The fatal crisis had not passed.
Lucien, his mouth filled with blood, leaped high into the air, his right foot crashing down toward Ace's head with merciless force.
At the critical moment, Ace raised both arms above his head, Armament Haki wrapping tightly around them as he blocked. The impact sent a violent tremor through his body. His form twisted and flipped as cracks spread outward, the massive crater beneath them expanding once more into a seemingly bottomless abyss.
Lucien did not relent.
Behind him, the image of a divine dragon roared into existence, collapsing layer by layer as it followed his descent straight into the depths below.
Deep within the abyss, Ace was driven violently into the ground, swallowed by complete darkness.
Whoosh.
A pillar of flame erupted upward like a blazing sun, illuminating the entire abyss in an instant.
The earth split apart. Mountains heaved and crumbled as the ground convulsed violently. A massive sandstorm swept across the battlefield, swallowing everything in its path.
Beneath the surface, magma surged and churned like an angry sea, devouring all matter.
When the chaos finally settled, Lucien knelt on one knee amid the ruins. His chest was torn open, soaked in blood, exposing shattered bone and the rhythmic beating of his heart. A horrifying gash stretched across nearly his entire upper body.
Blood dripped steadily from his mouth and nose.
Lucien took several heavy breaths before forcing himself upright. His amethyst eyes were cold as he stared into the endless abyss before him.
The wound was healing, visibly but painfully slow.
At this point, his stamina was nearly exhausted.
Ace's flames and relentless pressure from Conqueror's Haki had suppressed him throughout the battle, grinding him down bit by bit.
Bang.
A blood soaked hand suddenly emerged from the abyss, gripping the edge. In the next instant, Ace leapt back onto solid ground.
"It has been a long time," Ace said hoarsely, "since I was pushed this far."
Blood covered his face. A deep gash ran across his right cheek. His chest was caved in irregularly, and his left arm hung twisted at an unnatural angle.
Crack. Crack.
The chilling sound of bones resetting echoed across the ruins. Ace's crushed chest visibly returned to normal, and his left arm snapped back into place. He flexed it once, as though it had never been broken.
Life Return combined with Logia elementalization made his recovery no less terrifying than Lucien's.
At critical moments, Ace's ability to shift into flame allowed him to negate damage that would have killed most others.
"But this is where it ends," Ace said.
Blood streamed down his face as he watched Lucien's flames spiral outward, centered on his body. The fire expanded rapidly, rising into the sky and condensing into a colossal fireball.
Hundreds of meters. Thousands. Tens of thousands.
Like a blazing sun suspended above the heavens, it scorched the sky and boiled the sea.
The center of Dressrosa melted completely, transforming into a vast sea of magma. Ace stood beneath the blazing sun, his expression indifferent, as though the destruction meant nothing to him.
Lucien's feet sank deep into the molten ground, white light burning fiercely around his body.
His hands cupped together at his waist. A blue white sphere of light formed between his palms, humming violently as the surrounding atmosphere trembled and warped.
"This is…" Ace's pupils shrank sharply.
Disbelief flickered across his face as he recognized the technique.
"Kamehameha," Lucien said calmly.
The blue meteor surged forward, dragging a radiant tail behind it as it tore through the air with unstoppable force.
"Even if it is Kamehameha," Ace roared, "I will still kill you!"
"Great Flame Commandment, Flame Emperor!"
The ten thousand meter sun descended, colliding head on with the blue meteor.
"Die!"
Both roared as they poured everything they had into their attacks.
In that instant, blinding white light swallowed the world.
All sound vanished.
A towering mushroom cloud erupted, ripping apart the sky as three rings of light spread both upward and downward. Infinite destructive force swept across the land as Dressrosa itself began to collapse and tear apart.
Magma burst from the ground. The surrounding seas rose into catastrophic tsunamis.
As the natural disaster unfolded, everyone felt searing pain stab into their eyes, followed by an earth shattering explosion.
Diamanti and the others stared in horror, mouths agape.
"Help!"
"Run!"
"It is too late!"
Mountains shattered. Rivers vanished. Citizens and living toys alike fled in desperation as the monstrous destruction behind them opened its jaws wide.
The apocalyptic scene lasted for a long time.
When it finally ended, the world seemed to hold its breath.
Dressrosa, once a massive island, had a region spanning a million meters completely flattened, countless lives lost. Scorching heat baked the air itself.
The once dark sky twisted into an inverted funnel, the atmosphere slowly pushed outward as warm, dazzling sunlight poured down. Everywhere were canyons, magma flows, and smoking ruins.
The center of the island was gone, replaced by an immeasurable sinkhole. The heat at its core caused the air to vibrate and roar continuously.
Rumble.
A massive tsunami rolled outward from Dressrosa, waves rising tens of thousands of meters high.
"Cough… cough…"
On the shattered edge of the island, Diamanti pushed aside a massive rock and staggered to his feet, staring at the devastation with bulging eyes.
One by one, dust covered figures crawled from the ruins. Others descended shakily from the sky.
It was gone.
All of Dressrosa's towns had vanished, reduced to unrecognizable ruin.
Pfft.
Many survivors were powerful individuals or those who had managed to hide in time. Even so, their faces drained of color as they trembled at the sight before them.
Such world ending destruction was beyond human imagination.
At the edge of the sinkhole, Lucien lay broken.
Half of his face was gone. His left hand was connected by only a few strands of flesh. Through his shattered torso, his internal organs were clearly visible.
Yet his cells still writhed and regenerated slowly.
Even under the sunlight, his appearance was horrifying.
The energy within him was nearly depleted. The war bgm had long since faded.
This was Lucien's weakest moment.
In this battle, he had truly given everything. No schemes. No ambushes. Only a direct, brutal clash.
It was tragic.
And he was satisfied.
To fight with such freedom required an evenly matched opponent, something incredibly rare.
Opponents were usually either too weak or impossibly strong.
This was just right.
However.
Bloody footsteps echoed from the distance.
Ace walked into view.
His right arm was gone. A bone deep wound tore across his chest. His face was pale, blood spilling from his mouth.
"I almost died," Ace said quietly.
If not for a slight flaw in Lucien's Armament Haki that allowed him to partially elementalize at the critical moment, he would already be dead.
Lucien's expression darkened as he dragged himself from the mud. He had not expected Ace to still be standing.
"It seems," Ace said, smiling weakly as he looked at Lucien's shattered state, "that I won."
Their auras told the truth.
Without question, Ace was stronger now.
"In this state, yes," Lucien replied, half of his face already regenerating into a sharp, cunning smile. "You did win."
Ace's heart skipped.
A sudden sense of danger flooded his instincts.
The ground beneath his feet transformed instantly, unraveling into countless threads reinforced with Armament Haki. They twisted together into braided pillars that wrapped around Ace's body, immobilizing him completely.
"Doflamingo," Ace muttered, blood dripping from his mouth.
If he were uninjured, this trap would never have held him. Even if it did, he could have escaped easily.
But now, he was critically wounded.
And Doflamingo was at his peak.
Whoosh.
Lucien did not waste time speaking.
Killing Ace immediately was the only correct choice.
If this man suddenly awakened another ability, or if any unforeseen variable appeared, the prey he had finally cornered would escape.
Cheaters like this had to be eliminated without hesitation.
Eight black thorns erupted from Lucien's tailbone, piercing straight into Ace's body.
They began extracting his life force relentlessly.