Chapter 804: Uranus Breaking Free from Control
Ian’s guess… didn’t seem to be wrong!
Although the Celestial Dragons had controlled Uranus through the Guide Device, in truth, every time they made Uranus act according to their will, they were suppressing the wild nature of the dragon itself.
Uranus possessed intelligence, but at its core, it was still just a ferocious creature. When its wildness was suppressed, how much of its true power could it actually unleash?
Don’t forget, for the Celestial Dragons to control it, they had to stay near it. But Uranus’s Devil Fruit ability was immensely harmful to anyone, including the Celestial Dragons who controlled it. So, for their own safety, the Celestial Dragons had actually been suppressing Uranus’s attack power!
But now, with the Celestial Dragon dead, that suppression naturally vanished.
However, this situation caught Ian and the others off guard. Uranus suddenly erupted with tremendous power, instantly breaking free from Doflamingo’s Shadow Knight Thread restraint, letting out another roar that shook the three of them with its sonic waves.
Ian immediately sensed danger. He quickly stopped attacking Uranus, grabbed Ace, and burst into supersonic speed, flying out toward the sea beyond Amazon Lily!
Doflamingo did the same. He had been sensing Uranus’s power through the Shadow Knight Thread, and when Uranus erupted, he felt it most directly. The surging, intense rage of Uranus even transmitted through the broken threads. So, after retracting his Shadow Knight Thread, Doflamingo immediately leaped into the air in an odd posture.
He should consider himself lucky that there were still some sparse clouds in the sky above Amazon Lily at that moment; otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to escape at all!
Just as the three fled at top speed, an even larger ball of light than before appeared in Uranus’s mouth. It raised its neck, then suddenly lowered its head and spat the light ball toward the ground!
Boom! A blinding flash erupted over Amazon Lily, and immense heat instantly swept across everything on the island.
If the previous attack had only set the island ablaze, this time it could be described as melting. Countless rocks instantly turned a glowing red, then softened into magma, and began to crystallize…
After the flash came a cataclysmic explosion. A fierce shockwave instantly blew away everything movable on the island except the ground itself. The seawater around Amazon Lily boiled in an instant, and any fish in the water didn’t even have time to react before being cooked!
An even larger mushroom cloud slowly rose above Amazon Lily. Even Boa Hancock, dozens of nautical miles away, witnessed the ring-shaped shockwave erupting from the island.
Ian grabbed Ace’s arm and flew outward desperately. He was fast enough to avoid the most intense moment of the explosion, but even so, the edge of the shockwave caught them. Both spat out mouthfuls of blood midair and were blasted into the sea.
Compared to them, Doflamingo was far more unlucky. Not only was his escape speed slower than Ian’s, but just as he fled, a sudden, intense nausea hit him!
Radiation sickness chose that very moment to strike. Beyond the nausea and dizziness, Doflamingo also began showing bleeding symptoms. Blood streamed from his nose, and large patches of bloody spots appeared under his skin, as if the blood beneath was about to seep out.
These symptoms only appeared in those exposed to severe radiation, and the incubation period was usually just a few hours. Doflamingo had already been carrying these symptoms since Uranus’s first attack on the Beast Pirates. Now, hours later, they had directly manifested!
This sudden onset of radiation sickness sealed his fate. The momentary pause midair meant he couldn’t escape the explosion’s range and was directly engulfed by the blinding flash and flames…
Poor Doflamingo. He had originally hoped to help Ian in the battle to earn a chance for Ian to treat him, but he never anticipated this outcome. Now, he wouldn’t live to see Ian’s treatment…
Within the slowly rising mushroom cloud of smoke, a massive figure soared upward. Uranus spread its wings and burst through the clouds, flying high into the sky.
After rising, it hovered over Amazon Lily for a moment, then let out a victorious roar. Flapping its enormous wings, it flew off toward the distant horizon, leaving behind a hellish scene on Amazon Lily, radiating lethal heat and contamination.
After it flew away, Boa Hancock, riding two giant sea snakes, rushed to the waters where Ian and Ace had fallen. She anxiously ordered the snakes to dive to the seabed and retrieve them.
