As the two Knights of God hit the ground with dull thuds, crimson blood spreading beneath their feet, Dragon stood staring at the black-haired youth before him, hands dripping red. His expression was carefully controlled, but behind that calm facade, disbelief roiled.
If he weren't consciously holding onto the composure befitting the leader of the Freedom Fighters, his jaw would have been on the floor.
Two Knights of God, almost Admiral-level heavyweights... and you erased them before they could even react?
That technique—flooding your body with high-voltage lightning to force your life force into overdrive, unleashing a brief explosion of maximum speed and power...
Darren's move... that's Kaido's Thunder Bagua.
Don't think swapping out a Kanabo for my Dragon Claw Fist arcana is going to fool me.
Watching Darren act like it was nothing, Dragon felt the corner of his eye twitch.
He'd believed that after a month of brutal self-reflection and hellish training, his overall strength had finally caught up. Even if his physical toughness still lagged a bit, the raw speed and power of the Wind-Wind Fruit should make up the difference and let him stand shoulder to shoulder with Darren.
He hadn't expected Darren to have already broken past his former limits—and to have mastered Kaido's Thunder Bagua on top of that.
"Oh? You noticed?"
Darren flicked the blood from his hands, then crouched beside the corpses of the two Celestial Dragons and tore the Mechanical Wings from their backs in a single yank. He studied them briefly.
Dragon rolled his eyes. "I got my ass handed to me by Kaido too, you know! Well—not exactly handed to me. I did fight him plenty of times!"
Phew. That was close.
The roar of wind and thunder around Darren just now had pulled Kaido's image straight into Dragon's mind.
In some ways, Darren had already surpassed the Kaido of the original story.
Because in that moment, Dragon had seen it clearly: the phantom of a colossal dragon diving down from the heavens, roaring.
That crushing pressure, that certainty of looming death... Dragon had only ever felt that from a single person.
His own lazy, never-serious old man.
Of course, Darren still had some distance to go before reaching his father's level, but that difference was getting horrifyingly small.
Dragon judged that the attack Darren had just unleashed could instantly obliterate anyone below Admiral-level—unless they had some special ability or innate trait to counter it.
In that explosive instant, Darren's speed had surpassed even high-level Observation Haki's predictive limits.
What truly chilled Dragon, though, was that while Kaido's Thunder Bagua might leave opponents half-dead in one blow, Darren's habit of ripping out hearts and lungs made him even more terrifying.
Thunderous speed combined with the Dragon Claw Fist's armor-piercing brutality... it was a match made in hell.
The synergy between the two produced an absurd amplification.
Darren, pretending not to notice Dragon's thoughts, smiled slightly.
"You don't get stronger just by shutting yourself away to train," he said. "If you want to grow, you have to fight people stronger than you."
"If you ever have time to spare, you should pay Wano a visit."
After a moment's thought, he added, "Totto Land wouldn't be a bad idea either."
A few dark lines practically appeared on Dragon's forehead.
---
On the deserted island, blue-black lightning crackled between the dark-haired youth's hands. Towering above the crowd, he radiated suffocating pressure, the lingering bloodlust from slaughtering two Knights of God hanging thick and heavy in the air.
Michael frowned. Narrowing his eyes at Darren and Dragon, whose power continued to rise, he suddenly bared his teeth in a savage grin.
"Take out the woman!" he snarled.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The World Government soldiers showed their terrifying discipline. At the instant the order was given, they opened fire without hesitation, unleashing a dense barrage of bullets.
At point-blank range—less than a meter away—dozens of rounds were about to tear Ginny's body apart.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl.
Battered, drenched in blood, Kuma felt despair surge up and swallow him. He reached out on instinct.
Under the amplified acceleration of his teleportation, the world around him slowed to near standstill. He could see every detail—even the tiny ripples spreading across Ginny's skin where the bullets were about to hit.
Zzzzt...
A faint electrical hum crackled through the air.
The bullets froze in mid-flight.
Then, like a shower of reversed meteors, they flipped around and shot back toward their original source.
Pfft, pfft, pfft...
Dozens of World Government soldiers' heads snapped back at the same time, crimson flowers blooming in the center of their brows.
This is my chance!
Despair vanished from Kuma's bloodshot eyes, replaced by fierce hope and blazing resolve.
He vanished, teleporting.
But just as he reappeared at his target point, a silvery-white figure materialized ahead of him like a ghost.
A cold rapier traced a line through the air, its polished blade reflecting Saint Michael's arrogant, mocking grin in Kuma's pupils.
"I told you I wouldn't give you a chance to rescue her."
The elegant Western-style sword shone like moonlight—but in its gleaming arc, Kuma felt death bearing down on him.
Zzzzt-zzzzt...
Electric arcs crackled.
That sound again.
In the flickering electric light, a glossy black military boot whipped out of nowhere and slammed into the rapier—
—driving it straight into the ground.
BOOM!!
The earth shook with a thunderous impact. Dust geysered up in the shockwave.
Saint Michael staggered back in shock, his pupils contracting to reflect the wild, savage figure before him.
Kuma froze, briefly stunned by the absurdity of what he was seeing.
The scene before him was so surreal that the clash of styles was almost comical.
It was like watching a perfectly groomed, gallant knight—trained for honorable duels—get blindsided by a street thug with a brick.
"...Thunderous speed," Saint Michael hissed, eyes turning dark and vicious.
"Now you know how your two subordinates died," Darren said with a feral grin.
Their eyes locked.
In the next moment—
BOOM!!
Two monstrous auras exploded from the island at once, rocketing toward the sky.
The cloud sea shattered as a dense lattice of crimson-black lightning flashed wildly across the heavens, appearing and vanishing in rapid succession.
"I'm taking the girl," Darren said.
At that same instant, Kuma appeared beside Ginny like a ghost. The moment their hands touched, both vanished.
Darren, his Conqueror's Haki unleashed without restraint, kept his boot planted on the Western sword and smiled, voice low and fierce.
"You... you stay."
To be continued...