Dragon's body gradually flipped and sank, disappearing into the magic circle.
This familiar scene made everyone present widen their eyes.
"How is this possible?! Even the leader…"
Lindbergh let out an incredulous gasp.
They had previously been fighting Revolutionary Army warriors who had been demonized by Imu, and naturally witnessed their transformation process.
But at that time, almost all of those who were transformed had been knocked unconscious by Imu's Haoshoku when Imu appeared.
Frankly, the strength of those individuals was not outstanding.
This led everyone to believe that the upper limit of this transformation ability should not be high.
Otherwise, if Imu could just transform all of them, there would be no need to fight at all.
However, at this moment, with Dragon, a top-tier expert, also being demonized, Lindbergh and the others were filled with despair.
Moments later, Dragon's figure began to emerge from the magic circle.
His spine first let out a crisp popping sound, his shoulder blades violently bulged, tearing his robes, and at the same time, two bloody, fleshy tumors burst from his back.
Blood vessels protruded from the surface of the tumors, and with a "whoosh" sound, they unfolded into a pair of bat-like wing membranes.
Simultaneously, his forehead bone protruded forward, and the keratin layer proliferated wildly, eventually piercing his scalp to form a pair of curved, pitch-Blake horns, with fractured skull fragments oozing from the base of the horns.
"Mr. Dragon!"
"Leader!"
The shouts of the Revolutionary Army cadres seemed to briefly bring Dragon's consciousness back, and his eyes showed a moment of clarity.
But very quickly, that hint of clarity vanished, replaced by spiral-shaped eyes.
When Dragon looked up again, his mandible had split vertically, extending three rows of dagger-like fangs.
His entire demeanor also became demonic.
Blake stared at the spiral patterns in Dragon's eyes, lost in thought:
"I remember this seems to be a symbol related to the soul."
Charlotte Linlin and Cavendish seemed to have experienced similar situations.
So this shouldn't be simple control, but rather a more sinister manipulation involving the soul.
"This is big trouble now…"
As the energy field of the control dissipated, Christopher had already lowered his hands, once again drawing his long blade, looking solemnly at the demonized Dragon.
As one of the only two top experts on the allied forces' side, with everyone else already exhausted, how much of a role could Dragon play with his demonized body?
Christopher could hardly imagine the scene.
Whoosh!
Dragon's wings behind him merely trembled slightly, and his figure instantly appeared before Kuma, punching the latter's chest.
"Dragon!"
Kuma wanted to raise his hand to block, but he had just forcefully used his Devil Fruit power to redirect Imu's attack for Dragon, which had exhausted his last bit of strength.
Before his hand could even fully rise, Dragon's fist, carrying a hurricane compressed to the extreme, had already sent Kuma flying hundreds of meters.
His body crashed through several small mountains of debris, finally embedding itself in the ruins.
"Wow!"
Kuma opened his mouth and spat out a mouthful of crimson blood, feeling as if all his internal organs had ruptured.
He struggled for a moment but still couldn't get up.
"Has his condition completely returned to its peak?"
Blake stared intently at Dragon, who was wreaking havoc on the battlefield:
"No, it's not just a simple recovery; it seems… he's been enhanced?"
Seeing this, Lindbergh knew that they now had to do everything in their power to defeat their former leader.
As someone who used machinery for attacks, he was the one with the least physical exertion among everyone.
Lindbergh immediately ran to the mechanical armor, just about to activate emergency mode, when a shadow suddenly appeared behind him.
A similar scene had happened to Perona, who had merely taken a beating, but now… Lindbergh slowly turned around, only to see Dragon's demonized Blake claws, imbued with Haoshoku, swing down fiercely.
The entire mechanical device instantly overloaded and exploded, and in the firelight, Lindbergh was thrown by the shockwave, falling heavily to the ground, completely unconscious.
"Leader! Please wake up!"
A desperate wail came from Crow's loudspeaker, but it did not shake Dragon's will in the slightest; instead, it drew his attention to the speaker.
His wings stirred up a violent hurricane, sweeping the exhausted Crow into the sky.
Then, a whip kick imbued with Armament Haki sent him like a cannonball into the ground.
Amidst the swirling dust, Crow's figure twitched once, eventually losing consciousness.
"After being demonized, not only is their state enhanced, but they can also continue to use their original abilities?"
Blake kept his eyes fixed on Dragon's performance on the battlefield, trying to find more clues about Imu's abilities.
Just as Dragon was about to continue his attack on Ivankov, Christopher's figure appeared before him:
"Revolutionary Army! You need to snap out of it!"
The long blade slashed down fiercely, with twisted space and Blake-red lightning intertwining on the blade.
Dragon crossed his arms to defend; his arms, which had been broken in the fight with Imu, were now fully recovered.
Dragon's crimson eyes stared fixedly at the person in front of him, and with a flap of his bat wings, he broke the sound barrier.
Christopher had anticipated this, and his long blade sliced diagonally, the twisted space forcibly deflecting Dragon's charge trajectory.
The ground was torn into a hundreds-of-meters-long gully, with shattered rocks suspended in mid-air.
Having landed a blow, Christopher did not let his guard down in the slightest; he seized the opportunity and swung his blade three times in quick succession.
Each strike was accompanied by spatial distortion, and the three slashes intersected in different dimensions, attacking Dragon's vital points from impossible angles.
Dragon's counterattack came even faster.
He used the maneuverability of his wings to make a sharp turn in the air, rapidly swinging his fists, the Haki condensed on his fists dispersing the three sword energies.
Immediately, a whip kick swept across with the power of a hurricane.
Christopher barely managed to block with his blade, but the impact pushed him back more than ten meters, his shoe soles leaving two charred marks on the ground.
He gasped for breath, feeling that the situation was not good.
By now, a red sun had risen in the sky, indicating that the battle had lasted all night.
Christopher first teamed up with Tiger to deal with Garling, then teamed up with Dragon to continue fighting Garling, and then repeatedly confronted the constantly recovering Gorosei.
After Imu appeared, he fought the demonized warriors for a long time, and finally unleashed his Devil Fruit ability with full power once, breaking the limitations of the energy field.
All of it was high-intensity combat.
It could be said that Christopher's combat intensity that night was in no way inferior to Kaido carrying Onigashima.
At this moment, he was at the end of his rope.
When Dragon charged again, he gritted his teeth and plunged his long blade into the ground.
Centered on the blade tip, the space within a hundred-meter radius began to fluctuate violently.
Dragon's movements instantly became sluggish, as if he had fallen into a viscous liquid.
"Roar!!!"
However, immediately after, the fully demonized Dragon let out an inhuman roar from his mouth, and his entire body erupted with Haoshoku.
He forcefully withstood Christopher's domain and smashed a Dragon Claw Fist into his chest.
In his haste, Christopher could only brace himself with his arms to block.
Boom!
Christopher was blasted into the architectural ruins, stirring up dust that blotted out the sky.
Debris and rebar rained down, submerging his figure.
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