aircannonsinc Chapter 217 3: A Dragon Nearly Shattered: Is This World Sick?!
Chapter 217 3: A Dragon Nearly Shattered: Is This World Sick?!
Chapter 217 A Dragon with Nearly Shattered Morals: Is This World Sick?!
"Excellent! That was a perfect shot! Saint Roswald, your marksmanship is becoming more and more like the Grand Elder's back in the day!"
In the stands, a Celestial Dragon noblewoman, dressed in lavish attire, let out a shrill laugh. Her face, thickly powdered with lead, lost some of its powder due to intense excitement, revealing withered skin beneath, deformed from years of inbreeding.
She elegantly covered her mouth and nose with a lace handkerchief, seemingly afraid that the distant stench of blood would overwhelm her bubble wrap, while simultaneously straining her cloudy eyes to see even the smallest detail of the carnage ahead.
"Look, look! She's crawling! Like a lowly worm wriggling in the mud, her posture is even more ridiculous than those bedbugs in Impel Down!"
Another Celestial Dragon boy was so excited that he was waving his arms and legs. His still-childish face was now twisted into a morbid expression that would chill even adult pirates. He pointed at the princess below, who had a broken leg and was dragging her intestine-like limbs toward the child, and laughed so hard that he almost passed out. He even turned red in the face because of the lack of oxygen in his bubble wrap.
"Hey, give that lowlife a close-up! I want to see her expression when her fingernails are torn off!" he yelled, directing the CP next to him.
The agent requests to use a projection Den Den Mushi (snail phone) to magnify the princess's pained facial expression onto the giant screen in the center of the arena.
In an instant, the mother's face, covered in mud and blood, appeared on the screen. Her clenched teeth had shattered, and the unfocused look in her eyes, caused by extreme pain, was intertwined with a trace of maternal radiance that refused to let go, making her appear so desolate.
"Oh—! That's the look! Absolutely brilliant!"
The entire stands erupted in thunderous applause, loud enough to shatter the clouds. Some of these monsters, who called themselves "gods," were frantically pounding on the priceless golden armrests, producing a series of strange, muffled thuds; others were whistling like wild beasts, writhing their bloated bodies on specially made soft couches.
They excitedly waved their betting tickets, each representing tens of millions of Pelés in odds, letting those expensive pieces of paper—enough to buy a town outside—fly through the blood-soaked air like funeral money.
"Two hundred million Berries! I bet she'll go into shock from blood loss before she even gets to that brat!" An old, decrepit Celestial Dragon trembled, extending a withered finger, his eyes gleaming with a greedy, venomous red light. "Look at the amount of blood she's bleeding! This blood, pumped out faster by fear, is so vividly colored it's intoxicating! This is the finest paint!"
In their eyes, the concept of "victims" simply did not exist in this massacre.
Those so-called royalty, scholars, and commoners are, in their logic, nothing more than inferior creatures like paramecia. The dignity of mortals is trampled into dust under their feet, and the majesty of motherhood is turned into a joke in their mouths.
This extreme madness and cruelty made the air above the God Valley Arena thick and murky. The pungent smell of blood mixed with the fine spices sprayed on the Celestial Dragons, fermenting into a nauseating stench unique to hell.
This is no ordinary human world; it is a cursed, ultimate hellish arena designed to bury humanity.
Faced with this horrific scene, some people were not happy. They felt that this was nothing, and that it was not interesting at all. They needed more spice!
In a shady corner of the arena's high platform, the light seemed to be swallowed up by the two specially made iron cages. The thick iron bars were covered with layers of dried, blackened bloodstains, emitting a chilling aura.
One of the cages held Rox's wife.
She was once as pure as moonlight, a pristine beauty in the eyes of countless people in the new world, but now, her iconic white dress had long since turned into tattered rags. Her once snow-white back and arms were now covered with a dense network of crisscrossing whip marks. Due to prolonged exposure to damp and dark environments, the wounds had begun to fester and ooze pus, presenting a shocking dark purple hue.
