Chapter 469: Vicious Drug
Garling's body suddenly gets a little bigger as his muscles bulge. His wrinkled skin is getting tighter too and his veins are popping out. Then his white hair and wings are turning red along with his eyes and skin as if he is going berserk. Though the thing that shocks Cricket the most is the small tent that suddenly shows up on Garling's crotch.
"Holy crap! What kind of drug is that, dude? Why are you suddenly getting horny? I'll tell you now that I'm straight, so I won't help you with it. I have a wife already."
Garling doesn't answer and just stares at Cricket with his bloodshot eyes. Steams come out of his mouth and body as if he is Luffy in Gear 2nd. Cricket is actually a little scared right now. He won't mind if Garling just gets a power-up. But the old man is actually getting horny, seeing how his crotch bulges.
"That must be a drug from Vegapunk."
Cricket is right, Garling injected a drug created by Vegapunk that can raise one's strength temporarily. Obviously, such a thing will have side effects and one of them is visible right now, the hardened ding-a-ling. But the main side effect is the user will get greatly weakened after the drug's effect is up.
Though Cricket doesn't know that and can't be bothered by that now because it doesn't change the fact that Garling is getting much stronger. Also, a drug made by Vegapunk won't be ordinary. At least its time limit won't be so short and it will last for minutes.
Cricket doesn't know how much stronger Garling has become, so he needs to be careful. It will be a disaster if he can't defeat or at least hold on against this Garling on crack until the old man reaches his time limit. But just holding on isn't his style, so Cricket plans to defeat Garling even though the old man is using dopping.
He is ready to fight, but Garling's new power really surprises him. Garling's speed increases so much that Cricket can't catch up to it. Before he realizes it, Garling has already arrived in front of him.
Garling slashes his sword diagonally from above and Cricket can't evade it. The sword slashes Cricket's body and the powerful force sends him fly down to the ground. Cricket crashes onto the red ground and the powerful impact cracks it until a crater appears.
But Garling isn't done yet. He points his left palm at Cricket who lies on the ground with a diagonal wound on his torso. The wound is long, but it's not deep because Cricket's dragon scales are very tough and he also managed to use his haki in the nick of time, thanks to his beast-like instincts and reflex.
He composes himself quickly and sees Garling's left palm glows brightly. Then suddenly, a white light beam is shot towards him from Garling's left palm. It's very fast and reaches his position in the blink of an eye.
A great explosion happens in Cricket's location when the white beam hits. But Garling doesn't look at it and stares forward instead. Cricket has managed to evade his attack, after all. He jumps to the sky as fast as possible using his strong legs and even his tail to propel him up at a very high speed to dodge the white beam.
Still, Cricket can't be relieved yet because Garling makes a move again. He instantly appears right in front of Cricket again and now he tries to stab Cricket. However, now Cricket is ready as he uses all his concentration on his Observation Haki to catch Garling's movements.
With his powerful Observation Haki and the instinct of a beast, Cricket manages to barely see Garling's movements. He catches Garling's sword that's about to stab his chest. Then he sends a backhand punch at Garling's face while pulling the sword.
Surprisingly, Garling doesn't even try to evade it and just takes the punch with his face. Cricket's punch hits him, but Cricket feels like he is just a normal person hitting a steel wall when his punch lands. Garling's face is really hard even for someone like Cricket.
Cricket gets over it soon and sends another attack. He flips forward to send a strong tail attack from above at Garling's head. It hits Garling really hard and sends the old Seraphim-man drops to the ground at a very high speed just like Cricket before.
He crashes onto the ground and breaks it too. But the old man just lies there without any damage. It makes Cricket clicks his tongue frustratedly. That tail attack was very powerful even though he didn't really go all-out. He didn't use advanced haki, but he surely used all his physical power that has been enhanced by his dragon power.
Cricket flies down to attack Garling with a drop kick. But the old man just catches his feet casually before throwing Cricket to the left and getting up. The power that Garling shows after taking that drug really makes Cricket wonders how powerful that drug is.
"I hope it's only him who has that drug."
Cricket is worried about his crewmates. If the other enemies also have this drug, then their power will multiply too. He wants to check for a moment, but Garling attacks him again. So he can only focus on fighting his opponent and hope that the others will be fine.
It's just as he's worried about. The other enemies also have the same drug that Garling uses and they start using it too. The 5 God's Knights and the CP-0 Chief are already injecting the drug into their bodies. As for Imu, it's still unknown whether he has that drug or not at this moment.
They are strong, but the Clown Pirates are still stronger and better at fighting because they have more experience. Also, Clown Pirates have more people and better weapons, especially firearms. Clown Pirates have the best firearm technology right now, even better than World Government.
But now that their opponents have used the drug, they start getting overwhelmed, except for Enel. His opponent, the CP-0 Chief has gotten much stronger. But he is still much faster and his opponent still can't handle his lightning.
His lightning power is restricting the CP-0 Chief's ability to absorb materials a lot. The Chief has prepared a lot of materials, but most of them are metals that obviously are weak against lightning, so he can't use them.
He has already used all his diamonds and started using the other crystals he has. They are not as hard as diamonds, but they can nullify Enel's lightning well. Enel still can use haki on his lightning, but its power is reduced because of the Chief's crystal body.
Luckily for Enel, because the other crystals aren't as hard as diamonds, he can use his advanced armament haki to break them. Combined with his lightning, his attacks become much more powerful. He uses advanced armament in all his attacks, injuring the Chief's body every time his attacks land.
The Chief finally takes the drug after being beaten up badly by Enel. He even injects 2 doses of the drug because he thinks that 1 isn't enough. As the Chief of CP-0, he is responsible for distributing this drug to his agents, so he holds some doses of the drug himself.
A dose of it is risky enough because of the side effects. This drug is still not perfect, it's still being researched by Vegapunk, but it already has a strong effect to raise one's power temporarily. However, because it's still a prototype, it might have unknown side effects.
That's why 1 dose should be the limit to avoid unknown risks. But the Chief decides to gamble his chance by taking 2 doses of the drug to make himself much stronger. His power gap with Enel is big, so he knows just 1 dose isn't enough.
After taking 2 doses, the Chief's body bulks up visibly. Just like Garling, his skin and eyes become red as steam comes out of his body. The steam is red though because it's mixed with the blood that comes out of his pores.
Maybe the blood comes out of his pores because he uses 2 doses of the drug because this doesn't happen to Garling and the others who only use 1 dose. But his power really increases much more than if he used 1 dose. His blonde hair raises like a Super Saiyan and his ding-a-ling also erects like a tower.
Enel's reaction is similar to Cricket. Well, everyone from Clown Pirates has similar reactions, including Buggy who notices that something is happening in the other battles and checks it out. Their jaws drop as their eyes pop out in disbelief seeing their opponents' outrageous changes.
The men cover their butts in fear reflexively while the women are very disgusted. Even as pirates, they rarely disrespect their enemies, but these horny guys deserve every bit of disrespect the Clown Pirates have. It's especially so for the God's Knights who are parts of World Nobles.
"It seems this drug also increases their libido along with other hormones that can raise their power. Vegapunk, what a mischievous man."
Ruff recovers from his shock quickly and makes an assumption. He knows that someone as smart as Vegapunk can avoid this effect when making this drug. But the man decided to include it to maximize the power-up effect.
"Damn, he is really ruthless."
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