"Long-ears, I don't care who you are!"
Luffy flipped up from the scorched earth, rising to his feet. Beneath the brim of his straw hat, his eyes burned with unshakable resolve.
"Just… don't you dare block my way!!"
The moment the words left his mouth, he didn't hesitate. He went straight for the strongest power he could unleash.
"Second Gear!!"
With a low roar, his skin flushed a deep crimson. Scalding steam burst violently from every pore as his blood accelerated through his body at explosive speed. His aura surged in an instant.
"Gomu Gomu no… Jet Pistol!!"
"Three-Sword Style—One Hundred and Eight Pound Phoenix!!"
"Concassé!!"
The three main fighters—Luffy in Second Gear, Zoro wielding three blades, Sanji striking with blazing kicks—moved with astonishing coordination.
From three different directions, they launched their strongest techniques simultaneously at Enel.
Their speed and power had reached their current limits.
And yet—
Enel didn't even take a single step.
His expression remained detached, as though everything unfolding before him was already accounted for.
"Too slow."
Under the foresight of his Mantra—his supreme Observation Haki—their attack trajectories played out in his mind like a perfectly clear painting.
Zoro's razor-sharp slash cut forward—
But before it could touch Enel's body, the latter had already transformed into lightning. The blade sliced through a flickering electric afterimage and struck nothing but empty air.
Sanji's kick fared no better. It shattered only a cluster of dancing arcs.
Luffy's Jet Pistol, however, was different.
Its speed was pushed to the extreme—so fast it seemed impossible to evade.
Just as it was about to connect—
Enel lazily raised a single finger.
In that instant, it was coated in jet-black Armament Haki.
"Bang!!!"
A sharp, resounding crack split the air.
Luffy's full-powered blow—an attack capable of smashing through steel—
Was effortlessly stopped by that single Haki-coated finger.
It didn't budge an inch.
"What?!" Luffy's pupils trembled.
"Five million volts…" Enel murmured flatly.
"Discharge."
"Bzzzzzt—!!!"
Terrifying high-voltage electricity erupted from Enel's fingertip, racing wildly along Luffy's rubber arm.
"AAAAAH!!" Luffy screamed instinctively as smoke curled off his body. He was blasted backward, slamming heavily into the ground.
Zoro and Sanji were likewise swallowed by writhing serpents of lightning, crying out as their bodies went numb and collapsed.
For a brief moment, it seemed the battle had ended.
But then—
Something changed.
The Luffy who should have been unconscious from the shock… stood up.
He looked battered, scorch marks crawling over his body, smoke rising from his clothes—but he was unmistakably still conscious.
It was as though the earlier scream had been nothing more than reflexive theatrics.
"What?!"
For the first time, Enel's face showed genuine disbelief.
"This guy… took my discharge head-on and can still stand? What is his body made of?!"
Years ago, on Skypiea, the arrogant god he once was might have fallen into self-doubt at this sight.
But the Enel of today had been tempered by G-10 and the brutal crucible of the New World.
His shock lasted only a heartbeat.
His killing instinct overrode everything else.
"Interesting… but this is as far as you go." He let out a cold snort as the golden staff in his hand began spinning rapidly.
Black Armament Haki flowed over it like a rising tide, coating the shaft completely. Its tip morphed into a gleaming, obsidian-like lightning trident, radiating a chilling brilliance.
Just as Enel prepared to impale Luffy to the ground—
At the edge of the battlefield, Trafalgar Law, who had been enduring the numbness and carefully observing everything, saw his opening.
"ROOM…"
His right hand snapped open.
A pale blue spherical space expanded instantly, enveloping Luffy.
"Shambles!!"
In the next instant, before Enel's trident could pierce down—
Luffy vanished.
And reappeared beside Law.
"Hm?" Enel's sure-kill strike missed once again. His brows knit as his gaze shifted toward Law. "So you're a Devil Fruit user too?"
Law panted heavily, locking eyes with him. A faint smile tugged at his lips.
"Heh… 'God,' huh? Even in the New World… when facing a monster like you… I'm not going to just sit there and wait to die!"
"Tch."
A faint click of irritation escaped Enel's tongue—the sound of a god displeased at being disturbed.
The moment Law's lips closed, his smile not yet fully faded—
Enel appeared behind him out of thin air.
He leaned forward slightly, bringing his lips close to Law's ear, whispering softly:
"Do you truly understand… what a 'god' is?"
"—!!!"
Law's pupils shrank to needlepoints. Every hair on his body stood on end.
It hadn't even been half a second.
Not even a single blink completed—
And Enel was already at his back.
That speed…
It had completely surpassed the limits of what his Observation Haki could track.
There was no time to react.
Enel's hands settled onto the shoulders of Law—and Luffy beside him.
"Feel it…"
"The embrace bestowed upon you by a god."
The next instant—
"BOOOOOM—!!!"
Centered on the three of them, a compact yet terrifying thunder explosion detonated.
Blinding golden lightning swallowed their position whole.
The violent energy tore and crushed everything within its radius.
"UGHHH—!!!" Law's scream was agonizingly raw.
Unlike Luffy, he had no natural resistance to lightning. The zero-distance thunderburst ravaged his internal organs and meridians almost instantly.
He was blasted away like a kite with snapped strings, blood spraying from his mouth as he traced a high arc through the air.
He slammed into the distant ground, rolled over a dozen times before coming to a stop—his body twitching intermittently as residual currents crackled through him.
On the other side, Luffy staggered as well.
The sudden thunderburst sent his blood surging violently. More burns and blackened marks spread across him, leaving him in an even sorrier state.
But his rubber physiology activated once again.
Most of the lightning's energy was nullified or dispersed.
Gritting his teeth, he endured the blast—refusing to collapse like Law.
Enel stood calmly in place, lightning serpents still coiling around him.
His gaze swept over the unconscious Law in the distance, then settled on Luffy—battered, smoking, yet still standing.
The interest in his eyes deepened.
"As I thought… that rubber body of yours is rather interesting."
He raised the golden staff, pointing it at Luffy once more.
"But merely being able to take a beating won't let you defeat a god."
His voice turned colder.
"After all… how much longer can you endure?"
"LUFFY!!"
Zoro and Sanji, having barely recovered, attempted to charge again—
But Enel didn't even glance at them.
He casually flicked the golden staff.
"Apologies. God refuses your kneeling."
In an instant, countless fine lightning serpents struck down with precision, sealing off every possible path of evasion.
Zoro barely managed to block with his blades, but the sheer force of the electricity split his palms open and drove him to one knee.
Sanji was directly struck by several bolts, his body blackened as he fell.
Overwhelming.
Complete and absolute domination.
There were no flashy exchanges. No prolonged clashes of techniques.
Only the most basic applications—
Elementalization.
Armament Haki.
Lightning discharge.
And yet, before the absolute disparity in speed, foresight, and raw power—
Luffy and the others' desperate attacks looked unbearably feeble.
They stared at Enel.
From start to finish, he had hardly moved from his position.
With nothing more than a single finger and the simplest lightning techniques, he had crushed them utterly.
A cold, suffocating despair seeped into the hearts of the Straw Hat crew—and Trafalgar Law alike.
Facing this man…
It truly felt as though they were battling something beyond victory.
As though they stood before an entity that could not be defeated.
A god.