The design of these injuries was extremely vicious; each lash avoided vital points, yet precisely struck the areas with the highest concentration of nerve endings. This was clearly not intended to kill her, but rather to maximize her pain while keeping her conscious, turning her into a living sacrifice to appease the Celestial Dragons' arrogance during this prolonged torment.
In another, smaller iron cage, completely suppressed by black stone, young Marshall D. Teach huddled in a dark crevice. This pirate tyrant who would later unleash devastating waves was, at this moment, just a child with a blood-stained face. Due to being bound by seastone chains for so long, his thin body had taken on an eerie bluish-purple hue.
Those unusually large pupils were now fixed on every fat, distorted face in the stands. His lips were bitten raw, blood mixed with saliva dripping from his chin onto the cold iron plate. The demonic, savage wildness lurking deep within the bloodline of D was, under the catalysis of this extreme humiliation, darkness, and despair, growing wildly in the depths of his soul, transforming into molten lava capable of incinerating the world.
Figarando Garin slowly rose to his feet, the greatsword in his hand gleaming with a chilling light that seemed to freeze the air in the sunlight. With an innate elegance, he approached the cage as if inspecting rare potted plants in his own backyard. With a flick of his longsword, the cold tip pressed against the chin of Rox's wife, forcing her pale, desperate face to turn towards the distant, raging sea.
"Can you hear that? The sea is crying; it's the funeral music for your bastard."
Garin's voice was deep and magnetic, yet carried a chilling undertone. "He's frantically crossing the Blood Moon Fortress to get here. For you, he's caused a lot of turmoil, even killing tens of thousands of our naval soldiers. What a rude..."
Violent lower-class people.
"But does he think he can challenge the order of 'God' with just a bit of brute force?"
Garin let out a haughty chuckle, then abruptly flung his hand, planting his sword into a wooden stake beside the cage. Turning to the Celestial Dragons below, who were indulging in the thrill of slaughter and behaving in a grotesque manner, he issued a cruel command that resounded throughout the entire arena.
"Gentlemen! The prey is almost all gone, and these monotonous screams are just too boring! To warmly welcome our upcoming 'distinguished guests,' we must add some real physiological stimulation to this sacred competition!"
Garin snapped his fingers.
Immediately afterwards, dozens of CP0 agents wearing eerie masks and expressionless faces pushed several huge iron cages, some even reeking of sea monsters, to the edge of the arena.
The cage door was violently pulled open, and several deep-sea wild dogs, their eyes bloodshot from being fed rage drugs for a long time, roared and charged into the arena, bringing with them a foul stench. Each of these monsters was the size of a small mountain, and due to their enormous size, the arena floor trembled violently with every step they took.
The civilians who had been fleeing in terror and the scholars who had lost all their sensory aids uttered their final, desperate cries. An elderly historian, groping through the mud for his tattered manuscripts, murmured even on the brink of death: "This is not the truth—history should not be written by barbarians—"
However, his truth was meaningless before these hungry beasts. The barbed tongue of the wild dog swept over, and half of the old scholar's body instantly turned into a blurry mass of flesh and blood. The red and white fluid bloomed into a strange "flower" on the white gauze dress of the Celestial Dragon girl.
"Giggle! It's so beautiful! This is the color God's Valley should have!"
The dragon girl showed no discomfort whatsoever from the bloody scene. Instead, she clapped her hands, adorned with diamond rings, and let out a series of clear, bell-like laughs. Her face, which should have been youthful and pure, now displayed a morbid sense of satisfaction that was almost manic and completely devoid of basic empathy.
She even excitedly directed her bodyguards to throw several infants, still in their swaddling clothes and crying, directly into the pack of wild dogs that were frantically tearing apart the remains, as if discarding rotten flesh.
"Too slow! Crush them! I want to see more red gushing out, I want to see that moment when souls are utterly extinguished in fear! Hurry! Crush that bone!"
The atmosphere in the stands went completely wild at that moment.
This land, which may have once been considered sacred, has now been thoroughly corrupted and permeated by this extreme perverse taste. The thick, pungent smell of blood that permeates the air mixes with the priceless perfumes sprayed on the Celestial Dragons, fermenting into a nauseating, suffocating stench that can suffocate even the weakest of the weak.
