"Doffy!!"
Across the ruined square, Diamante and Trebol shrieked in alarm, their faces contorted with pure shock.
They knew exactly what kind of clumsy klutz Rosinante used to be. He had never carried this kind of crushing, heavy power before.
To unlock Conqueror's Haki was insane enough, but using that stealthy Devil Fruit to blindside Doflamingo and actually draw blood? That was simply unthinkable.
In a single breath, the entire field had flipped.
The young master, the invincible monster they followed blindly, was pinned flat into the dirt under Rosinante's boots.
"Fufufufufufu! How interesting. You've truly made me see you in a new light, Rosinante."
Ground into the dirt, Doflamingo didn't even flinch. Instead, a bloody, unhinged laugh rattled out of his throat.
"I admit it. You've gained enough power to earn my respect."
The cold words drifted over the rubble. That total lack of fear caused a sharp flicker of hesitation to flash through Rosinante's eyes.
"What are you relying on? With the slightest movement of this hand, your heart will fall into eternal silence. Doffy, at a moment like this, what gives you the right to remain so arrogant?"
Rosinante's gaze went freezing cold as he barked the question.
"What gives me the right?"
Sprawled in the dust as if he'd completely given up, Doflamingo's grin only widened, his posture entirely relaxed.
"Do you really think you're the only one who has mastered Awakening?"
The words didn't come from below; the real voice echoed right behind him, turning Rosinante's face pale.
His head snapped down. The physical weight under his boots melted away, the solid flesh unravelling into a fraying dummy made of tangled white threads.
"It seems you don't understand me, Corazon. Just as I don't fully understand you anymore." Doflamingo's real voice sliced through the wind.
Beneath them, the cobblestones ruptured as a massive, churning tide of white string erupted from the earth, surging straight for Rosinante's blind spot. Rosinante threw himself sideways, boots scraping against tiles as he scrambled backward, bounding up onto a nearby roof to look down.
What he saw made his chest tighten.
The entire street was liquefying into a massive, surging sea of white fiber.
Buildings, stone, iron, every solid object warped under his will, turning into an endless, lethal arsenal.
"You are not unique! Do you really think that gaining a little power gives you the right to spout nonsense before me and overturn the hierarchy that has existed between us all these years?"
"How naive!"
Doflamingo snapped his wrist forward.
The massive string tide condensed into a forest of jagged, curved spears that lunged violently toward the roof.
CRASH!
Rosinante launched himself skyward, clear of the blast. The wave pulverized the structure, sending shards of stone and thick dust exploding into the night.
Trebol and Diamante scrambled backward in sheer terror. At this rate, the brothers' clash was going to tear Mock Town completely off the map.
VUUUM!
Mid-air, Rosinante locked his jaw and clamped his fist shut.
Soundless ripples warped around his knuckles, coated in the violent black sparks of Conqueror's Haki.
He drove his fist straight down.
The oncoming wall of spikes shattered on impact, the threads losing their shape and dropping like dead rain.
Doflamingo's smile twitched as he stepped deeper into the chaos.
With every stride, the solid earth dissolved into a churning white ocean of thread obeying his command.
He thrust a single hand toward the sky.
WHIP!
The entire ocean of string whipped upward like striking vipers, snapping toward Rosinante to cage him in.
Rosinante kicked off the empty air, shattering the sky with silent shockwaves before hammering another heavy punch into the fray.
BOOM!
A massive cluster of threads snapped like brittle glass.
Smothered by the absolute silence of his strike, they went limp and dead.
Shifting his weight, he vanished, reappearing directly over Doflamingo's head to rain down another devastating blow.
VUM.
The soundless pressure rippled downward like a falling anvil.
"I can't underestimate you." Muttering under his breath, Doflamingo clawed his fingers tight.
A dense thicket of strings shot up from his boots, weaving into a massive, crisscrossing shield.
"Off White: Shield White String!"
The soundless fist slammed hard into the woven wall. The impact stripped the threads of their power; they frayed, shuddered, and collapsed into useless piles.
The sheer momentum shoved Doflamingo back, his heels digging a trench through his own strings.
With a harsh kick, he launched himself into the air. Behind him, the entire reservoir of white threads rose like a tidal wave, chasing his ascent.
They twisted together, braiding into thousands of thick, jagged lances.
In a flash of metallic sheen, a jet-black coating of Armament Haki raced down the tips, hardening them into lethal iron.
"Fufufufufufu! In this duel between brothers… Which one of us will stand at the pinnacle of this era?"
"Rosinante!"
With a roaring laugh, Doflamingo threw his arms forward, sending the thousands of blackened lances screaming through the air straight for his brother.
"Thousand Arrows Piercing the Heart: Feather Strike String!"
Instantly, Rosinante's entire vision was blotted out by a wall of oncoming death. Every angle, every escape route was completely locked down.
"Ha…"
His pupils locked onto the black rain, his jaw tight as he braced for the impact.
There was no dodging this. It was an execution strike. The Haki-infused threads carried devastating mass, a perfect, terrifying fusion of Doflamingo's sheer willpower and Devil Fruit mastery.
A basic string fruit, turned into a weapon of mass destruction through sheer, bloody-minded training.
"How impressive." Rosinante muttered under his breath.
A fierce, stubborn spark ignited in his eyes.
"But I'm not bad either."
He threw his eyelids wide as a violent, purple-black pulse exploded from his chest, instantly tearing outward to engulf a thousand-meter radius.
"Dead Silence Domain!"
