The Great Voyage Begins with the Celestial Dragons

"Your Highness, is there something wrong with this fruit?"

Gion noticed Luther's unusual expression and asked him curiously.

Luther shook his head, toying with the golden crow fruit in his hand:

“The fruit is fine; Satan wouldn’t tamper with it in a place like this. The problems I’ve exposed elsewhere are far greater than the fruit.”

"Didn't Your Highness do a very good job?"

Gion was puzzled; he didn't understand what Luther had done wrong.

If she were in her shoes, she would only have done worse.

Luther smiled and asked meaningfully:

"What would you think if I were no longer a Celestial Dragon, or if the World Government took back my rights?"

“Your Highness, I have always been your personal swordsman, not because you are a Celestial Dragon.”

Gion replied with a smile, but she understood what Luther meant.

If the World Government takes back Luther's rights, then Luther will have nothing.

Those networks of connections will also collapse in an instant.

"Your Highness, can't our Don Quixote family expand?"

Gion roughly guessed Satan's thoughts and looked at Luther to confirm this guess.

“Of course we can expand, but not excessively. In the first half of the Grand Line, it’s fine to find an island to be king, but if we have ten such islands, the situation will be different,” Luther laughed.

"So Your Highness means that the quality of islands is more important than their quantity?" Gion asked, suddenly realizing.

"No, it means neither quality nor quantity is allowed; the only option is to make money, acquire land, and raise slaves," Luther chuckled.

"This is too much... We're not even free to be pirates yet," Gion said, somewhat indignantly.

“Yes, we are not as free as pirates in some aspects, but we don’t have to run around like pirates,” Luther said nonchalantly.

His Celestial Dragon origins dictate that he is one of the beneficiaries, but there are those above him who reap even greater benefits.

If all he wanted was a life of pleasure and debauchery, he could have done it now.

But if you want 100% of this world, you have to push out the people above you.

"Your Highness, aren't you angry?"

Gion tilted her head, wondering how Luther was feeling.

“There’s nothing to be angry about,” Luther said with a smile. “Gion, do you believe me?”

Ever since Gion's little trick, the two of them seem to have become closer.

“Of course I believe you, just as you believe in me!” Gion said firmly.

“So, I firmly believe we will have a better future,” Luther said with a smile.

Now that the decision has been made, we can just move forward.

Luther also wanted to see how far he could go.

"Your Highness, will you eat this fruit?"

Gion looked at the fruit in Luther's hand. It was an incredibly precious Mythical Zoan fruit, even more valuable than the Vampire Fruit she had eaten.

"Bird-Bird Fruit, Mythical Zoan Type, Golden Crow Fruit. It belongs to the Mythical Zoan type of Bird-Bird Fruit and has roughly three development paths: support path, elemental path, and physical skill path."

Luther also looked at the fruit in his hand and calmly stated its information:

"This is an extremely powerful Mythical Zoan-type Devil Fruit. After eating it, the main boost to physical attributes is speed, but it also greatly enhances strength and physique. And like most Mythical Zoan-type fruits, it grants the user the ability to fly, which is the basic ability of the Bird-Bird Fruit. Combined with its two special abilities, it is enough to place him at a very high level among Mythical Zoan-type fruits."

The Golden Crow Fruit alone is almost a combination of collective soul enhancement, calamity creation, speed enhancement, flight ability, and elementalization, perfectly matching Luther's ideas.

Gion nodded in agreement, saying:

“I’ve heard Olvia mention the three routes to this Golden Crow Fruit.”

"Just take the auxiliary route as an example. A World Government official once ate this fruit. He abandoned all development of his strength and focused on developing the Golden Crow Fruit's special ability, Incineration. I heard that at that time he was the government's most outstanding diplomat. As long as they heard his name in the visiting delegation, the member states would obediently agree to the World Government's demands."

"Ordinary people are powerless to resist natural disasters," Luther concluded.

He had naturally read the report as well.

If you put that person on an island the size of the Navy Headquarters.

It can cause all ordinary people to die of dehydration in 5 minutes, all vegetation to wither and die in 10 minutes, ships on the shore to spontaneously combust in 15 minutes, and the island to become barren in 20 minutes. The seawater within the area will also be continuously evaporated. Even a naval captain cannot withstand it in 30 minutes. It can make the island uninhabitable for humans for 5 years in just 2 hours.

The ability to create natural disasters alone was enough to tempt Luther.

Luther wasn't thinking about using this ability to exhaust the stamina of top-tier experts; instead, he was considering its impact on the environment.

Incineration can cause the ambient temperature to rise rapidly, resulting in a scene resembling a natural disaster.

