As evening approached, the extraordinarily luxurious auction house was bathed in the warm glow of the setting sun.
The seats inside were already full, and the air was thick with the scent of money and power intertwined.
Everyone present was either rich or noble, all figures who could stir up storms in this pirate world.
However, none of them could compare to Yun Lie in terms of wealth.
Ever since Yun Lie acquired that mountain of gold from Sky Island, his wealth had reached an astonishing level.
Although the World Government had deep foundations, Yun Lie didn't care about the total amount of their wealth; he only knew that in this world, when it came to richness, he had already reached the pinnacle.
Even Tesoro, the Golden Emperor, who was said to possess twenty percent of the world's wealth, might only be slightly inferior to him.
Inside the venue, with Saint Charlos, a Celestial Dragon, present, the auction seemed to have been injected with an adrenaline shot, starting its curtain call early.
Initially, what was brought onto the auction stage were all slaves who had been reduced to commodities.
Those pirate Captains who once dominated the seas now had eyes filled with despair and unwillingness; there were also beautiful women from various races, trembling and with fear etched onto their lovely faces.
All of this, in the eyes of these powerful figures, was merely goods that could be bought and sold at will.
Yun Lie sat there quietly, his face calm.
He was not an innocent do-gooder; he knew that in this world where the strong preyed on the weak, rashly trying to save these slaves would not only fail to save them all but might also cause those deranged human traffickers to escalate their efforts, capturing and selling even more innocent people.
This was Doflamingo's auction house, and thanks to Doflamingo's prestige, no one dared to cause trouble here, so the auction proceeded quite rapidly.
"The final three items are the grand finales meticulously prepared by our auction house! Ladies and gentlemen, please look at the first item!" The person in charge of the auction house exclaimed excitedly, pulling down the curtain of the cage with a loud shout.
The creature in the cage instantly came into view, revealing a young girl with wings.
Her angelic, delicate face was now filled with terror, her body trembling as she huddled in the corner of the cage, her pure white wings drooping weakly.
This scene instantly sent the entire auction house into a frenzy, with exclamations of awe and excited shouts erupting from the crowd.
However, Yun Lie's expression instantly turned grim, his gaze becoming as cold as ice.
He was all too familiar with the young girl on the stage; it was Conis from Sky Island.
With Conis appearing on the auction stage, Yun Lie knew in his heart that something must have happened after he left Sky Island.
Conis's auction price soared like a rocket, reaching fifty million beli in the blink of an eye.
Just as everyone was still marveling at this price, a sharp and arrogant voice rang out: "Eighty million beli!"
It was Saint Charlos, the Celestial Dragon, speaking, his condescending tone as if eighty million beli was a trivial sum.
This shout instantly silenced everyone else present.
In this world, the Celestial Dragons represented supreme power, and no one dared to openly contend with a World Noble.
Everyone fell silent, their eyes filled with either helplessness or fear.
Seeing this, the auction house manager did not hesitate to finalize Conis's ownership.
Under everyone's gaze, Conis was pulled by a rope on her hand by a middle-aged man, walking out in a disheveled manner.
Conis's eyes were full of despair, and when she saw Saint Charlos's lecherous gaze brazenly appraising her, the despair in her heart spread endlessly like an abyss.
She struggled desperately, her delicate body appearing so helpless under the middle-aged man's tugging, but her resistance seemed so futile in the face of such powerful force.
"Behave!" The middle-aged man, seeing Conis resist, showed a fierce expression, quickly grabbed a stun gun from his pocket, and viciously moved to teach Conis a lesson.
"Boom!" Conis fearfully squeezed her eyes shut, her body trembling violently from fright, awaiting the imagined sharp pain of the electric shock.
However, the pain did not come as expected; instead, there was a deafening crash.
"Don't move, I'll unlock your collar." An incredibly familiar voice echoed in Conis's mind.
She slowly opened her eyes and saw Yun Lie's tall figure standing steadily in front of her.
And the middle-aged man who had just been fiercely pulling her was now gone without a trace, leaving only a striking, large human-shaped hole in the adjacent wall.
"Yun Lie-kun!" Seeing Yun Lie, Conis was as if she had seen a ray of light in the darkness; tears of excitement burst forth, and she called out Yun Lie's name, sobbing uncontrollably.
Yun Lie quickly inserted the key he had just taken from the middle-aged man's pocket into the collar around Conis's neck, and with a "click," the collar opened.
Yun Lie gently embraced the crying girl and softly comforted her, "It's alright now, you're safe."
"Hey! That's my property! Let her go!"
Just then, Saint Charlos's angry voice boomed like a clap of thunder.
As soon as he finished speaking, "Bang!" a crisp gunshot rang out, and Saint Charlos directly pulled the trigger, a bullet shooting towards Yun Lie like a meteor.
In his eyes, Yun Lie was merely a lowly commoner who dared to snatch his "property" and must die.
But who was Yun Lie?
He merely tilted his head slightly, and with lightning speed, he deftly dodged the fatal bullet.
"Shichibukai Yun Lie, we hope you give us a satisfactory answer!"
Almost simultaneously, several CP agents and numerous bodyguards of Saint Charlos instantly surrounded Yun Lie like a tide, with the leading CP agent sternly and unceremoniously questioning him.
"An answer? Hahaha, my friend was auctioned off by you people, and you want me to give you an answer? Get lost!"
Yun Lie laughed in extreme anger, his laughter filled with fury and disdain.
He held Conis's delicate body tightly, and a vast and boundless Conqueror's Haki, like a surging tsunami, instantly enveloped the entire auction house, centered on him.
In an instant, almost ninety-nine percent of everyone present seemed to be struck by an invisible, powerful force and collapsed instantly.
They either fainted directly or foamed at the mouth, leaving the scene in disarray.
Only a few CP agents and bodyguards, relying on their strong will, trembled, their veins bulging on their arms and thighs; they self-mutilated with daggers to bleed, barely managing to stay conscious.
It's over!
This was the only thought in their minds. They had never imagined that Yun Lie would actually dare to make a move in front of a Celestial Dragon, and that merely with his Conqueror's Haki, he would push them into such a desperate situation, forcing them to resort to self-mutilation to stay awake.
"An answer, this is the answer I'm giving you. Take it and report back to those five old men!" Yun Lie sneered, a pistol appearing in his hand at some point.
"Bang!" A gunshot, and the bullet, as if it had eyes, precisely struck the third leg of the unconscious Saint Charlos.
This shot contained Yun Lie's endless fury.
"Ow!" Saint Charlos was jolted awake by the sudden, intense pain, but then fainted again from the overwhelming agony.
All of this happened so quickly, catching everyone off guard.
"Take that pig and get out!"
Yun Lie ultimately chose not to kill Saint Charlos, but this shot effectively removed the source of Saint Charlos's troubles.
He knew that killing a Celestial Dragon would lead to even more terrible consequences, but if he didn't teach Charlos a lesson, he wouldn't feel at peace.
Seeing Saint Charlos's miserable state, those CP agents instantly rushed to his side, frantically picked him up, and then, like stray dogs, quickly left the auction house.
They knew in their hearts that they had to take Saint Charlos for treatment immediately, otherwise, death would be a luxury for them.
"Spatial Vortex: Devour!"
Looking at the people lying on the ground like "corpses," Yun Lie picked up Conis and walked out with determined steps.
As they reached the entrance, a massive vortex appeared out of nowhere in the auction house.
This vortex seemed to possess endless suction, and the entire auction house, in an instant, seemed to be erased by some mysterious and powerful force, leaving only an empty plot of land, as if a luxurious auction house had never existed there.