The words left his lips in a deadly whisper. Paired with his freezing stare, the absolute pressure felt like a literal god of death stepping onto the field.
Within that perfect sphere, every ounce of sound vanished.
No vibrations.
No sound.
Only a heavy, suffocating stillness.
This wasn't just muting noise anymore; it was an advanced awakening that violently stripped away kinetic energy and molecular motion.
Inside this dead zone, a man's pulse would slow to a crawl. Any external attack crossing the threshold lost its momentum, choked out by the absolute lack of vibration.
It was his ultimate defense.
And his silent fist was the ultimate spear.
Thousands of strings infused with Haki tore into the domain in an instant.
Yet the moment they crossed the line, their speed dropped dramatically, dragging through the dead air.
Even so, the thick Armament coating kept them pushing forward. It was only when they came within a single meter of Rosinante that they finally lost all momentum, their tips drooping as they fell harmlessly into the dust.
"Fufufufufufu! You truly are astonishing, my dear little brother! That man's casual act over a decade ago actually created a monster like you!" Doflamingo hissed, a low laugh vibrating through his chest.
A sharp glint flashed across his sunglasses, his chest tightening as reality set in.
There was no doubt that the attack he had just unleashed was one of his ultimate moves, yet it hadn't even scratched Rosinante's coat.
That could only mean one thing. Rosinante's raw strength had officially caught up to his own.
"Senior Officer Koji's actions were not accidental! He deliberately went to Minion Island to save me!" Rosinante roared.
His boots hit the empty air.
Ripples spread through the space ahead, the air freezing solid as he kicked off the sky and surged forward.
It looked like an invisible glass corridor had materialized in midair.
"Silent Corridor!"
By vacuuming out all vibrations, he had carved a completely motionless pathway through the atmosphere.
In a flash, he closed the gap right in front of Doflamingo, throwing a heavy straight punch.
Doflamingo tilted his head, barely evading the shockwave. Behind him, countless Haki-blackened strings stabbed forward like a swarm of hornets, but Rosinante's fists neutralized every single strike.
"Now! Give me your answer… Doffy!"
Rosinante suddenly threw both hands wide, clawing at the empty sky as if trying to wrench it apart.
Doflamingo's pupils shrank to pinpricks behind his shades.
His Observation Haki screamed a frantic warning. The physical space right in front of him felt like it had been locked in a vice by Rosinante's bare hands.
"Will you remain the King of Dressrosa?"
"The Shichibukai known as Flamingo?"
"Or will you obediently become nothing more than a soldier under Senior Officer Koji?"
Rosinante roared, his voice tearing through the wind.
His fingers locked tight, straining as if gripping a physical chunk of reality.
Thick sweat beaded on his forehead. His muscles groaned under the sheer strain.
Pushing the Calm Fruit to its absolute Awakening was one thing, but forcing a massive, space-altering technique like this was pushing his body to its breaking point.
The physical toll afterward would be devastating.
But Rosinante didn't give a damn.
Koji was gone. Everything that man had fought to build was his responsibility to protect now.
"Must you really go this far… Rosinante?" Doflamingo's jaw tightened.
The overwhelming pressure forced the smile completely off his face.
"You don't have a choice, Doflamingo!" Rosinante bellowed.
His ten fingers locked, trembling violently.
At that exact moment, the atmosphere itself groaned under the pressure. Visible, dark fractures began to spiderweb through the empty air.
"He actually cracked space itself!" Diamante stared at the sky and shrieked in absolute terror.
"No, not cracked it! He's using the power of the Silence Fruit to create countless dead-silent spaces and separate them from the original space!"
Doflamingo's chest tightened as panic flared.
This clumsy brat actually possesses this kind of monstrous talent?!
For the first time in his life, cold, genuine fear pierced his chest.
It felt like he was standing directly over the edge of an abyss.
"Fufufufufufu! You've truly surprised me, Corazon! If you're willing to risk everything just to get an answer from me, then I'll give you that answer!"
A manic, blood-red light flashed behind Doflamingo's glasses as he erupted into wild laughter. His supreme pride would never let him back down from the little brother who used to stumble over his own feet.
"Let me teach you the respect that a younger brother should show his elder brother!"
The moment the words left his teeth,
BOOM!
From the pulverized earth below, sixteen massive columns of thread, infused with the red lightning of Conqueror's Haki and coated in a blinding, dense Armament Haki, tore through the atmosphere straight toward Rosinante.
Sixteen Divine Bullets:
God Thread - God's Execution!!
This was Doflamingo's absolute peak technique.
His ultimate, lethal execution. At that exact millisecond, Rosinante's gaze went dead cold.
Both of his hands yanked downward.
CRACK!
The air shattered as deep, silent fractures tore open across the sky.
The two brothers locked eyes through the chaos.
Coldness.
Madness.
Determination.
A clash of bloodlines that could only end when one of them was broken.
Then, without warning, a blinding streak of light pierced the heavens.
In a microsecond, it dropped directly between them.
"You two… Are you trying to destroy this island?" A deep, gravelly voice echoed across the ruined square.
Instantly, an overwhelmingly heavy, terrifyingly familiar presence crashed down on them like a falling continent.
The sky completely split, twisting into a deep violet.
Thick streaks of black and crimson lightning split the clouds apart.
In that exact instant, both brothers felt their physical movements lock up, their wills completely smothered by the sheer pressure.
Their heads snapped over, staring in shock at the lone figure standing right in the center of the crossfire.
(End of Chapter)
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