Enel's long earlobes trembled slightly, and for the first time, cracks appeared in that trademark "divine contempt" expression.
Gold?
Endless gold?
"Yahahaha! A mere metal dares act up before a god?"
Enel laughed wildly. He raised his right hand high, pressed his index and middle fingers together, and aimed at the golden tide that blotted out the sky.
"One Hundred Million Volts, Discharge!"
A blinding surge of lightning erupted from his fingertips, forming a thick spear of thunder that slammed precisely into the heart of the golden wave.
But the scene he expected, metal melting, the wave collapsing, never came.
The violent lightning, the instant it touched the gold, vanished like a clay ox sinking into the sea, swallowed, absorbed, and conducted by that enormous golden flood.
The golden surge only hesitated for a split second, then roared forward with even greater fury.
Enel's pupils shrank.
Conductivity. He had overlooked the most basic physical property of gold.
Just as Enel was about to call his men to block it, a familiar eerie laugh came from behind him.
"Shishishishishi… brat, you're not fighting just one opponent."
Gecko Moria's body began to warp and stretch along with the laughter, sinking into the rapidly expanding shadow beneath his feet.
The next second, a terrifying demon god of pure darkness, nearly a hundred meters tall, burst from the ground.
Twin horns. A hulking frame. And a face identical to Moria's.
Its colossal shadow swallowed the Upper Yard, bringing an oppressive pressure that choked the air.
The hope that had just risen in the people's hearts was instantly doused by that evil aura.
"Lord Gan Fall… th this man…" one of the Shandian warriors stammered, face pale.
"He… he doesn't look like a good guy!"
Cold sweat beaded on Gan Fall's forehead too. How had he invited someone who looked even more sinister than Enel?
But Moria didn't care about the fear of ants below.
The shadow demon god he became merely willed it.
"Kingdom of Shadows."
Whoosh.
Across the cloud surface of the Upper Yard, countless strands of pitch black shadow spread like living things, shooting out with precision and coiling around every priest and divine soldier Enel had, both on the Ark and on the clouds.
Those warriors, who only moments ago had been charging with murderous momentum, didn't even have time to scream.
They were dragged into the shadows and erased in an instant, vanishing as if they had never existed.
One strike.
Enel's painstakingly built priest corps was annihilated.
The once unstoppable invader was reduced to a lone commander, Enel standing by himself at the prow of the Ark.
For a heartbeat, the Upper Yard fell into deathly silence.
Then the residents erupted into thunderous cheers.
The situation flipped in an instant.
Enel's face turned iron blue. He didn't even have time to rage over his men's disappearance, because the golden tide of death was already upon him.
"Bastards!"
He roared, his body turning into a streak of electricity as he barely dodged the crashing gold wave.
Boom!!!
The Ark took the golden tide head on. Before an even more overwhelming ocean of gold, it was swallowed, assimilated, and finally merged into the surge, disappearing without a trace.
Tesoro stood upon the clouds, one hand lifting lightly.
Behind him, the golden tide churned and reshaped, forming a golden giant comparable in size to Moria's shadow demon.
"Do you see now, Enel?"
Tesoro's voice resonated through the golden giant, echoing across the sky with a confidence and exhilaration he had never felt before.
"Before absolute wealth, even a so called god is nothing but a joke!"
"You're dead!"
Enel snapped completely, his body flickering into afterimages as countless beams of lightning fired from every direction at the golden giant.
"Thunder Metallurgy!"
Tesoro barked.
Countless fine patterns bloomed across the golden giant's surface, swallowing every lightning strike and then channeling it down through the clouds into the endless White Sea below.
In an instant, the sea of clouds beneath crackled and boiled with thunder, the spectacle grand and terrifying.
"It's useless." Tesoro's voice went cold. "Your lightning will only become the perfect fuel to refine my gold!"
Enel's gaze sharpened. He flashed to the top of the golden giant in an instant.
"Two Hundred Million Volts, Raijin!"
He released all his power without restraint, transforming into a massive thunder god made of pure electricity, a lightning trident in hand, stabbing straight down at the golden giant's head.
One of his strongest forms.
But at the moment the strike should have landed, the golden giant's surface suddenly liquefied, becoming a vast golden vortex that swallowed Enel's Raijin form whole.
"Golden Splash!"
Tesoro slammed his palms together.
Trapped inside, Enel felt pressure surge from all sides. Liquid gold, as if alive, tried to bore into his body.
"Not a chance!"
