472. Closer to Death

Only one enemy is left after Kong's defeat. Imu is the only one left, but he doesn't show any sign of worry. He is still enraged though because all of his subordinates have lost already. But it's not something unexpected because they have been outnumbered from the beginning.

Still, having his side lose is something that a person who has led the winning side for hundreds of years doesn't like. Even though he hasn't lost yet, the force that he has created and led to rule the world has been defeated. It's the same as his group lost to Buggy's group, which is something that he really hates.

"You don't look so good. Do you need to pee?"

Buggy mocks Imu who looks very enraged when his last underling also gets defeated.

"It seems I've been going too easy on you trash."

Imu suddenly stretches his arms and neck, making Buggy frowns because he acts strangely all of a sudden. Then, bright red flame suddenly covers Imu's entire body and the ground below him melts as it turns into lava. The Clown Pirates who are rushing toward him after taking care of Kong are also surprised.

"SHIT! GET AWAY FROM HIM!"

Buggy sees the melted ground vibrate and warns his crewmates because he has a very bad feeling about this.

"Too late."

The flame on Imu's body suddenly burst and spreads everywhere rapidly. Everyone tries to get away, but the flame is spreading too fast, catching everyone before they can escape. They immediately cover their entire bodies with armament haki and the devil fruit users are activating their abilities too.

Buggy is the first to get caught by the spreading flame because not only he is closer to Imu, but he also charges at him instead of getting away. He wants to stop Imu, but the giant demon's attack is too fast. The only thing he can do is protect himself and orders his crewmates to save themselves.

Haki can protect them from the impact and burning, but it can't protect them from the heat. So everyone is screaming because of the intense heat as they keep running to escape. The ground that gets touched by the flame turns into lava almost immediately because the heat is too intense.

"AARGH, IT'S HOT!"

"DAMN, I CAN'T SEE THE END."

Screams can be heard from the side where the Clown Pirates were coming. They are being covered by a red flame that covers their surrounding. It blocks their vision, so they don't know where to go. They just keep running to save themselves before the heat kills them.

"ENEL! ASSIST JUDE!"

"WE'RE ALREADY ON IT!"

Everyone suddenly hears Buggy's and Enel's shouts before their bodies suddenly get covered by thick layers of ashes. Jude spreads her ash that can't be burnt anymore to save her crewmates. Enel helps her locate them using his powerful observation haki.

Both Enel and Jude are not affected by the flame because of their lightning and ash logia bodies. So they quickly acted to help their crewmates who aren't immune to the flame. Ash can't be burnt anymore, so Jude quickly spreads it to cover everyone's body with Enel's help because she can't see anything with the flame blocking her vision.

After everyone is covered by ash, Enel spreads his lightning in the form of ropes. He grabs everyone with his lightning ropes and flies away while pulling them. With his speed, he manages to get everyone out of the burning domain that covers the entire ruin of Marie Geoise.

He tosses everyone to the edge of the chopped Red Line except for the Fishmen that are thrown into the sea. Everyone is suffering from the heat and has different levels of burnt injuries. The Fishmen are also hurt, but they know their assignments and immediately use their Fishman Karate to throw water at their crewmates.

The seawater cools their bodies even though it also breaks the ash body covers and cancels the devil fruit users' abilities. Well, it doesn't matter because the only thing they need now is to stop the burning sensation of the flame's intense heat that damages their bodies.

Only some executives are free of injuries while the rest are injured with different levels of burns. Manba and his medical team move quickly to treat their crewmates even though they are hurt too. But some weaker members are in danger because of their burns, so the medical team needs to move quickly before anyone dies.

Buggy grits his teeth while looking at the massive flame that covers a very wide area and the towering figure in the center of the fire domain. Imu has gotten more serious, but Buggy doesn't know how much power he really has. This might not be his full power yet, so things might get even more dangerous.

"You guys stay here, I will fight him alone."

