The next day, at noon, on Onigashima in Wano Country.
Large swathes of land on the northern coast were completely shattered.
Two massive figures stood tall.
One had wild black hair and a messy beard, a spiked mace crackling with purple lightning resting on his shoulder.
The other, an obese woman in a pink dress, stood upon a thundercloud with crimson flames wrapped around her hands. The purple lipstick on the corners of her mouth made her look utterly terrifying.
In the air hovered a golden-haired, balding old man with a cigar in his mouth.
He laughed loudly: "You brats really don't know the height of the heavens."
Not far ahead, across the broken earth, several figures lay scattered.
Luffy's eyes were white, his consciousness gone. He was covered in blood, and his straw hat lay discarded in the distance.
Zoro was also heavily wounded. Of his three blades, only the Great Grade sword, Wado Ichimonji, remained intact. The other two were snapped, their broken remains thrust into the dirt. With a face stained with blood, he looked around.
Sanji's legs were broken at strange, twisted angles as he lay on the ground spitting blood.
Usopp's face was swollen and bruised purple, his body curled like a shrimp as he groaned in pain.
Chopper had reverted from his transformation; his small form lay face-down on the ground in a pool of blood.
Standing before the defeated group were two of the Four Emperors.
Kaido of the Beasts.
Big Mom, Charlotte Linlin.
Flying in the air was Golden Lion Shiki.
Usopp peered through his swollen eyes at the scene, his expression filled with despair and bitterness.
Last night hadn't been a dream; it had been a warning from his Observation Haki. That terrifying nightmare had become a reality today.
They had landed on Onigashima earlier only to find Kaido and the others waiting for them.
It seemed their movements had been exposed, and the members of the Beasts Pirates had mistaken Zoro for Shimotsuki Ryuma of the Jinghai Army.
Kaido, Big Mom, and Shiki had been prepared for a fight, only to realize they were fakes.
Kaido had hammered Gear 4 Luffy back to his original form with a single swing, knocking him out instantly.
"Brat, what kind of king did you say you were going to be?" Kaido asked coldly.
The unconscious Luffy twitched on the ground, seemingly hearing the words, but his body's self-preservation mechanism kept him from waking.
Charlotte Linlin mocked: "Pirate King? Even I wouldn't dare say such a thing now."
The existence of the Jinghai Army and Luo Chen was like an insurmountable wall. Until Luo Chen fell, no one could become the Pirate King again.
On one hand, the Jinghai Army was about to wipe out all pirates. On the other, the Road Poneglyph she once possessed now belonged to Luo Chen. To reach Laugh Tale, one had to obtain the Road Poneglyph from Luo Chen's hands.
Currently, there wasn't a single pirate in the world capable of doing so.
Shiki sneered: "Why waste words on these brats?"
He swept his cold, murderous gaze over the still-conscious Zoro and Usopp. "I didn't expect you to find your way here. Today, you die on Onigashima."
Shiki swept his leg through the air, his longsword leg-blade unleashing a wave of sword energy toward Luffy.
He intended to kill them all, starting with the Straw Hat kid who shouted about becoming the Pirate King. Since Carina had become his navigator, there was no way he'd let her go back.
Zoro and Usopp watched the approaching sword energy in despair. No one could block this hit. They had all lost the ability to fight.
Franky and Brook likely didn't even know where they were. There would be no reinforcements.
The sword energy struck Luffy. Zoro and Usopp even saw the skin on Luffy's chest tear open, blood splashing as his beating heart was exposed.
But just as the energy was about to shred his heart, a monstrous surge of Haki erupted from Luffy's body!
The Conqueror's Haki manifested as a physical shockwave, blasting out in all directions. Shiki's sword energy was torn apart like fragile paper.
The Haki swept across everything. The entirety of Onigashima, and even Wano Country, was enveloped in this pressure.
In Wano, the people working in the factories felt their hearts skip a beat, looking up at the sky in confusion. No one knew why they suddenly felt such overwhelming anxiety and suffocating pressure. Thunder roared in the clear sky like a daytime storm.
On Onigashima, the members of the Beasts Pirates in the castle and across the island collapsed, their eyes rolling back. Even the Three Calamities behind Kaido were drenched in cold sweat, kneeling as their bodies trembled.
Shiki dropped straight from the sky, crashing into a large crater.
Kaido and Charlotte Linlin looked on with inexplicable shock, staring fixedly at Luffy.
What was that Conqueror's Haki just now? It erupted from the Straw Hat kid's body, but it didn't feel like his. It was as if someone else was hidden inside him, releasing that Haki.
"Doom—Dut—Da—Da!"
A powerful drumming sound began to echo from Luffy's heart.
Kaido's brow twitched. His mace hung by his side as he narrowed his eyes.
Charlotte Linlin's pirate hat transformed into a massive blade, wreathed in crimson flames. She swung it down. She had an ominous feeling about the unconscious Straw Hat. She had to eliminate him before that feeling became reality.
The massive blade flare unleashed by Charlotte Linlin was far more powerful than Golden Lion's.
Zoro and Usopp were snapped out of their shock by the change in Luffy, but they were powerless to help.
The strike slammed into Luffy's position, kicking up a vast cloud of dust. The shockwave sent Zoro, Usopp, and Chopper tumbling back over ten meters.
"Luffy!" Usopp screamed in worry.
Zoro gritted his teeth, his expression tense.
"Heh heh heh... Hahahaha!"
A loud, clear laugh rang out from within the dust. The sound waves blew the debris away.
A figure radiating a brilliant white light appeared, bouncing across the broken earth of Onigashima. The hard soil beneath his feet now seemed like a trampoline. As the white figure leaped and landed, the ground rippled up and down like soft ocean waves.
Usopp froze, muttering: "Lu... Luffy?"
The white figure's face was still Luffy's, but his hair had turned pure white, emitting a warm, faint glow. That reassuring laughter and the constant, loud drumming from his heart made Usopp feel as though his pain had vanished. He had never seen Luffy in such a form.
Zoro stared at Luffy for a moment before suddenly saying: "It seems... it's not Luffy."
The face and voice were the same, but the eyes were entirely different. Though the white figure's eyes held laughter, they also carried an indescribable sense of nostalgia and ancient weariness. Luffy wouldn't have eyes like those.
Kaido stared at Luffy, frowning as he asked: "Who are you?"
Charlotte Linlin's expression turned solemn. The change in the Straw Hat kid was too drastic. Most importantly, that Conqueror's Haki from before shared the same source as this white figure's aura. That meant the Haki that surpassed even her own came from this person.
"Luffy" bounced and flipped through the air, appearing full of joy.
His laughter-filled voice drifted over: "Heh heh heh, hahahaha... Just call me Joy Boy."
The expressions of Kaido, Charlotte Linlin, and Shiki—who had just crawled out of his crater—shifted violently.
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