Chapter 501: Son of A Maniac is A Maniac
Just as when Leo is getting excited to fight Doflamingo, he gets disturbed. Someone suddenly flies between him & Doffy, making them both look at the person who slides on the ground and stops. They are surprised to see that it's none other than Luffy.
"HAHAHA! HOW'S THAT, STRAW HAT?"
Leo looks in the other direction and sees a blonde muscular guy who wears sunglasses. He remembers this guy, Bellamy, the one causing trouble on Jaya and got beaten up easily by Luffy.
"You've gotten stronger, Bellamy. But what are you doing here?"
"Hmm? You have just met him, Luffy?"
"Yeah, he suddenly appeared sometime after I separated from Zoro and attacked me. Have you fought someone strong, Leo?"
"Well, I've fought an elderly and now his grandson is coming."
Luffy finally realizes that Doflamingo is there and he grins excitedly because he has been searching for Doffy.
"I can finally fight you. Oh, wait, are you fighting him, Leo?"Visit no(v)eLb(i)n.com for the best novel reading experience
"Not yet, you can take him on if you want. I will handle this small fry. Besides, I sense another strong presence some distance away from us. It's an unknown presence, so I want to check it just to be sure if it's an enemy or not."
"Okay, but don't kill Bellamy, he seems to have changed."
"No worries, I don't kill weaklings."
"Escaping? No chance, kid!"
Doffy shoots a thick string spear from his palm at Leo. But Leo ducks to dodge it and then propels himself toward Bellamy by shooting fire from his feet. Bellamy is shocked by Leo's sudden charge and crosses his haki-coated arms.
Leo grins and slashes his cutlasses horizontally from left to right. He intentionally hits Bellamy's hardened arms to send the guy flying away from there. They can't fight her because it will disturb Luffy's fight, and besides, he feels a strong presence nearby.
'A strong person with a strong hostility. Will be a good opponent to replace that Flamingo.'
Leo keeps striking Bellamy and forces the big guy to keep retreating. Bellamy tries to counterattack, but Leo can evade them easily.
"You are certainly stronger and faster now, but your skills don't improve that much. All your attacks are very predictable. They will work against people weaker or just slightly stronger than you, but it will never work against me."
Lucci's veins pop out on his face as he angrily attacks Leo again. He sends a barrage of shigans at a very high speed now. His attacks are very fast, but Leo can stop them all by blocking them with his cutlasses and dodging some too.
Leo actually wants to dodge all Lucci's attacks because he thinks it's cooler that way. But he can't move his body that fast and Lucci's attacks are faster than he thought. His observation haki also barely catches Lucci's fast attacks, so he can't dodge all of them.
But it actually makes him even more excited because it means he can train his observation haki, reaction time, and body movements by fighting Lucci. Leo inherits Buggy's love for battle and desire to get stronger through hard fights.
The harder the fight, the more excited he'll become, just like now. Lucci is without a doubt the strongest opponent he has ever fought since he returned to piracy. Not only strong, but Lucci is also a highly skilled fighter who has some deadly techniques.
Leo gets hit a few times as he fails to dodge or block some of Lucci's attacks. However, he doesn't back down at all and keeps fighting at a close distance. Lucci's claws & shigans are wounding him, but Leo doesn't show any pained expression and keeps fighting happily.
Slowly, Leo starts to avoid and block more of Lucci's attacks. He only gets better even with all the injuries on his body. Well, he doesn't have that many injuries on his body anyway because Lucci's attacks just land every once in a while.
"Hoo, seems like Shanks taught him well. Though it also seems he inherits my habit of using my enemies to improve myself."
Buggy is watching Leo's fight from afar and he knows Leo can fight much better than this. But Leo is suppressing his full power and abilities to have a hard fight against Lucci. Leo's aim is none other than to improve himself in this fight, he doesn't want to just win.
Buggy also looks at the other Straw Hat Pirates' battles. They are doing well even though their battles are not easy either. But his focus is just on Leo, Nami, & Robin as they are the closest ones to him, so he is the most concerned about them.
Nami is fighting well even though she looks like she can't fight properly. But in reality, she is handling and controlling her battle very well. She just looks overwhelmed to fool her enemy. Buggy has taught her to use tricks in her fight instead of fighting head-on like him & Leo.
However, Nami is actually still strong enough to fight directly without any trickery. She's not as strong as Straw Hat Pirates' main fighters obviously. But she is actually strong enough to defeat someone like Tashigi without any tricks, she just doesn't like fighting head-on.
Buggy suddenly hears a commotion from afar and the scene there makes him raise an eyebrow. He has expected that Donquixote Family will do this, but he never thought they'd do it this early.
"Seems like they couldn't control the flow of battle any longer and decided to go all out quickly. Heh, interesting."
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I've uploaded Chapter 539. Going Back to East Blue
- Pictures of both stories (ex: bounty poster & magazine cover) by /CaptMermain
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