Such natural disasters are harmless to top-tier experts, as Armament Haki is sufficient to isolate them from the effects of temperature.

However, Armament Haki can only protect oneself, but it cannot protect the ship beneath one's feet.

Without a Devil Fruit user with the ability to cool down like the Ice-Ice Fruit, Incinerate could easily destroy the enemy's ship on the high seas.

Combined with the Bird-Bird Fruit's inherent flight ability, it can be said that, apart from some strong individuals without Devil Fruits who can swim, it can defeat almost all Devil Fruit users.

Even if opposing Devil Fruit users can fly, they ultimately cannot compete with the Bird-Bird Fruit in flight. Maintaining Moonwalk while airborne requires an extraordinary amount of stamina.

Moreover, if they don't find a place to stay, they will eventually run out of energy.

If a person with superpowers falls into the sea, they will lose their ability to resist.

This is the curse of the sea on Devil Fruits; currently, no Devil Fruit user has been able to completely eliminate the effects of the seawater.

Moreover, top-tier powerhouses are also social creatures, and their catastrophic abilities can cause widespread destruction; this is the true nuclear deterrent.

"Even without mentioning the ability to burn, its elemental development alone is no weaker than that of the natural element."

Gion, recalling Olvia's analysis, said again:

"Elemental development focuses on cultivating the Sun's Fire. The Sun's Fire possesses immense destructive power, equivalent to consuming a highly developed Flame-Flame Fruit; further refinement can even grant the ability of pseudo-elemental transformation."

"The strongest ability user who has followed this path over the years was a Marine Admiral. With his Solar Flame, his strength is said to be no weaker than that of Admiral Akainu."

As for the final path of physical development, it follows a common route for almost all Zoan-type Devil Fruits.

In short, it's about strengthening the body and cultivating domineering aura; there's nothing particularly novel about it.

Do you think I should eat this fruit?

Luther raised the fruit with a half-smile and asked one last question.

Gion chuckled softly and said with a smile:

"Your Highness, whether I eat or not, it will not shake my belief that I will protect you."

“You wouldn’t have answered like that before,” Luther laughed.

"Hmm... Perhaps Your Highness doesn't know me well enough." Gion's red lips curled slightly.

"Then I must work hard to understand you thoroughly as soon as possible."

Luther smiled, raised the Golden Crow Fruit in his hand, opened his mouth, and took a bite.

Chapter 45 Eating the Fruit

“yuē!”

Luther's defenses were immediately broken after taking a bite of the fruit.

Even though he prided himself on his exceptional endurance, he still revealed a contorted expression, as if he were constipated.

I know Devil Fruits taste bad, but they can't possibly taste this bad.

Having some experience, Gion promptly offered her a glass of water.

Luther quickly grabbed it and shoved it into his mouth, trying to get rid of the taste.

At that moment, Luther's eyes turned gold, and his body underwent some changes.

hum! ! !

Suddenly, his two arms transformed into a pair of enormous crimson-gold wings, which, when spread out, were a full 5 meters long, quite matching Luther's height.

At the same time, many golden feathers appeared all over his body, making Luther look even more majestic.

From Gion's perspective, Luther's transformation into the Golden Crow form did not make him an oddball; instead, it added to his nobility and mystery.

With those majestic golden eyes, his aura was elevated to another level.

Wow!

Luther raised his head slightly, and a dozen or so golden flames appeared around him.

He had a feeling that he could control these few balls of solar flames as easily as waving his arm.

"Your Highness, this fruit is very strong. Even from a distance, I can still feel its intense heat."

Gion took two steps back, still able to feel the scorching heat emanating from the sun's fire, as well as the intense heat from Luther's unconscious activation of the Incineration.

“Let’s go, let me try this fruit, and while I’m at it, let that old man Satan know that I’m following his plans.”

As soon as Luther finished speaking, he appeared at the palace gate.

All that could be seen was the flapping of his wings; no trace of his movement was left behind.

"Wow, so fast...more than three times faster than before..."

Gion sighed and quickly estimated Luther's current speed.

Even the boost from eating the Vampire Fruit wasn't this high; it was only about twice as much as before.

She even felt that this wasn't Luther's full strength at the moment.

Once Luther masters the fruit's abilities, her strength will definitely be no less than it was before she obtained the Vampire Fruit.

Seeing Luther wave his wings at her, Gion stopped thinking about it.

With bat wings extending from its back, it also rushed outwards at an extremely fast speed.

The two of them, one in front of the other, recklessly swept across the holy land, heading in a direction far away from the city.