Tesoro, having experienced despair, now cherishes the present even more. Stella is his reverse scale—his greatest weakness. Anyone who dares to exploit this will face his ruthless retaliation.
He works diligently for Beasts Fruits because Yamato extended a hand to him at his most helpless moment, giving him a ladder to climb and continuously rewarding him along the way.
Receiving rewards for his efforts while also seeing a future for himself—of course, he wouldn't betray them. Especially in the face of such a threat, he would never choose to compromise.
Compromise happens either never or infinitely. He loves Stella, but if he compromises to another force over this matter, it would mean laying his weakness bare for all to see.
Not only would that fail to make Stella any safer, but it would also put her in even greater danger.
No matter what he was forced to do, it would set a terrible precedent. Once greed took hold, those people would keep coercing him into more dangerous acts.
"You've got some guts, huh..."
The gold ornaments on Tesoro's body began to melt slowly. He was already considering how to deal with the CP0 agent before him. This was a signal—his attitude could very well influence the World Government's next policies.
Since the World Government hasn't resorted to force, it meant they weren't ready to flip the table just yet.
Tesoro believed this CP0 agent was merely testing the waters. If he showed weakness, the World Government would undoubtedly escalate and implement policies even more detrimental to him.
Only by being tough could he force them to adjust their policies, taking into consideration the overall situation of the seas and the Celestial Dragons' stance.
After some thought, the melting gold re-solidified. Tesoro wasn't ready to reveal this particular card just yet—he decided on a different approach.
Clang!
A chilling gleam flickered from Tesoro's fingertips, leaving a cross-shaped groove on the ground.
"Not bad. You actually dodged it."
"Tesoro, do you realize what you're doing?"
"Why are you spouting nonsense? Of course, I know exactly what I'm doing. Right now, your life is of great interest to me."
"You b*stard…! You're declaring war on the World Government!"
"No, no, no. Don't overestimate yourself. Unless I kill you in a live broadcast in front of a massive audience, that kind of situation won't happen."
Hearing the CP0 agent's words, Tesoro appeared completely at ease. The World Government had always treated CP0 as nothing more than tools—if a tool failed to perform as expected, they wouldn't hesitate to replace it with a new one.
Thanks to his connections with the Celestial Dragons, Tesoro was confident that, even in the eyes of the World Government, his value far exceeded that of a CP0 agent. They wouldn't fall out with him over something like this.
After all, this was a private matter, so it won't have too severe an impact.
"Someone like you still doesn't understand what CP0 represents?"
"I'd say you've been brainwashed too much to recognize your own position. Why don't you take a guess—if I agreed to join the World Government, and the condition was your life, do you think they'd accept?"
"To put it bluntly, in the eyes of the Celestial Dragons, whether it's you or me, we are just their dogs. When two dogs are locked in a deadly fight, and only one can be saved, they will of course choose the one they favor more."
"To say it nicely, you and I are both just chess pieces—but my value far outweighs yours."
His pupils transformed into blue compound eyes, and his arms morphed into massive stingers. Tesoro, wielding the bee stinger, attacked the CP0 agent in front of him.
The CP0 agent had initially believed Tesoro only possessed some self-defense skills. But after clashing with him, he realized just how ridiculously wrong he had been—this man was nothing like a businessman.
The twin stingers danced through the air like a fierce storm. Even though he had been trained by the World Government since childhood and had carried out countless missions, he was no match for the powerful Haki. As he narrowly dodged a lethal strike from Tesoro, he suddenly found that a golden ring had fastened around his neck.
"I've never liked you Cipher Pol agents, but you? You're definitely the one I hate the most. Since you want to please your masters so badly, then you can pay the price for it."
Under the influence of Tesoro's ability, the golden ring began to contract. The CP0 agent was instantly enveloped by a strong sense of suffocation. As he desperately struggled to break the firm gold ring, Tesoro delivered a powerful sidekick, sending him crashing into the wall.
…
"You've got a pretty strong physique. Let's see if your luck is just as good."
Tesoro didn't kill him immediately. Instead, after confirming that he had lost consciousness, he called for Baccarat. He had no intention of killing him with his own hands.
"Baccarat, your ability… it should work, right?"
"It should, but this is the first time I'm using it on a living person..."
"That's fine. Just go all out. I'll have backup plans in place. If this doesn't work, I'll have to try something else."
"Understood. I'll do my best."
Baccarat crouched down and placed her palm on the CP0 agent's forehead. It took more than ten minutes before she finally removed her hand.
As the user of the Luck-Luck Fruit, her ability provided minimal direct enhancement to combat. However, this rule-bending type of Devil Fruit often proved to be even more impossible to deal with.
Aside from a handful of powerhouses capable of using their Haki to nullify such abilities, most had no defense against it at all.
Baccarat's ability allowed her to strip away a person's luck—and there was a very specific kind of death known as "death by sheer misfortune."
For example, being struck and killed by a coconut during a beach trip, sitting in a room only to be hit by a dump truck crashing into the house, or a high-ranking general surveying a battlefield who gets taken out by their own anti-aircraft cannon. The deaths of these unlucky individuals leave people in awe of how unexpectedly misfortune can strike.
Some people survive falling from Sky Island, while others die from tripping on the stairs. Some can hold onto bombs and not get blown up, while powerful individuals might inexplicably perish in an explosion. It's hard to simply describe these people as having bad luck—it's more like they lack the "faction buff".
This was the true depth of Baccarat's mastery over the Luck-Luck Fruit. By increasing the degree of luck extraction, she could influence the course of a person's future. Even someone like Usopp wouldn't be able to escape this terrifying ability.
Afterward, Tesoro stuffed the unconscious CP0 agent into a sack and tossed him out. When the agent eventually woke up, he assumed Tesoro had chickened out at the last moment, too afraid to actually kill him.
As he prepared to report back to his superiors, he discovered that the Den Den Mushi had inexplicably stopped working, and he had also lost contact with his teammates one after another.
Since they are Den Den Mushi from the Cipher Pol, ordinary Den Den Mushi couldn't contact them. Left with no choice, he made his way to a nearby safe house. However, the moment he entered, the safehouse caught fire, nearly burning him alive.
He then attempted to take a ship back to the Red Line, but halfway through the journey, the ship hit a reef and sank. After barely managing to seize a pirate ship, just as he was about to reach his destination, a gradually enlarging magma fist came into his view...
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