479. Turning Point

"Nice face, man. You look more menacing that way."

Buggy smirks while reattaching his burnt foot. It hurts, but the joy of seeing his attack damage Imu's face is covering that pain. After all, it isn't just damage, it is a sign that Imu's defense has started to get weaker, so his attacks can pass through more easily from now on.

Though it also applies to him seeing how his foot skin was burnt by Imu's power. Well, it doesn't matter for him because what matters for Buggy is having his attacks succeed. He doesn't mind getting a lot of injuries if it means he can defeat Imu.

It's not like he is new to injuries. He is a pirate who has gone through a lot of bad situations that even threatened his life. Getting injured is something that happens often to him and everyone in his crew.

Though the last time he got gravely injured was years ago. But for the sake of defeating Imu, he won't mind getting the most deadly injury he would ever get. It doesn't mean he will gladly sacrifice himself to die though. Victory is sweet when he can enjoy it, after all.

Still, maybe it's too early to think about victory because there is at least one person who doesn't want that. Imu looks murderously at Buggy as if he is the most hateful man in the world. This is a humiliation for Imu, after all, so obviously, he won't be calm after getting his face broken.

Without saying a word, Imu suddenly jumps toward Buggy in the sky. The red ground cracks when he jumps and a big dent appears. In a split second, Imu already reaches Buggy's position, and with a very angry expression, Imu sends a black flame punch at Buggy's body.

Too bad for Imu, Buggy can follow his movement and block his attack. Buggy slaps Imu's black flame fist with his half-dragon tail that obviously is covered with advanced haki. The slap pushes Imu's fist to the side, so Buggy doesn't get hit.

Taking his chance, Buggy sends his advanced haki-coated claws at Imu. But Imu reacts very quickly and shoots a black flame beam from his mouth at Buggy's claws. Other than blocking Buggy's attack, the beam also pushes himself back to prepare for another attack.

Numerous fireballs with different colors suddenly appear around Imu. Buggy frowns while looking at the colorful fireballs. He knows these fireballs are extraordinary. So far, he only saw Imu using red and black fire, but it seems Imu still has more types of fire that he can use.

'Do they have different properties? Maybe the black and red are the best for battle or maybe attacks while the others are maybe supports or useless in battle. But if that's the case, then why is he showing them now?'

Buggy makes an assumption because this will surely affect their battle. But he stops worrying after a while because it will just give him unnecessary problems. There's no use in worrying about it now. He just needs to focus and defeat Imu no matter what the guy would show.

Right when Buggy stops overthinking, Imu combines the numerous colorful fireballs into one big black fireball with a rainbow core. The fireball floats on Imu's head and he holds it with one hand. Buggy looks at it with envy because it looks really cool, but he can't do it because his devil fruit ability isn't energy-based power.

He can't be worried about it for too long though because Imu's big fireball suddenly explodes into numerous black-rainbow fireballs that shoot toward Buggy from all sides. Many even fly far to the back and turn around to target Buggy's behind.

"Want to overwhelm me with numbers and speed? Dream on!"

The fireballs are flying very fast and Buggy can feel their power. They are very hot and Buggy can feel the energy packed in those fireballs. Each one of them can level a whole town if it explodes. Even Buggy won't take such power easily, especially when there are so many of them.

Buggy decides to use his beloved swords that have turned black. He feeds them with haki to activate their devil fruit abilities, Pressure, and Hardness. Feeding them haki every day is the reason they turned black and the reason why Buggy's haki energy is very high that he could still use haki really well after fighting with it for so long.

With his swords ready, Buggy starts to make his move. He really wants to slash those fireballs, but it will make them explode, and their explosions will hit him, so he shouldn't do that. What he should do is stopping those fireballs and block their explosions from hitting him.

So Buggy covers his whole body and swords with the lightning he borrows from Enel. Then he spreads his arms with his swords in his hands. After that, he spins his body at a high speed, and he uses the dragon's flame cloud to increase his spinning speed.

Buggy rotates like a beyblade covered with lightning bolts. A sphere starts to form as he rotates and it gets wider. The sphere is made of Buggy's rotation force and lightning. From the sphere, numerous curved energy blades fly out toward the incoming fireballs.

The energy blades hit and cut the fireball, making them explode like what Buggy thought. Their explosions are very wide and powerful, so Buggy is engulfed by them as he expected. But the rotating sphere around Buggy blocks the explosions, so he doesn't get hit by them.

It's a really good defense, but not really good for his body because rotating like this makes him dizzy and he starts to get nauseous. He is not a Spin Spin Fruit user, after all, so his body is affected by the rotation. Luckily, he is strong enough to withstand those effects until he destroys all the fireballs.

"HAHAHA! How's that, motherfucker?"

Buggy laughs while sending a powerful cross-slash at Imu who fights back using a massive black flame spear. The black flame spear hits the center of the cross slash, creating a very powerful impact. But then Imu's eyes widened as his black flame spear is getting cut by the cross slash.

The cross slash becomes smaller and weaker because of the black flame spear. But it managed to cut the spear and moved toward Imu who obviously can't believe his attack lost against Buggy's attack. They have been equal so far, but now Buggy has started to dominate this fight.

Imu doesn't think that Buggy is getting stronger after fighting for this long. In Imu's mind, it's simply impossible for someone to get stronger in a fight that drains so much energy. So the only possibility in his mind is he has gotten weaker because of fatigue although it is not noticeable.

Well, he is not completely wrong. He has surely become a little weaker because of his fatigue that has accumulated. It's actually weirder that he has just started getting tired after fighting for so long and using a lot of powerful skills that surely used a lot of energy.

But he is quite wrong about Buggy. Unlike what he thinks, Buggy is actually getting stronger now. By being stronger, it doesn't mean that his energy increases so he can use more power. His energy is getting lower just like Imu and he is also getting tired now.

What it means by getting stronger is that Buggy's skills are getting better. His skills are getting better, and getting more refined. With the same amount of energy, he can make stronger attacks.

So it's not his body, but his skills that become stronger. Anyone's body needs time to grow stronger without drugs or power enhancer stuff. Even Buggy's body won't grow stronger instantly in a natural way.

But having his skills grow stronger in battles is very possible. He has done this so many times. It happened every time he went through difficult battles that he couldn't handle with his level of skills at those times.

Imu is an opponent that requires Buggy to use all his power and skills. He even needs to borrow his friends' power just to match Imu's level. Such a difficult battle has forced him to grow. His growth has become stagnant for a while, so he is obviously very happy with this.

He can become even stronger, he hasn't reached his limit yet. That thought makes Buggy's mood soar and it clears his murky mind. His great mood improvement gives him something like enlightenment.

He suddenly can think of ways to make his skills stronger as he finds their flaws. With his mind getting clearer, Buggy's thinking process and concentration are also getting better. His clear mind makes him feel that he can fight even better than before even though his body is getting tired.

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You can read more chapters ahead of my fanfics and more pictures on my Pa_treon page if you are interested.

Voting for this book is highly appreciate. Cover image is the MC, artist's ig: @fatmaqn_

I've uploaded Chapter 517. Buggy's Scheme

- Pictures of both stories (ex: bounty poster & magazine cover) by fatmaqn_

https://www.pa_treon.com/CaptMermain

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