WHOOSH—
Accompanied by a piercing shriek of tearing air, Katakuri was blasted backward at terminal velocity, crossing the horizon like a dark streak. The atmospheric pressure instantly erupted into a succession of expanding white vapor rings as he crashed violently into a densely packed residential district.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
In the span of a few brief breaths, the high-velocity shadow tore clean through dozens of houses, shattering thick brick and mortar into fine dust. He plowed a path hundreds of meters long through the residential sector, the terrifying gale generated by his trajectory carving a massive, semi-circular trench deep into the earth.
A violent shockwave kicked up a towering wall of dust, blanketing the majority of the neighborhood.
"Tch~ He slipped through again!" Enel growled, his voice laced with intense irritation as he glared down at his palm, which was still clad in a crackling armor of blue electricity.
"To be able to find the most optimal countermeasure to minimize damage in that exact microsecond... That guy..." Aeridar unclenched his fist, staring at the swirling dust storm in the distance. His expression was a mix of startle and genuine praise for Katakuri's split-second reflexes.
In that critical moment, facing an inescapable pincer attack, Katakuri had managed to liquefy a portion of his body into mochi just in time. Shifting his form by a hair's breadth, he created a precise hollow space to let Enel's hand-blade slice through empty air, choosing instead to take the full brunt of Aeridar's fist with his physical body.
After all, if a combined assault from Aeridar and Enel hit its mark simultaneously, the resulting damage wouldn't just be 1 + 1 = 2; it would be an explosive 1 + 1 = 3.
Yet, Katakuri had found a way to mitigate the disaster in a flash, ensuring he only sustained the damage of a single '1'. It was an incredibly brilliant evasion.
Unfortunately for him, the '1' represented by Aeridar's strike was not something easily weathered. A solid, clean hit from that punch was more than enough to inflict severe internal trauma!
"The Captain landed a clean hit! We can finish him—dammit, we're out of time!"
A grin had just begun to spread across Dimitri's face at the sight of Katakuri being blasted away. But just as he was about to rally the crew to finish the execution, his peripheral vision caught a dark storm cloud moving rapidly across the distant sky, with a colossally imposing figure standing squarely upon it.
Judging by the distance, Katakuri had been thrown at least half a kilometer. Aeridar's expression darkened considerably as he looked up.
"You bastards! Don't you dare touch my son!"
Perched atop Zeus several hundred meters in the air, Charlotte Linlin let out a frenzied, earth-shattering roar. A torrent of terrifying Conqueror's Haki erupted from her frame, saturating every single inch of the atmosphere. The buildings and ground below began to shudder violently, spiderwebbed by fine fractures under the sheer weight of her willpower.
"Big Mom!"
Zephyr's expression shifted drastically, his eyes filling with absolute gravity.
The strongest woman in the world had arrived!
As a former Marine Admiral, Zephyr had personally clashed with every single member of the Yonko, with the sole exception of Blackbeard, Marshall D. Teach.
The world-ending Whitebeard, Edward Newgate!
The wildly charismatic Red Hair, Shanks!
The unkillable Beast, Kaido!
The weather-controlling Big Mom, Charlotte Linlin!
To Zephyr, the greatest impression the Yonko left on him could be summed up in a single word: Monsters.
"Spear of Elbaf: Ikoku!!!"
Griping her giant sword with both hands, Charlotte Linlin brought the blade down in a massive, sweeping slash.
In the next instant, a blinding pink light flared, painting the entire sky and earth in a vivid, neon hue. A colossal, crescent-shaped shockwave of pink energy erupted from the blade, screaming toward Aeridar and the others at terrifying speed.
"Scatter! Now!"
Aeridar's face contorted. He bellowed a frantic warning before vanishing from the spot with a sharp pop.
In truth, his warning was hardly necessary. Zephyr, Dimitri, and the rest of the crew had witnessed the catastrophic power of Big Mom's signature technique before. None of them dared to hesitate; their faces paled as they scrambled in every direction to evade.
BOOOOM!!!
The devastating pink shockwave tore into the earth, obliterating everything in its path with unstoppable force. The ground heaved and shuddered violently as a ferocious gale sent columns of dirt into the sky. The thick bedrock deep beneath the surface was shattered instantly, the single slash carving a massive canyon clean through the terrain!
"Mama! We must capture that man! If we let them escape, our family's honor will be completely ruined!" Perospero shouted from his position on Zeus, his long tongue lolling out as his face twisted in a mask of pure fury and malice.
Simultaneously, Big Mom Pirates reinforcements from all across Totto Land were converging on the town like a swarm of hornets. Some had even utilized Brûlée's Mirro-World ability, stepping through the surviving mirrors within the town to arrive ahead of the main force.