The area was already some distance from Amazon Lily. Though the seawater temperature had risen, it was still bearable. The two snakes endured the painful heat, dove underwater, found Ian and Ace, and brought them to the surface.
Due to the intense shock at close range, even Ian had fallen unconscious, let alone Ace, a Devil Fruit user.
Fortunately, Boa Hancock’s emergency rescue saved them. Otherwise, even Ian might have drowned. After rescuing them, Hancock quickly summoned Amazon Lily’s female warriors trained in first aid to perform CPR and drain the water from their lungs.
After a flurry of activity, Ian was the first to regain consciousness. He struggled to crawl on the ground, coughing violently, as if trying to cough up his lungs.
It was unbearably awful! Ian felt like every bone in his body was about to shatter. His mind buzzed, his ears heard nothing, and he felt as if he were on the verge of death.
Maintaining his last shred of calm, Ian quickly switched cards to heal himself.
He knew he had just escaped a nuclear explosion and was likely heavily irradiated. Without timely treatment, he might end up like Doflamingo.
Boa Hancock stood nearby, watching him with concern. But she knew Ian had healing abilities. The light membrane covering him now was the same one he had used to remove the Celestial Dragon’s brand from her, so she didn’t dare disturb him.
Meanwhile, Ace was revived as well. Seeing his pained expression, Ian cast a Twin Heaven Return Shield on him to treat him too.
It took a full half-hour before Ian and Ace’s complexions improved. But Ian kept the healing membrane active, not letting it fade. He turned to Boa Hancock and said, “Thank you. If not for you, we might not have made it this time…”
“That dragon… it flew away!” Boa Hancock said worriedly. “Is that going to be a problem?”
“Which direction did it go?” Ian thought for a moment and asked.
Hancock pointed southeast and said, “That way!”
Ian compared the direction and realized that Uranus wasn’t heading toward the Holy Land Mary Geoise on the Red Line. He was puzzled at first, but then it clicked.
Little Ian had inadvertently killed the Celestial Dragon controlling Uranus. Now free, Uranus naturally wouldn’t return. Ian doubted it had any fondness for those foolish Celestial Dragon controllers. In fact, Uranus had probably long wanted to break free from their control!
Thinking this, Ian felt relieved. But Ace beside him said worriedly, “Ian, without the Celestial Dragons controlling it, could Uranus become a real threat instead?”
Ian understood his meaning. The Celestial Dragons controlling Uranus was both bad and good. The bad part was that they used Uranus to commit atrocities, but the good part was that they restrained Uranus from rampaging freely. Now, Ian didn’t know what the dragon would do without its controllers.
“Doflamingo seems to be dead. He didn’t escape the explosion,” Boa Hancock added.
Ian wasn’t too surprised by Doflamingo’s death. Honestly, without supersonic flight, even he wasn’t sure he could have escaped that explosion. How could Doflamingo?
Uranus’s nuclear explosion was incredibly dangerous. The blast seemed to have no effect on it; it could release it at will. When controlled by the Celestial Dragons, they had considered their own safety and made it attack from the sky. Now, without control, Uranus had no more restraints.
The only silver lining was that the battle against Uranus hadn’t been without gains. Uranus was covered in wounds, had one eye blinded by Ace, and had lost a significant amount of its life force to Ian. It was weakened.
“Let’s leave this place. The residual radiation here is too strong,” Ian said to Boa Hancock. “Amazon Lily is destroyed. Come with me. I have many islands and territories now that can accommodate your people.”
At this mention, many of Amazon Lily’s female warriors covered their mouths and wept, staring at the island that had turned into molten rock.
This was their homeland, now destroyed in a terrible battle, all because of the Celestial Dragons’ terrifying Ancient Weapon!
Though Ian and the others bore some responsibility, since they were the ones fighting Uranus in the end, Boa Hancock and her people knew they couldn’t blame Ian. In fact, Amazon Lily had been destroyed since Uranus’s first attack on Golden Lion’s flying ship.
Now, they could only hope Ian would find them a place to settle…