The moment Zaraki's words fell, the sick smile on Doflamingo's face froze for the first time.
He looked as if he had heard some absurd joke.
Behind his cracked sunglasses, his eyes locked onto Zaraki, the gaze of someone examining an insect, only to realize that the insect had actually dared bare its fangs at him.
"Fufufu..."
A few dry laughs forced their way out of his throat, but anyone could hear there was no amusement left in them, only icy killing intent.
"What did you just... say?"
"I said," Zaraki replied, taking one step forward as broken stones crunched beneath his feet, "you've already lost, Doflamingo."
'Lost?'
The word struck Doflamingo's face like a slap.
He, the Heavenly Yaksha, Donquixote Doflamingo, one of the proudest men on the sea and the ruler of this country, had just been publicly declared defeated by some brat?
Inside the dead-end cage he had personally created?
"You're asking to die!"
With a roar, Doflamingo could no longer maintain his lofty composure.
A terrifying, invisible will erupted from him and swept out in every direction.
Conqueror's Haki.
In an instant, heavy pressure covered the entire area. The air turned thick, and every breath felt like swallowing blades.
Far away, Yamakaji, Smoker, and the others felt their expressions shift.
It was as if an invisible mountain had come crashing down on them, making even their souls tremble beneath that will.
Some Marines with weaker wills did not even have time to react before their eyes rolled back and they collapsed, foaming at the mouth.
This was the quality of a king, proof of one chosen among millions.
Yet at the center of that flood of Haki, Zaraki stood steadily in place.
Doflamingo's Conqueror's Haki was strong. It carried a natural evil and arrogance, as if it wanted to twist and tear apart everything that refused to obey him.
Unfortunately, Zaraki had never been the kind of man who bowed because someone else wanted him to.
His grin stretched wider, and deep within his pitch-black pupils, a more primal flame began to burn.
His will was different.
It was not conquest.
It existed only to tear apart and cut down whatever stood in front of him.
The pressure around Zaraki rose—not as Conqueror's Haki, but as Reiatsu sharpened by pure bloodlust until it felt like a blade pressed directly against the soul.
At first, Doflamingo thought it was Conqueror's Haki answering his own.
Then that pressure cut into his will with a cold sharpness Haki should not have possessed.
No, this was something else.
The two forces collided in midair.
Within a hundred meters of them, the air twisted with visible ripples.
Doflamingo's Haki crashed forward like a black tide, while Zaraki's Reiatsu drove into it like a jagged blade, cutting open gap after gap.
The ground cracked under the collision. Yamakaji and the others were forced to retreat again, staring at the scene with grim expressions.
This was no longer a battle they could interfere in directly.
"How... is this possible?!"
Doflamingo's expression finally changed.
For the first time, the arrogance on his face faded, replaced by shock.
He could feel it clearly.
His Haki had not disappeared, but every time it pressed toward Zaraki, that strange soul-deep pressure carved it apart.
"This pressure..." Doflamingo clenched his teeth, veins bulging at his temples. "Just what kind of monster are you?"
He tried to steady himself by force, but Zaraki was already smiling.
"You'll understand soon enough," Zaraki said softly, his voice piercing through the storm between them and entering Doflamingo's ears.
"That was only the appetizer."
Before the words had finished, the violent pressure around him withdrew.
It did not disappear. It compressed inward, condensing until the air around Zaraki felt even heavier.
In its place came killing intent, pure to the extreme.
There was no pressure of kingship, no desire to dominate.
Yet everyone present, Doflamingo included, felt every hair on their bodies stand on end.
The temperature seemed to drop, and the battlefield felt as if an invisible blade had already been placed against the back of their necks.
This was the killing pressure of the Zaraki Kenpachi template, stripped of restraint and poured directly into the battlefield.
Doflamingo's pupils shrank to pinpoints behind his cracked lenses.
His proud Conqueror's Haki, under the invasion of that pure killing intent, shook violently.
It did not shatter like glass, but the rhythm of it broke, forcing Doflamingo to stagger back as blood leaked from the corner of his mouth.
Then Zaraki moved.
His toes touched the ground.
In the next instant, his figure blurred and vanished.
Doflamingo had only just steadied himself when a chill descended from above.
He abruptly raised his head and saw a dark figure silently appearing in midair over him.
Both hands gripped the sword.
A plain, simple downward slash.
There was no dazzling special effect. No world-shaking aura.
But the moment Nozarashi swung down, the air in front of it compressed into a crescent-shaped blade aura, sharp enough to make Doflamingo's skin sting before it reached him.
So fast!
At the brink of life and death, Doflamingo's combat instincts were pushed to their absolute limit.
"Overheat!"
He swung the five fingers of his right hand fiercely. Five nearly transparent strings shot from his fingertips, twisting together in midair into a sharp whip that met the descending blade aura head-on.
Clang—!
A thunderous metallic crash exploded, sparks scattering everywhere.
The blade aura and the string whip locked together for a brief moment before both burst apart, turning into wild streams of air that blew outward.
Right as Zaraki's first force faded and the next swing had not yet followed, Doflamingo's wicked smile returned.
"Fufufu... Caught you, bastard!"
Dozens of tough strings spread in from every direction like a spiderweb. In an instant, they wrapped around Zaraki's limbs and body, binding him in midair.
At the same time, a mass of strings beside him twisted and gathered into another Doflamingo. Its palm sharpened into a blade of thread and stabbed toward Zaraki's heart without hesitation.
"Black Knight!"
The clone was made entirely from Doflamingo's strings, a puppet controlled by his fingers and will.
Yet faced with the trap, Zaraki showed no panic at all.
He did not even lift his eyelids. He merely glanced at the string clone with the eyes of someone watching a clown perform.
"Cheap trick."
The moment his voice fell, every string wrapped around him began to hiss.
Reiatsu surged outward from his body, grinding against the strings. Inch by inch, even the threads hardened with Armament Haki began to fray and snap.
"What?!"
Doflamingo's smile froze.
Those were strings tempered with his Haki.
How could they break like that?
The next second, a feeling that made his scalp crawl surged through him.
Zaraki vanished from his sight.
Doflamingo only felt his right wrist tighten, as if it had been clamped by a red-hot iron pincer.
An irresistible force came with it, draining strength from his whole body.
He turned his head in shock and met Zaraki's emotionless black eyes.
"I told you," Zaraki said from close enough to touch, cold without a trace of warmth, "I've already caught you, Doflamingo."
The grip on his wrist was completely real.
This was the true body.
A powerful fear seized the Heavenly Yaksha's heart in an instant.
Zaraki slowly raised Nozarashi. The blade reflected a chilling gleam beneath the dim sky.
"One-Sword Style: Bisect."
There was no sky-shaking aura, nor any world-destroying pressure.
At that moment, Zaraki's entire presence became terrifyingly restrained, as though he had fused completely with the blade in his hand.
All his power, all his will, and all his killing intent gathered into the slash that was about to fall.
Every cell in Doflamingo's body screamed, warning him of death's arrival.
He had no doubt that if this slash landed cleanly, he would be cut apart.
"Not a chance!"
In that instant between life and death, Doflamingo unleashed every bit of his potential.
His other hand snapped open, and countless strings infused with his strongest Armament Haki surged from his palm, weaving madly in front of him layer upon layer.