For a long moment, the grand tea party hall before the Cake Castle fell into an eerie, suffocating silence.
Every single Charlotte child present stared in utter disbelief at the scene unfolding before them.
In their hearts, their elder brother—invincible in battle, forever calm and dependable, the immovable pillar that steadied the entire family—Charlotte Katakuri—
had been forced back by nothing more than a single glance and a single sentence.
He retreated like a startled beast, instantly taking up a full combat stance as though facing a mortal enemy. Cold sweat beaded across his forehead.
It shattered everything they thought they knew.
Even when facing overwhelmingly powerful foes, even if defeat might await him in the end, Brother Katakuri would never—never—be shaken before the fight even began by nothing more than killing intent and pressure.
Because… he was Charlotte Katakuri.
"B-Brother Katakuri… what's wrong with you?" one of the siblings asked, voice trembling with confusion.
"Everyone!!!"
Katakuri did not turn around. His voice was harsher than they had ever heard it—sharp, urgent, leaving no room for doubt.
"Get out of here. Now!!!"
The command only deepened their shock.
Even Charlotte Cracker, who already had some understanding of Gern's strength, frowned heavily.
He knew Gern was strong. But this reaction? It felt exaggerated.
"Katakuri," Cracker said, trying to steady the situation, "aren't you overreacting a bit? I just had a brief clash with that man myself. He's strong, sure—but not to the extent you're making him out to—"
"Cracker!!"
Katakuri's head snapped around. His crimson-lit eyes locked onto Cracker with a weight so grave it felt like a warning carved in steel. He cut him off instantly.
"Shut up."
His gaze shifted back to Gern's faintly smiling face.
In his mind replayed the horrifying future he had just glimpsed—himself decapitated in a single instant.
His voice carried a trace of lingering dread.
"You don't understand…"
"In that man's eyes…"
He paused, then delivered a comparison so blunt, so humiliating, that every member of the Charlotte Family froze in place.
"You're so weak… you're no different from the priest who officiates weddings."
Cracker: "???"
What?
His mind went blank.
The priest? Which priest? That frail old man in Totto Land who couldn't even lift a sword properly, who shuffled around with a book in hand and spoke in a sleepy drawl?
He was being compared to that old man?!
Just what kind of future had Katakuri seen?!!
...
Watching the Charlotte children—tense, shaken, their morale collapsing under Katakuri's words, fear creeping visibly across their faces—
Gern found the scene absurdly amusing.
He burst out laughing.
"Heh… hahahaha!!!"
The sound echoed through the vast, partially ruined hall, thick with naked mockery and absolute confidence.
Gradually, he reined in his laughter and turned his gaze toward the dark-faced figure of Big Mom.
"Well now… it seems things haven't gone quite the way you expected, have they, Big Mom?"
"When you think about it carefully—even if you outnumber me… it looks like I'm still the one with the advantage."
His words cut like blades, driving straight into her pride. The intimidation she had tried to build through numbers alone was unraveling before her eyes.
In the face of absolute power, numbers sometimes became nothing more than excess baggage.
Then Gern shifted the topic back to the "deal" she had proposed earlier.
"As for that little transaction you mentioned…"
"To be honest—I'm very interested."
"Mm?" A sharp glint flashed in Big Mom's enormous eyes.
Had Gern responded this way when she first proposed the deal, she might have been pleased.
But now—after Perospero's capture, after failing to quickly subdue Gern, after Katakuri had been visibly shaken and family morale had plummeted—
those words carried a very different tone.
Sure enough—
Before she could answer, Gern slowly lifted his gaze. The playfulness vanished, replaced by piercing sharpness.
The black blade in his hand—Bahuang—began to hum as if resonating with his will.
Dark-purple Conqueror's Haki coiled around it, interwoven with pale-white vibration particles that crackled with apocalyptic force.
A suffocating aura of destruction filled the hall.
"However…" Gern deliberately stretched out the word, his voice carrying across the chamber.
"As a Marine, representing the order of 'justice'—how could I possibly engage in some fair, aboveboard 'transaction' with lawless pirates like you?"
The smile on his face grew more arrogant by the second—a conqueror's smile.
"So—!"
He raised Bahuang slightly, its tip pointing directly at Big Mom with unshakable dominance.
"I, as a 'guest' who arrived at your tea party with a formal invitation…"
"And as a 'guest' who brought a 'candy gift' worth seven hundred million Beli…"
"If I now request a 'small' rubbing of your Road Poneglyph as a return gift…"
Tilting his head, wearing a shamelessly bold grin, he asked—
"That's not too much, is it?"
This wasn't negotiation.
It wasn't a deal.
It was robbery.
Blatant extortion backed by overwhelming force.
"MAMAMAMAMAAAA!!!"
Big Mom's roar exploded through the hall. Her Haki surged wildly out of control. Her massive body trembled with fury as Napoleon erupted in towering flames.
"Gern, you insolent Marine brat!!! Who do you think you're talking to?!
I am an Emperor who has ruled these seas for decades!!!"
She swung Napoleon violently, her voice thick with outrage and wounded pride.
"You're nothing but a Marine upstart who rose after our era!
What right do you have to spout such nonsense before me?! You Marine lit—"
"Shut up."
The interruption came colder. Sharper. More domineering.
Gern's voice was not loud—but it carried a force that pierced through everything, crushing her roar into silence.
"Heh… hahaha…"
A low, mocking laugh escaped him.
"Marine brat? Marine brat?"
He repeated her words with biting ridicule.
"Listen—I call you Big Mom out of courtesy.
If I drop the courtesy, you're nothing but a fossilized old hag who hasn't moved forward in decades."
The insult grew harsher as his voice rose, echoing through the entire Cake Castle.
"An 'Emperor' who ruled the seas for decades?
Has that childish little title rotted your brain in nostalgia?"
He stepped forward.
The dark-purple lightning of Conqueror's Haki intertwined with trembling white shockwaves, surging outward like a rising tidal wave.
It clashed with Big Mom's presence—
and then began to overwhelm it.
"Open your eyes and look carefully!
Use that sugar-clogged brain of yours and think!"
Gern lifted Bahuang skyward. The blade pointed toward Totto Land. Toward the seas beyond.
His voice rang like a declaration to the world.
"Whose era is this?!"
"It belongs to me—'Heavenquake'!"
"It belongs to Gern Reginald Sigmar!"
"It is destined to be reshaped by the will of Heavenquake—Gern Reginald Sigmar!!!"
Finally, he locked eyes with Big Mom's distorted face—twisted by shock and fury.
And, word by word, he roared a title that eclipsed all others.
"I—am…"
"The one and only King of this era!!!!!"
The instant the word "King" left his lips, his Conqueror's Haki erupted without restraint.
The invisible shockwave swept across the entire hall.
Katakuri's pupils shrank as he dropped to one knee.
Cracker turned pale, eyes rolling back momentarily.
Every other Charlotte sibling present collapsed unconscious on the spot.
This was not a declaration.
It was a statement of fact.
A final ultimatum—
from the King of the new era,
to the remnants of the old.
..
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