Right now, a herd of a thousand mythical beasts was stampeding through Drake's mind. This person is not normal!
A Marine!
Only now did Drake notice the coat of Justice draped over Mitian. Damn it, a Marine had infiltrated their camp, so why hadn't Ace made a move yet?
Drake frantically tried to gather spatial tremor energy into his hands, but no matter how hard he willed it, his powers refused to respond. In that exact microsecond, the fiery red silhouette flashed before him, and a flurry of fists and kicks rained down from the inferno.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Not a single inch of his body escaped Mitian's frenzied assault. Her target was exceptionally clear: she was actively aiming for his face, subjecting him to a completely ruthless storm of blows.
"Drake!" Luffy's eyes widened, his words faltering. "Ace, Drake is getting totally suppressed by that Marine." He looked rather anxious. "We should step in, quick! Otherwise, the Marines are gonna cart Drake off."
Ace patted Luffy's shoulder, keeping his eyes fixed on the pair "trading blows" in the upper sky. With a deeply meaningful look, he remarked, "Luffy, you don't understand. This is love."
The crowd: "..."
Luffy: "???"
Having spoken, Ace cast a casual, passing glance toward Yamato, who was currently admiring the battle in the heavens, before smoothly withdrawing his gaze.
In the distance, X Drake's mind was churning with absolute, speechless bewilderment. What on earth is the narrative here? Is this Drake really Vice Admiral Mitian's husband?
High above, Drake was the most utterly blindsided of them all. For some inexplicable reason, his immense strength had completely failed to manifest. He was subjected to a purely one-sided beating—and she kept hitting his face!
"Ace!" Drake bellowed, seizing a brief fraction of an opening.
He was rapidly approaching absolute despair. Ace and the others should have easily witnessed his predicament by now, so why hadn't a single soul come to his rescue? In this brief span of time, Drake had been pummeled to the point where his cheeks were heavily swollen, leaving him looking like a textbook pig's head.
To make matters worse, with every few strikes she landed, Mitian would loudly lament her grievances to the heavens, sobbing about her tragic plight as if they truly were a bickering young married couple.
But Drake knew full well this psycho had been fabricating a lie from the very first syllable. He hadn't even held a girl's hand in his life, so how could he suddenly possess a wife? And "husband"... I...
Initially, Drake assumed a thoroughly garbage ploy like this could never deceive Ace. It was an absolute joke. Yet Ace hadn't made a single hostile movement. In fact... out of the corner of his eye, Drake could faintly discern a look of intense, playful teasing in Ace's expression.
That look seemed to say: When did you get married without telling anyone?
Worse still... he could even detect a lingering trace of envy!
What the hell! What was wrong with this world? How could Ace display an expression like that?
Meanwhile, Mitian grew increasingly excited the more she fought, driving Drake further and further away until they were on the absolute verge of vanishing from the crowd's line of sight.
Ultimately, Drake seized a final opportunity, screaming at the top of his lungs, "Luffy! Save me!!"
Under these parameters, appealing to Luffy was his safest tactical bet. After all, Luffy's pure simplicity was the absolute ultimate antidote to psychological manipulation. On that front, Drake remained exceptionally confident.
"Ace! Drake is actively calling out to us for assistance!" Luffy turned his gaze back to his brother.
Ace merely offered him a mysterious, knowing smirk. "Luffy, that's where your lack of experience shows. Given Drake's monumental strength, do you honestly believe he requires your rescue?"
"From the very first exchange until now, he hasn't returned a single blow or uttered a single word of retaliation. Clearly, he simply doesn't want to."
"If you barge in to intervene right now, Drake will definitely blame you later," Ace stated to Luffy with absolute certainty.
Hearing the explanation, a wave of realization washed over Luffy. Oh, right! Given Drake's combat capabilities, even when trading blows with a Yonko, he had never been thrown into such a pathetic state. Clearly, he was doing this on purpose.
The surrounding fighters, who had previously been entirely baffled by Drake's passivity, began nodding their heads in unison upon hearing Ace's deduction. It all made perfect sense now. Given Drake's strength, even if the woman was formidable, he couldn't possibly look this miserable unless he was intentionally yielding to her.