The Celestial Dragons waved their betting tickets, their screams and whistles mingling and shattering the clouds in the sky. Some, so excited, gasped for breath inside their transparent bubble wrap, saliva dripping from their mouths without them even realizing it.
In their "divine logic," these struggling lives, broken families, and tragic deaths are all just data. They completely ignore those dying, living spirits; in their view, this is nothing more than a trivial pastime called "divine entertainment" that they, as descendants of the Creator, have been entitled to enjoy for the past three hundred years.
This twisted mentality, which regards brutality as elegance and destruction as art, plays out in every corner of the Valley of the Gods. The magnificent arena has now become a true hell built of arrogance and blood, and the monsters sitting on the high platform cheering are tolling the final death knell for this eight-hundred-year reign with every laugh.
In the shadows at the edge of the arena, a squad of elite Marines clad in cloaks of justice stood ramrod straight, a stark and ironic contrast to the crazed Celestial Dragons.
At the very front of the group, a young man was gripping the hilt of his military knife tightly. He had a head of flamboyant black hair, a rugged face, and eyes as deep as a cold pool.
He is Monkey D. Garp's son, who will one day be revered by the world as a "revolutionary"—Monkey D. Dragon. At this moment, he is still wearing a smart naval uniform, but the medals on his chest reflect a light that stings him in the sunlight.
"Is this... the 'god' we are meant to protect?"
Long's voice was extremely low, even trembling slightly. His sharp eyes were trembling violently, reflecting the despairing face of the mother on the big screen. He had been taught at the Naval Academy to "protect the weak," and his father had taught him that "a man should stand tall," but at this moment, his chest felt as if it were filled with cold iron filings.
His gaze slowly moved past the bloated, grinning figures and down to the blood-stained "hunting ground" below.
Amidst the thousands upon thousands of struggling and wailing slaves, his gaze inexplicably lingered beside a mud pit.
There, an unusually burly boy with a huge head, Ivakov, was spreading his arms wide, his face covered in mud, trying to shield his trembling companions with his still-thin body.
Behind Ivakov, a huge boy with gentle eyes and skin branded with the "Celestial Dragon's hoofprint" silently carried a toddler whose leg had been broken from fright. This boy was Bartholomew Kuma, and he was even clutching a tattered booklet tightly in his hand, his eyes revealing a pure desire to find light even in the deepest abyss.
The dragon's breath stopped for a moment.
He didn't know either of them, but when his own light met the calm yet compassionate eyes of the bear, Long felt an unprecedented sense of entanglement. It was as if fate had plucked the strings of a musical instrument, forcibly binding these strangers together.
He watched the slaves display their resilience in the face of death, and listened to the almost morbid cheers of the Celestial Dragons behind him. A flame called "rage" began to burn wildly in his heart called "justice," eventually reducing it to charred remains.
"Dragon, calm down. Garp is outside blocking the approaching Rocks Pirates. Our mission here is to prevent any 'prey' from crashing into the stands."
An older lieutenant general noticed Long's unusual behavior and warned him in a low voice.
Long didn't reply. He simply loosened his grip on the knife and instead gripped the railing tightly, his fingernails digging deep marks into the pure gold handrail. His face, which should have been full of vigor, was now shrouded in a gloomy cloud.
This scene became an indelible mark on Long's life, greatly impacting his values and even bringing them to the brink of collapse.
He suddenly realized that if so-called "justice" requires protecting such extreme evil, then such justice is the most hypocritical lie.
In his heart, the seed that represented the glory of the navy withered and shattered completely on the rotten land of God Valley. In its place was a thought called "freedom" that was enough to overturn the world.
"This world is sick."
The dragon murmured softly, his gaze sweeping once more over the group of boys struggling in the mud. That single glance seemed to span decades; one day in the future, they would reunite, and then, they would no longer hold chains of seastone, but the sacred crimson flame powerful enough to burn Mary Geoise to ashes.
At this moment, God Valley was still mired in the laughter of the Celestial Dragons, but no one noticed that the once most outstanding rising star of the Navy had already taken the first step towards the truth in the darkness, with his back to the so-called "justice" under the blood-red setting sun.