Wang Zhi had been a powerhouse running rampant in the New World for countless years, so he naturally had his own unique tricks.
He didn't seem inclined to counterattack at all, instead taking Doflamingo's flurry of punches head-on.
Under Doflamingo's relentless blows, Wang Zhi's body began to change, gradually liquefying and seeping into the ground. When he reappeared, his form had completely transformed.
What appeared before Doflamingo was an enormous creature, about eight meters long, with a body akin to a snake. Its "head" was nothing but a huge mouth, with no eyes and no nose. It looked like a gigantic earthworm, or like a massive hammer with no handle, the whole of it resembling a black beer bottle.
Doflamingo shouted inwardly: "Good grief!"
You smash him into mince and he changes species on you?
Of course, Doflamingo knew this wasn't some conditional trigger of Wang Zhi's powers, nor was it anything stable like that.
Devil Fruit abilities came in all shapes and forms. With a body like this, Wang Zhi was almost certainly some kind of snake-type. No wonder he'd been flicking his tongue like a serpent the whole time; turned out it was just a side-effect of his Devil Fruit.
"Hisss… brat, I don't know who you are, but if you've made an enemy of Wang Zhi, you're not leaving here alive!
I ate a Zoan-type, Ancient Model, Nozuchi form. Let me show you how powerful I am. Dokudan (Poison Shot)!"
A massive spray of venom erupted from Wang Zhi's gaping maw. Unfortunately for him, before the poison even approached, it was completely vaporized by the high temperature of Doflamingo's lightning.
Unwilling to accept it, Wang Zhi kept spewing venom at Doflamingo. But every time, either Doflamingo dodged it, or the lightning heat burned it dry mid-air.
Seeing that his attacks were useless, Wang Zhi simply opened that blood-filled maw wide and lunged, trying to bite Doflamingo directly.
His huge body gave Wang Zhi terrifying raw power, but every strike still failed to connect. His serpentine body shook with fury.
Wang Zhi was livid. He had always prided himself on speed, yet Doflamingo was even faster than he was.
To vent his rage, Wang Zhi unleashed his Haoshoku no Haki (Conqueror's Haki). At the exact same time, Doflamingo erupted with an even stronger wave of Haoshoku no Haki.
In an instant, two torrents of Conqueror's Haki collided with earth-shaking force. Even the thunderhead clouds above split in two under the overwhelming pressure. Pirates who were too close were hit directly by the clash of Haki between the two men and collapsed, knocked out cold.
At first, Wang Zhi could still withstand the Haki struggle, but as Doflamingo continued to raise the output of his Haoshoku no Haki, Wang Zhi started to sway, barely hanging on.
In the end, unable to keep enduring, he attacked again.
"Tsuchi San-ton (Earth Triple Swallow)!"
Wang Zhi's tail stabbed into the ground. Around Doflamingo, in three directions, three identical "earth Wang Zhies" suddenly burst from the ground, each opening a bloody maw to bite down on him together.
"Got him!"
Seeing Doflamingo motionless as all three earth clones bit him in perfect overlap, Wang Zhi was secretly overjoyed.
Once you're hit by Tsuchi San-ton, heh… the first bite is just to injure you. The real key is the huge amount of venom hidden in their bellies, which completely dissolves you from the inside.
Some brat randomly attacks me out of nowhere, and now this. Let's see if you don't die today, Wang Zhi thought smugly.
In the end, he was disappointed yet again.
The "feeling" of a body dissolving inside his earth clones never came. Instead, what he sensed was numbness and the sensation of intense electricity.
Sure enough, the next moment, a gigantic black-and-blue hand tore out from within the earth clones' bodies.
Immediately after, a hundred-meter-tall black-and-blue giant that looked very much like Doflamingo forced its way out, completely shattering Wang Zhi's earth clones.
Doflamingo's massive form was a giant among giants, almost towering even above Oars.
The Beehive Island pirates fighting in the square below saw this colossus appear and were stunned on the spot. The Donquixote side seized the opening at once, targeting vital points on the distracted enemies and striking ruthlessly.
That very moment, who knew how many pirates died because they had lost focus for just a heartbeat.
However, the black-and-blue giant wasn't just huge in size. When it swung its hand, the pressure in the air alone made Wang Zhi feel like his body was about to crack apart.
Wang Zhi tried to dodge, but under Doflamingo's lock, it felt like his body couldn't move at all. Even his ability use seemed to stall. He could only watch helplessly as Doflamingo's giant palm swatted him away.
Wang Zhi slammed into the ground hard, spewing blood all the way. The side of his body that had been struck was charred black and even gave off the smell of roasted meat.
"Damn, this is way too strong!
When did a monster like this appear in the New World?!
And he specifically comes looking for me? What the hell did I do to piss him off?!"
Wang Zhi cursed madly in his heart. He had always thought that against Zephyr and Sengoku, he could at least fight them to an even standstill. No matter how bad things got, there was no way he'd lose outright to some "kid."
Yet looking at the current situation… who could he even complain to?
Wang Zhi's reactions were still sharp. Once he dragged himself out of the crater, he immediately shifted into a snake-human hybrid form, maximizing the power of his Nozuchi abilities while also making it easier to run.
"Brat, let's stop here. I think we can talk this out. We don't have any real grudge between us, no need to fight to the death, right?"
"Then why do you think I came looking for you? A few days ago, your men kidnapped two of my most trusted officers. If I don't avenge them, how am I supposed to maintain my authority in my own crew?"
Whether it was true or not, Doflamingo didn't care. What mattered was having a "reason," and for him, that reason was more than enough.
Yes. More than enough.
"Two people… you mean those two with wings?!"
Wang Zhi finally reacted. The ones brought back recently were exactly those new "winged" people Was had taken in. Was had really brought him a colossal disaster.
But regret was pointless now. Wang Zhi simply shoved all the blame onto the World Government.
"Brat, those two are still alive. Was was the one who captured them. It has nothing to do with me. I was only cooperating with the World Government. They needed a large variety of races for some kind of experiment. I wasn't involved at all."
"So what?"
"Raikou Hou (Thunder Light Cannon)!"
Doflamingo couldn't be bothered. He directly unleashed the technique he'd refined atop Thunder God Island.
A beam of lightning erupted from the black-and-blue giant's fingertips, streaking toward Wang Zhi faster than anyone could react.
Wang Zhi had lived for decades and had never seen anything like this. Sure, it was a "lightning beam" fired from the giant's finger, but that depended on how big the finger was.
From what he could see, that lightning beam might not only be enough to kill him; it looked like it could pierce straight through the entire island.
There was no way he dared relax. He instantly hardened his whole body with Busoshoku no Haki (Armament Haki), going all out on defense, and still found the time to shout for mercy.
Unfortunately, Doflamingo had no intention of giving Wang Zhi any such chance. The black lightning beam did not stop. With world-annihilating might, it engulfed Wang Zhi with perfect accuracy.
Wang Zhi didn't last even a full second. Under the beam's torment, his body disintegrated into ash. The lightning pillar's power did not diminish, just as Wang Zhi had predicted, and it bored a massive hole straight through the island, so deep the bottom could not be seen.
Curiously, even though the beam had clearly pierced through to the seafloor, not a single drop of seawater surged up into the hole.
In the future, after Beehive Island's reconstruction, that hole would become an unsolved mystery within the Donquixote family.
(End of Chapter)
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