Chapter 151: The Tyrant's Last Stand
"Everyone, remember to wear your earplugs! Don't listen to anyone talking!" Wicca's high-pitched voice commanded, coordinating the Tontatta troops. Like Nami, she felt a surge of pride. This mission was a point of honor, and her admiration for Ian knew no bounds.
As the elevator descended into the subterranean world, Skylark and Nami took up positions at the front, ready for a fight. However, the scene that greeted them at the underground harbor was not one of battle, but of liberation.
"Navy uniforms! The Marines are here!"
"They must be the Sea King's men!"
"Only Vice Admiral Ian's unit would dare to come down here now!"
"Thank you, sailors! Thank you, Vice Admiral Ian!"
"Yes, we're grateful from the bottom of our hearts! Without him, we'd still be toys!"
A diverse crowd of freed individuals—people of all races and backgrounds—surrounded them, their voices filled with heartfelt emotion.
"This is strange," Nami muttered, stepping out of the elevator and scanning the area. "Where are the Donquixote officers? A place this important shouldn't be unguarded." The peace was unnerving; she had expected a brutal fight in the underworld.
"Miss Marine! We captured two of their officers!" a burly former gladiator shouted, his chest puffed with pride. "This snot-nosed one was tricky; his powers are weird. Don't think we're weak just because we were toys! We're fighters from the coliseum!"
The crowd parted, revealing Trebol and Sugar, both securely bound in Seastone cuffs.
"And this little girl cadre was unconscious the whole time!"
"So, they've already been subdued. That explains the quiet," Skylark noted, approaching to confirm the captives were secure. The unconscious little girl was undoubtedly Sugar, the linchpin of Doflamingo's operation. It had gone far more smoothly than any of them had dared to hope.
"The factory is over there!" a Tontatta warrior yelled.
"Everyone, let's go! Free our people!"
"Leo, take the flying squad and follow me! We're getting Princess Mansherry!"
The dwarves, their earplugs firmly in place, immediately sprang into action, executing their part of the plan with military precision.
"Look! Live! You two, come watch the live feed!" someone in the crowd called out to Nami and Skylark. "We found the projection Den Den Mushi in the officer's tower! The broadcast is focused on Vice Admiral Ian right now!"
Drawn by the commotion, the two women moved to the large screen. Someone had hijacked the signal, and it was now fixed on the final confrontation atop the Royal Plateau.
Lieutenant General Ian is truly incredible! The one lying on the ground is Doflamingo!"
Thump... thump... thump...
Ian's super-hearing picked up the sound of Doflamingo's heart restarting, strong and furious. The tyrant had recovered enough to move but remained prone in the rubble, a clear ploy to feign weakness and lure Ian in for a point-blank counterattack. It was a tactic even the cunning Blackbeard had employed.
Ian knew the battle across the island was concluding. His crew had systematically dismantled the Donquixote Family. Doflamingo, lying there, was smart enough to sense it—the fading sounds of conflict, the shifting tide. His dream, his ambition, everything was ending.
Lying in the wreckage, his body a tapestry of pain, Doflamingo's mind raced. Memories flashed: the threats of his childhood, the searing hatred of patricide, the wild ambition of sailing the seas with his "family." He, who had manipulated the fates of so many from the shadows, now found his own destiny held in another's hands. The irony was a bitter pill. More than mere refusal to accept defeat, it was a profound, aching reluctance to let go of everything he had built.
"You damn brat!" Doflamingo snarled.
WHOOSH!
White strings erupted from the ground, lifting him back into the air. The terrain warped once more under his Awakened power, the very earth transforming into a sea of threads. Sixteen thick, purple cables, infused with his most potent Armament Haki, twisted into existence, sharper and deadlier than any spear.
"Jock Ian!" he roared, his voice a blend of fury and desperation. "No one gets to judge me! My destiny is my own! Sixteen Holy Bullets: God Thread!"
The sixteen lances shot forward, a final, devastating assault that had felled countless powerful foes. It was a move he had relied on when cornered by the most terrifying enemies on the sea.
But the man who had crushed his ambition didn't retreat. He simply advanced.
"Doflamingo," Ian's voice was calm, yet it carried across the plateau. "Those who trample on the lives of ordinary people will one day be judged and punished by those very 'ordinary people'!"
Ian brought his fists together. "Watch closely. This is a human fist... Samsara!"
The pale, cold flames around him flared. As he threw his punch, an arctic gale howled forth. Everything the frigid breath touched—the air, the scattered rubble, the very moisture—flash-froze into glittering ice sculptures. The sixteen onrushing threads, moments from impact, were instantly captured and immobilized in mid-air, encased in a sheath of unbreakable ice. The chill was absolute, a cold that seemed to leech the very will to fight.
BOOM!
Ian's fist, wreathed in this deathly cold, connected with Doflamingo in mid-air. The tyrant's body was thrown back as if hit by a glacial avalanche, crashing down to the earth with a force that shook the very foundations of the plateau.
True to his word to the Five Elders, Ian had not landed a killing blow. But for a man like Doflamingo, this utter and complete defeat, this public shattering of his power and pride, was a fate far worse than death.
Hiss...
Hiss...
The only sounds were the faint hiss of settling frost and the ragged, defeated breaths of the fallen king.
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