Enel roared. His Raijin form detonated, the violent lightning blowing the golden giant's upper body into pieces. Streams of liquid gold and shattered chunks sprayed in every direction.
Enel reformed in midair, panting hard, his face slightly pale.
He stared down at the man below, and for the first time, he felt true trouble.
Tesoro panted as he watched the golden fragments scatter across the sky, yet the corner of his mouth lifted.
Gold could blunt lightning's offense, but it couldn't fully suppress it. If he didn't have Shandora's gold reserves behind him, he'd have struggled to endure. But…
Those fragments didn't fall.
They dissolved into golden dust so fine it was almost invisible, drifting with the air currents, silently spreading through the entire battlefield.
The fight had only just begun.
What followed became the purest kind of duel, raw power against technique.
Using the insane mobility granted by the Rumble Rumble Fruit, Enel flickered through the sky. Every time he appeared, it came with world shattering thunder.
"Thirty Million Volts, Thunder Bird!"
"Thirty Million Volts, Thunder Beast!"
"Sixty Million Volts, Thunder Dragon!"
Lightning beasts of every shape roared as they charged Tesoro.
Tesoro answered constancy with constancy.
Gold surged from beneath his feet like an endless spring, forming defenses and weapons in ever changing shapes.
Countless razor sharp golden chains shot up from the clouds to snare Enel, only to be dodged again and again at near light speed.
Their battle raged from above the Upper Yard down into the depths of the White Sea, then back up to Angel Island.
With every collision, more gold was shattered by lightning, becoming even finer powder suspended in the air.
Enel's Mantra could sense the battlefield's movements, but it wasn't fine tuned enough to distinguish those metallic particles blending into the environment.
With every breath he took, he was inhaling his own death, little by little.
Hours passed in brutal combat.
Enel's stamina steadily drained, while Tesoro, backed by the entire City of Gold, fought like he had an infinite supply.
"Damn it…" Enel panted. He knew he couldn't drag this out any longer.
A ruthless light flashed in his eyes. He decided to unleash the move he had kept as his trump card.
He flew high above the clouds, spread his arms wide, and pulled the thunderclouds of all Skypiea toward himself.
In an instant, the sky darkened.
A colossal black sphere of thundercloud formed over the Upper Yard, the energy within so horrifying that everyone below trembled in their souls.
"That's… Raigo!" Gan Fall screamed. "He's going to destroy the entire island!"
"It's over, Blue Sea man!" Enel's voice boomed like divine judgment. "Under the ultimate punishment of a god, become dust!"
Tesoro lifted his gaze to the black thunder sphere capable of wiping out an island, his eyes more serious than ever.
He knew this was the final opening.
"Golden City!"
He mobilized all his gold at once, building above his head a magnificent city model of intricate, dazzling design.
It was the strongest defense he could create.
At the instant Enel was about to detonate Raigo, Tesoro suddenly released control, letting the enormous golden city model drop toward the ground.
And he himself burst upward at top speed, charging straight at Enel in the sky.
Enel froze for a split second, then smiled cruelly.
Suicide.
He didn't hesitate. He split off a powerful bolt of lightning and blasted it at the onrushing Tesoro.
Tesoro didn't dodge.
The lightning pierced his left shoulder, and blood instantly dyed half his body red.
The pain forced a muffled groan from him, but his eyes burned brighter than ever.
Now!
In the instant he was struck, he also closed the distance, grabbing Enel's arm with a death grip.
"Got you…" Tesoro bared his teeth, his blood covered smile radiant.
He roared and triggered the trap he had planted all along.
Enel was about to sneer, when his body suddenly stiffened.
An indescribable agony exploded from his lungs, his heart, every inch of his body.
He looked down in terror and saw points of gold light seeping from beneath his skin.
The golden dust he had inhaled, under Tesoro's will, condensed and hardened in an instant, locking his body from the inside.
"Y you bastard…"
"I told you." Tesoro endured the agony in his shoulder, still gripping Enel's arm. His other hand clenched into a fist, gathering the last of his strength into a single point.
"You're not worthy to be a god."
"Now become a real 'idol'!!!"
One punch slammed into Enel's chest.
With that punch, endless gold erupted from Tesoro's fist and engulfed Enel completely.
The gold solidified, shaping and hardening.
In midair, a pure golden statue dozens of meters tall took form.
Its pose was Enel's grotesque "divine" stance, frozen forever.
Tesoro released his grip. His body finally gave out, and he fell from the sky.
Behind him, the massive black thunder sphere, Raigo, lost control and slowly dissipated.
The heavens brightened once more.