That sword came slashing down, the blade's aura laced with searing flames. Before the edge even reached Rosinante, the scorching heat had already engulfed him.
"Oh? A flaming slash, huh? Just the fire alone is enough to be lethal—let alone the sword strike behind it," Rosinante said with a faint, almost teasing smile.
"But against me… this move won't work."
Even as he spoke, a silent power coiled around his longsword, making the blade turn eerily quiet, almost unnervingly still.
The last thing Rosinante feared was the power of a Devil Fruit. Fire-based abilities like this? He was already more than used to dealing with them.
He swung his sword, the strike utterly soundless as it cut through the air.
The two blades collided again in midair—but this time, not a single sound was heard.
It was as if the raging flames had crashed into a bottomless abyss, smothered into complete silence and slowly vanishing.
Rosinante's blade was like an endless, pitch-black chasm. No matter how fierce the impact, not even a whisper of noise escaped.
"Rosinante… actually blocked Mama's Emperor Sword?!" Daifuku exclaimed in shock.
"The flames on Mama's blade are gone!" Baron Tomago blurted.
"So this is Rosinante's Silent Power? He actually silenced Mama's Emperor Sword attack!" Cracker said, disbelief in his voice.
But just as Cracker's words fell, the massive force behind the sword drove Rosinante sliding backward across the ground.
"What a heavy blade!" Rosinante frowned.
He had indeed intercepted Charlotte Linlin's Emperor Sword strike—but the monstrous strength that followed still pushed him back relentlessly.
"This is frustrating… Where does she get this kind of monstrous strength from? Is this really human power?" Rosinante muttered irritably.
Today, Charlotte Linlin's brute force had been giving him a headache all battle.
If it were a slash powered by strength alone, or a Devil Fruit attack, Rosinante's Silent Power could neutralize it easily.
But raw, physical strength was different. He could only partially silence it once it was converted into attack power—and by then, the strike had already landed.
Even though he could mute the force after it hit him, Linlin's strength was simply too overwhelming. Time and again, it was too much to silence instantly, and he'd be sent flying through the air.
He wasn't taking any real injuries, but being knocked around like that—especially in front of the vice-captain he intended to recruit—was more than a little embarrassing.
It wasn't just that he couldn't show off—it was that he was losing face.
What Rosinante didn't know was that, even in this situation, everyone around them was already looking at him as if he were a monster. That included Katakuri.
"Zeus!" Charlotte Linlin barked.
"Yes, Mama!" Zeus morphed into a massive thundercloud and surged toward Rosinante, raining down bolts of lightning in a mad barrage.
The lightning's speed was too fast for him to silence in time—this was where the advantage of the Flowing Light War Step came in.
In the storm of lightning, Rosinante's body turned into a streak of flowing light. Competing with lightning for speed, his sharp Observation Haki combined with the Flowing Light War Step allowed him to evade every strike—no matter how close it came.
Even lightning, which was nearly as fast as light itself, couldn't touch him.
"Sky-Crushing Slash!"
In the midst of his evasive movements, Rosinante found an opening. He unleashed a flying slash, sending it hurtling toward Zeus.
Seeing the slash coming, Zeus's eyes went wide—he knew all too well how savage that blade could be.
"Ahhh! That hurts!" Despite dodging desperately, the attack still clipped part of his body.
"Looks like the biggest flaw in my flying slash is its speed. After this is over, I really need to find someone who can teach me," Rosinante muttered in dissatisfaction as Zeus escaped the brunt of the blow.
His mind began sifting through potential candidates who could train his swordsmanship.
"Maybe… I could ask him." In an instant, Rosinante had someone in mind—someone whose skill and ability made him more than qualified to teach.
"And I happen to have information he would definitely want. I'm sure he'd be happy to trade swordsmanship for it," Rosinante thought, his mood lifting immediately.
He was certain he could convince the man to teach him—after all, the news he held was something the man absolutely needed to know.
"Bastard!" Zeus roared, pouring down even more lightning until the entire battlefield was blanketed in it.
"My flying slashes might be slow… but my close-range attacks aren't!" Rosinante's voice suddenly came from above.
At some point, he had appeared right over Zeus—and in the next instant, Zeus's body was cleaved clean in half.
"B-Bastard!" Zeus shouted.
"Zeus! Come back!" Linlin commanded.
"Yes, Mama!" Zeus's form rejoined in an instant. Being made of cloud, sword strikes didn't truly harm him—but the heavy concentration of lightning he carried had been greatly reduced by Rosinante's cut, leaving large patches of his form exposed.
"Give the nun back to me!" As soon as Zeus returned, Charlotte Linlin leapt onto the cloud and charged at Rosinante in the sky.
"What's going on here?"
A voice suddenly rang out from behind the Charlotte Family.
They turned and saw a short, stocky old man walking toward them, with Oven following behind.
"It's Chef Streusen!"
"Head Chef, please come quick and see—what's wrong with Mama? It looks like one of her eating disorder fits, but it's also… different," Daifuku urged.
"Yeah, Grandpa Streusen, please check on Mama!" one added.
This little old man was not to be underestimated—he was one of the true pillars of the Big Mom Pirates.
It was under his guidance that Charlotte Linlin had grown into the fearsome pirate who terrified the world today.
Though he no longer involved himself much in the crew's day-to-day affairs, his position as the unquestioned second-in-command was undeniable—even Linlin herself treated him with great respect.
"How could something like this be happening?" Streusen looked toward the battlefield, his face suddenly shifting in shock.