"I never would have guessed that Drake possessed such a delicate and tender side," Kenshin couldn't help but marvel, a wave of emotion washing over him. At the same time, he felt a bit surprised; how had he never heard Drake mention this woman before? This level of operational security was exceptionally tight. It didn't seem to match Drake's usual open style.
Had Drake been privy to Kenshin's internal monologue at this moment, he would have forcefully spat out a massive mouthful of fresh blood. You bastards aren't coming to help, and yet you're standing there getting emotionally moved by a delusion?!
Even a deeply skeptical X Drake gradually accepted this version of reality. After all, the indisputable fact remained that Drake wasn't striking back. How could that be faked? A pirate permitting a Marine to unleash her arsenal without offering a single counter—compounded by the fact that they had witnessed Drake's devastating power with their own eyes—meant he was glaringly letting her win.
Seeing Luffy nod his head with absolute, solemn agreement, Drake felt so touched he could nearly weep. Luffy truly is the best. Women really did nothing but disrupt fraternal bonds; Ace, their eldest brother, had already begun to systematically align his loyalties with an outsider...
However, the moving expression on Drake's face instantly froze in the next fraction of a second. Luffy actually sat right back down, burying his face in his food as he began to merrily gorge himself. He cast a thoroughly amused glance back toward Drake's coordinate, treating the entire affair like a spectator sport.
Drake: "..."
Slowly closing his eyes, Drake assumed a posture of absolute resignation. He accepted his fate. Now that even Luffy had abandoned his rescue, the last drop of warmth had deserted this blighted world.
Witnessing Drake's total submission, a triumphant smirk curled upon Mitian's lips. Flapping her magnificent wings with tremendous force, she transformed into a concentrated column of red light, rocketing straight toward him.
KABOOM!
Drake was violently blasted through the horizon, vanishing entirely into the distant sky.
Two vibrant, scarlet feathers drifted lazily through the empty air, and the thunder of their chaotic struggle finally ceased.
The spectators below were left entirely dumbfounded. This was a bit too...
Ace stared toward the horizon where the two had vanished, letting out a soft sigh of admiration. Drake's wife was truly a force of nature; her disciplinary strikes were catastrophically ruthless.
"Um... Drake won't face any actual danger, right?" Luffy hesitated for a beat, asking blankly.
"Not a chance!" Ace shook his head with absolute conviction. "Didn't you catch that peaceful look of absolute satisfaction on Drake's face right when he closed his eyes?"
Luffy reconstructed the memory in his mind, and sudden realization dawned upon him. Right before Drake vanished, he had indeed closed his eyes.
Ah, I see! So that's how it is!
The remaining doubts harboring within the minds of the alliance vanished instantly upon hearing the analysis. Everything was perfectly clear now.
"Alright, everyone! Let's get back to the banquet!" Ace waved his arm, loudly rallying the crowd.
"Shishishi..." Luffy grinned broadly, returning to his frantic, massive eating as the festivities resumed their roaring momentum.
Kenshin and the others exchanged a collective glance, helplessly throwing up their hands in unison. They had no understanding of the underlying parameters of this situation. But judging by the dynamics, that woman was likely an old acquaintance of Drake's.
Meanwhile, far away from the clearing, Drake felt entirely hollowed out, having thoroughly looked past the illusions of the mortal realm. An exceptionally proud and unbridled young powerhouse like him had been systematically dismantled and brutally beaten by a woman without a single shred of rhyme or reason. His face was practically unrecognizable. At this rate, his actual survival was hanging by a thread.
"Are you truly Vale D. Drake? Why are you so pathetic?"
Mitian hovered poised in the empty air, casting a cold, detached glance down at the heavily mutilated, half-dead Drake.
Drake lay completely paralyzed on the stone floor, propped unsteadily against the sheer cliffside of a small mountain. The light had completely deserted the young man's eyes...
Faced with Mitian's dismissive query, Drake offered zero physical response. But inside his mind, his soul was screaming frantically for help.
He still possessed a final, ultimate trump card—an absolute ace up his sleeve that he would never easily deploy unless pushed to the absolute brink of total annihilation!