"ROAR!" The blood-red dragon loosed roar after roar as it bore down on Charlotte Linlin.
"What? Space itself is twisting. How can Rosinante have power like this? There's no dodging this one!" Charlotte Linlin said, shaken.
The tremendous force of Night Guy warped the space in front of it, leaving her no choice but to weather the blow head-on. And Night Guy was blindingly fast, a technique there was simply no evading. In the very instant her startled cry turned to thought, the blood-red dragon had already appeared before her. It roared with boundless draconic might, and Rosinante's flying kick came smashing straight at Charlotte Linlin.
"Spear of Elbaf, Ikoku!" In the same moment Charlotte Linlin slashed, a strike long held in reserve coming down with everything she had. The force of the blade took shape as a colossal spear that seemed bent on destroying all it touched, hurtling toward the oncoming blood-red dragon, and in an instant the two forces crashed into each other.
The moment she'd felt the presence pouring off Rosinante's move, Charlotte Linlin had begun gathering her power without pause. And once she realized the technique warped space itself, that there was no dodging it and only meeting it at full strength, she understood all the more that this was no blow to be taken lightly. She knew with perfect clarity that if she didn't fight for her life, her voyage might end in the very next instant.
She couldn't remember the last time she'd thrown herself into anything so desperately. With her life on the line she poured everything into the strike, wringing every ounce of power from each cell of her body, from every drop of blood in her veins. This Ikoku was the strongest Charlotte Linlin had ever unleashed.
The two forces met in an instant, and in the next, terror flashed across her face. Night Guy and Ikoku collided, held in deadlock for only a breath, and then Night Guy began tearing through Ikoku's force, pressing on and on toward her.
"How is this possible? It ripped through Mama's Ikoku that easily!" Watching Rosinante's Night Guy shred her Ikoku in a heartbeat, the members of the Big Mom Pirates cried out as one.
"A dragon? So strong! The power behind that move is monstrous. This is bad. At this rate Mama's in real danger!" Charlotte Daifuku said, his voice tight with worry.
"This is too much. What in the world has Rosinante been through these years, to grow this powerful?" Perospero's eyes narrowed to slits.
Perospero knew Rosinante's strength well. Back at the Kingdom of Joromia, formidable as Rosinante had been, he'd never reached a level that truly frightened him. Even ten years ago, strong as he was, Rosinante hadn't been enough to threaten Mama. And word had it that a decade back, the World Government and the Marines had committed nearly all their high-level forces to hunting him down.
By rights, Rosinante hadn't so much as stirred even as the Grey Kingdom was torn to pieces over these ten years. In that purge he should have died, or at the very least been gravely wounded. So why had his strength climbed so much instead? His terrifying power had likely far outstripped Mama's by now, and might even surpass Whitebeard himself.
"He's everything His Majesty should be. Even Big Mom is no match for him!" At the same time, the Oathblood Guard, watching Rosinante's strike carry enough force to shred the attack of one of the Four Emperors with ease, cried out one after another in excitement.
"Strange. This move, and that one before it, I've never once seen His Majesty use them. And the power is terrifying," Enel said, puzzled.
No one knew Rosinante's strength of ten years ago better than Enel. Back then, for fear the Marines were tapping Rosinante's Den Den Mushi, the Oathblood Guard would send Enel himself to carry urgent word to Rosinante whenever an emergency arose. So Enel had often watched Rosinante train and experiment with new techniques, and Rosinante had never gone out of his way to keep them from him. Of everyone present, Enel understood his power best.
True, Rosinante had been strong ten years ago, and his hand-to-hand had taken a great leap forward after he studied the King's Fist. But it was nothing like the terrifying technique he showed now. This was a wholly different tier from the King's Fist he'd been researching back then. If Rosinante had stayed awake and lucid through these ten years, and had developed power and moves like this, Enel wouldn't have doubted it for a moment. But he knew better than anyone that for the whole of that decade, Rosinante had lain in a coma.
How could a man who'd been bedridden ten years come up with techniques this devastating? It would be a blessing if his strength hadn't withered away entirely. The thought made Enel wonder despite himself whether this was even the real Rosinante, whether something like a ghost might have taken hold of his body. With that, he glanced at Dark Thorn beside him. Over the years he'd seen, more than once, how she could control corpse puppets and make them move almost like the living.
"Don't worry. Body and soul, the one before us is the Dragon King we know. But his soul's energy is far stronger than it was. It seems that over these ten years His Majesty went through something none of us know about. That was no simple coma," Dark Thorn said.
While everyone stood stunned, Rosinante's Night Guy had already torn through Charlotte Linlin's Ikoku with ease. No matter how she strained to draw out every last scrap of strength in her body, she couldn't stop it, and Rosinante's foot came crashing into her.
"ROAR!" Through the howl of the blood-red dragon, Rosinante's kick struck home against Charlotte Linlin. Driven by the force of that blow, she was sent hurtling backward to slam, hard, into a massive pirate ship. In an instant the great vessel blew apart.
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