Fortunately, the tens of thousands of animated homies were still fighting with suicidal frenzy, aggressively attacking any enemy within sight. Though they were no match for the ferocious, bloodthirsty officers of the Big Mom Pirates, they succeeded in buying the crew precious seconds.
"Let's pull out, Captain!" Dimitri bellowed over the din of battle towards Aeridar.
"What a troublesome old hag!"
Enel's armor of blue electricity dissipated with a sharp sizzle. He breathed heavily, his eyes locked onto Big Mom hovering in the sky.
Hearing Dimitri's shout, Aeridar knit his brows. He waved his hand dismissively and commanded in a deep tone, "All of you get out of here first! I'll cover the rear!"
Dimitri and the others needed a head start to escape, while he had to stay behind to hold off the flying Big Mom. Otherwise, none of them would make it out smoothly.
"Don't even think about running!"
Charlotte Daifuku materialized from a mirror that remained intact within a nearby house ruin. With a furious roar, he vigorously rubbed his torso, summoning a massive genie completely shrouded in pitch-black Armament Haki.
"Genie!!!"
The genie raised its massive scimitars high, charging toward Dimitri like a runaway train.
"Get lost!"
Following a thunderous roar, a flash of blue lightning zipped across the field, slamming heavily into the genie's torso.
BANG!
Before the genie could even react, Enel intercepted it mid-air, the sheer kinetic and electrical force detonating the spirit into a cloud of pale blue smoke.
"Enel!" Daifuku snarled, his voice dripping with venom.
"Move!"
Enel transformed into a bolt of lightning, appearing instantly in front of Dimitri. Grabbing his arm in an iron grip, he shot directly into the sky.
On the other side of the battlefield, Uken, the giant hound beside Lucien, morphed into a massive, black monstrous bird. Lucien vaulted onto its back in a fluid motion, and with a powerful flap of its wings, Uken carried him straight into the clouds.
Zephyr and Backan boarded a massive, dozens-of-meters-long metallic black dragon, riding it back toward their floating sky island.
"You won't escape me!"
Charlotte Linlin swung her giant sword, Napoleon, with manic fury, screaming at Zeus to accelerate and give chase.
"Ba Serpent: Churning Dance!!!"
Aeridar rocketed into the air, extending his hand and gesturing sharply toward the ground.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The earth groaned and rumbled as endless fissures tore through the terrain. Tens of millions of tons of soil, intermingled with the heavy brick and stone debris of the ruined town, were hoisted into the sky as if lifted by an invisible, almighty hand, rapidly forming into colossal serpents over a hundred meters long.
Seven or eight massive earth-and-stone serpents reared their heads hundreds of meters into the air, opening their cavernous maws as they lunged from all directions to swallow Big Mom whole.
"The power of the Float-Float Fruit!" Perospero shrieked in sheer terror.
"Get out of my way!"
Big Mom roared in unbridled fury. She unleashed a massive, circular spin-dash with her sword, expanding a destructive ring of pink energy outward.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
In an instant, the pink shockwave sliced through the bodies of the seven or eight earth serpents without a single shred of resistance. The massive constructs severed cleanly, disintegrating into a torrential rain of mud and rock that cascaded from the heavens, completely flattening what remained of the town below.
"Thunderstorm!!!"
Zeus's face twisted into a demonic grin as bolts of lightning arced violently across his massive, black storm-cloud body, discharging a blinding, massive column of lightning.
"Bursting Flame!!!"
Zhurong, who had transformed into a ten-meter-tall Fire Demon God, flew upward into the fray, spewing a colossal, white-hot fireball from his maw.
Instantly, the lightning and the fireball collided mid-air, detonating with a deafening crash that painted the sky in a sea of scattering flames and endless arcs of electricity.
"We'll take our leave this time. See you next time, Big Mom!"
Aeridar's expression was ice-cold. He reached his hand high toward the heavens, his voice echoing like thunder: "Lion's Threat: Heavenly Lion!!!"
RUMBLE—
High up in the clouds, the floating sky island fractured down the center, splitting completely in half. The terrain of the separated half collapsed and shattered entirely, dissolving into a massive ocean of floating earth and rock.
Under the influence of his invisible, telekinetic power, the endless mass of earth rapidly coalesced, shaping into dozens of colossal, roaring lion heads. Like a cataclysmic shower of meteors, the massive stone lions began their terminal descent.
"No—"
Charlotte Linlin's eyes widened in sheer horror as she watched the army of colossal stone lions plummet from the heavens like a meteor storm. A desperate, blood-curdling screech, resembling that of a wounded, cornered beast, echoed across the shattered sky.