himself with the power cable again and found it still had no effect.
In the end, he came to a conclusion:
Kyle's lightning was different from ordinary lightning. To help himself remember, he even established his own classification system.
Blue lightning: Safe to touch! Nothing happens!!
Purple lightning: Absolutely forbidden to touch!!! Funeral imminent!!
Therefore, under different circumstances, Luffy would have just charged head-on against an action like Zeno's. But when it came to Kyle's lightning, his own safety was more important!
In the end, Zeno failed to grab Luffy and, filled with deep resentment towards him, plunged into the ocean of lightning, instantly submerged.
Watching Zeno fall into the lightning, Luffy couldn't help but shiver.
He said:
"How pathetic!!"
Apart from Zeno, the pirates of Wang Zhi's crew also unsurprisingly all got submerged by the ocean of lightning.
Their screams were drowned out by the crackling sound of the lightning, almost completely inaudible.
No one knew how long passed, but when the ocean of lightning finally dispersed, all the buildings on Hachinosu had been reduced to rubble, the entire island transformed into a complete ruin.
Pirates lay crushed under piles of stone, a considerable number of them already having lost consciousness.
Among these figures, Ace spotted Galle, who had been fighting the two of them, now lying there, his entire body charred black.
Though not dead, he had lost consciousness.
Seeing this, Sabo and Ace instinctively glanced at each other, both able to see the helplessness in the other's eyes.
The gap in strength between them and Kyle was truly widening!
This Galle, whom the two of them had fought for so long without being able to defeat, had collapsed and lost consciousness just from being bathed in the residual effects of Kyle's technique.
If just the residual effects were this terrifying, then the situation at the very center of the technique...
Thinking of this, Sabo and Ace simultaneously turned their gazes towards a certain direction.
And at that moment, at the original location of the battle between Kyle and Wang Zhi, there was now a huge, deep crater. The ground around the crater was shattered and fragmented, as if it could crumble at any moment.
Occasionally, residual purple lightning still flickered nearby.
Kyle's figure slowly descended from the air, landing inside the crater.
He landed beside a figure whose entire body was charred black.
The figure was none other than Wang Zhi, but the Wang Zhi now was completely different from his appearance at the start, utterly disheveled and pathetic.
His body didn't move an inch, his chest showed no rise or fall. If Kyle hadn't been able to sense his faint breath using Observation Haki, he would have thought this was a corpse.
This situation before him also signified—Kyle versus Wang Zhi, Kyle, wins!!
...
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