"What?! Are you crazy? You couldn't even touch him even with Enel's help. Some of us are fine, so we need to fight him together. If you want to fight him alone because you are worried about us, then stop it."

"No, that's not it. I am worried about you guys, but that's not the reason. We don't know anything about his power, so we need to gather some information about it. I will try to make him use more of his cards while you guys protect the others and observe him when I fight him. We will make some suitable strategies to defeat him after gathering some information. Also, I want you to prepare yourselves."

"Do you have a plan already?"

"Well, it's just a rough idea, but I have a strong hunch that we'll need to do it no matter what if we want to defeat him."

Cricket and the other executives think for a while before they seem to realize something."

"Could your plan be...?"

"Yeah, our ultimate plan for desperate situations. This is the time we'll finally use it. But we can't do it blindly and need to gather information about him first before we use it. That plan can't be used for a long duration and the consequences are really bad. So we need to be sure we can defeat him before the time limit comes if we don't want to die."

The executives understand Buggy's intention and think that it might be the best they can do in this situation. It is dangerous, but they can't think of a better plan in this situation.

"Alright, we'll do as you say."

"Good, prepare yourself, Dela. You are the key to this plan, so get ready. We'll count on you."

"I understand, Captain."

Dela nods seriously because this whole plan depends on her. It can't be executed without her, after all, so she needs to be the most prepared for this.

"Cricket, I'll leave them to you. I'll focus on fighting that guy."

"Aye."

Buggy immediately moves to fight Imu again even though the guy is surrounded by the intense flame that melted the ground. The whole ruin of Marie Geoise has turned into lava. All the corpses there have even been burnt to ashes by the intense heat.

He doesn't have fire resistance, but Buggy has a way to protect himself from the powerful flame.

When he almost enters the fire domain, Buggy uses his awakened ability to levitate a few meters above the ground. He holds his swords in his hands and activates Pollux's Press Press Fruit power.

Buggy uses Pollux's Press power to make powerful pressure on the ground as he flies forward. The pressure extinguishes the flame and compresses the lava ground.

Even though the heat of the surrounding flame that hasn't been extinguished still affects him, it isn't too hot because it doesn't touch him. He has gone to various places including those that have intense heat, so this level of heat is still bearable.

Buggy keeps getting closer to Imu, but suddenly Imu uses the flame in the domain to attack him. The flame attacks with various shapes like arrows, whips, balls, and even animals are coming toward him.

He doesn't use Pollux that he switches to his left hand and defends the incoming attacks using Castor in his right hand or kicks. The incoming flame attacks are destroyed by his attacks, but they manage to slow him down.

Still, he eventually gets closer to Imu who just waits there without moving even a single inch away as if Buggy isn't a threat at all. It doesn't matter to Buggy now though because Imu has the right to do it after everything he showed in this war.

Besides, he's sure Imu will start moving when he starts attacking, and it's true. Imu suddenly jumps to the left after Buggy swings Castor in his direction. But unlike before when his attacks were invisible, this slash attack is visible like other slash attacks.

Imu frowns confusedly but still decides to dodge it because he isn't sure of its effects. Buggy becomes the one who frowns next when he sees Imu controlling the lava around him. Imu creates lava projectiles to the sky and then they rain down on Buggy.

"The fuck! It's similar to Akainu's move."

Buggy destroys the lava bullets that rain down on him using Castor in his right hand. He can't use Pollux because he needs to maintain the pressure on the ground to extinguish the fire around him. But even with just one hand, Buggy manages to destroy all of the incoming lava bullets, although it's tiring.

"Control over different types of flame, incredible physical power enhancement given by transformation, and now he can even control lava. Damn! Just how many abilities he has? It doesn't even look like he ate more than 1 devil fruit like Teach in the series. Just what overpowered devil fruit that he consumed?"

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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 509. Weak Ass Rookies & 510. Clown Pirates' Tobiroppo

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

https://www.pa_treon.com/CaptMermain

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