"Brother Katakuri!!"
A shrill, grief-filled scream suddenly erupted from another direction.
Smoothie's eyes were blood-red, clearly pushed past her limits by what she had just witnessed.
"You bastard…"
Her body suddenly swelled, transforming into a giant over six meters tall.
Her accelerating footsteps cracked the ground, and the long sword in her hand gleamed with cold light, coated in thick Armament Haki as she brought it down toward Nao's head.
"Go die!!"
On the other side, Streusen stiffened for a moment after seeing Katakuri get one-shot.
But with Smoothie already rushing in, he snapped back to his senses—
He pushed off the ground like a ghost and disappeared, reappearing behind Nao the next instant and swinging with all his strength toward Nao's exposed neck!
A pincer attack from front and back!
No—not just that!
Big Mom, who had been blasted back hundreds of meters earlier, also roared in fury at this moment, descending from above with a massive punch, cutting off every escape route.
"Just in time!"
Nao had no intention of dodging.
Instead, the fighting spirit in his eyes surged even stronger.
He laughed freely as his wind-tossed black hair suddenly shot upward, standing on end like crackling static.
His deep black pupils turned into dazzling electric blue, and faint lightning patterns began spreading across his skin.
Zzzzz!
The next moment, lightning wrapped around both of Yone's blades.
Nao tightened his left hand around the Azakana Sword, meeting Smoothie head-on.
His right hand flicked, the Wind Blade twisting as he spun and slashed toward Streusen aiming for his throat!
And as for Big Mom's descending punch from above—
"Open!"
Nao suddenly lifted his head, gaze ice-cold.
The faint blue lightning mark between his brows split open—
as if forming a third eye.
HUMMM—!
The air trembled.
From the lightning-formed eye burst a brilliant, nearly white beam of thunderous light, shooting straight toward Big Mom!
BOOOOOOOM!!!
A deafening explosion shook all of Whole Cake Island.
The next second—
Under countless disbelieving gazes, Smoothie and Streusen were launched into the air like cut kites, crashing hundreds of meters away, utterly unconscious.
Big Mom, meanwhile, managed to withstand the lightning beam for a few seconds before finally shattering it.
But the force of her punch had been almost completely neutralized.
Before it even reached Nao's face, he effortlessly grabbed her wrist, twisted—
and turned her entire arm into a corkscrew shape before hurling her away.
THUD!!!
Big Mom's massive body shot across the battlefield like a fired cannonball, crashing into the scorched earth and creating a huge crater.
As dust slowly settled, the four Sweet Commanders and Streusen were all either dead or incapacitated—
leaving only Big Mom still standing.
"Cough… cough, cough…"
Big Mom struggled to rise, half-kneeling on the scorched ground as she clutched her chest, coughing violently enough to tear her lungs apart.
Her injuries were already catastrophic.
There was barely a patch of intact skin left on her body.
A massive chunk of flesh had been carved from her left shoulder at some unknown moment, leaving a crater large enough to fit a human head.
White bone and exposed tissue pulsed visibly—horrifying to behold.
But the body known as the "Iron Balloon" still stood.
She had not fallen to that strike, and her consciousness remained clear.
After gasping heavily for several seconds, she pushed herself up again, staggering but upright.
The sun had already set.
Night had arrived.
It was a full-moon night, and the moonlight was bright enough that the battlefield remained clearly visible.
Even without Observation Haki, Big Mom could faintly make out—
under the pale moonlight—
the tragic sight of her children, who had still been fighting beside her moments earlier, now lying motionless on the ground, their fates unknown.
"Katakuri…"
"Smoothie…"
"Even that old man Streusen…"
Big Mom's body trembled.
Her teeth chattered.
Her breathing, which she had finally managed to stabilize, once again turned chaotic.
Everything she saw before her made her chest tighten, as if a giant hand were crushing her heart—
pushing her into suffocating despair.
"White… Dragon… brat…"
She slowly raised her head.
Beneath her wind-blown pink bangs, her eyes were blood-red, overflowing with hatred and murderous intent.
The voice that leaked from her hoarse throat was chilling enough to freeze blood.
BOOM!
Before she even finished speaking, a terrifying aura burst from her body—
so oppressive it made scalps go numb—
spreading outward in a violent shockwave.
Conqueror's… Haki!
RUMBLE!
Thunder cracked across the night sky.
Lightning flashed, and thick clouds swallowed most of the moonlight.
The faint remaining sliver of gold-white light illuminated Big Mom's twisted, demonic face.
"You… deserve… to DIE!!!"
Big Mom clenched the Emperor Sword with both hands.
Her raging Conqueror's Haki suddenly pulled back like a receding tide.
In the span of a single breath, all that overwhelming Haki focused and compressed—
binding itself around the blade.
Prometheus, who had been weakened and dim, was forcefully injected with a surge of soul energy.
He reignited instantly, flames roaring as they wrapped around the sword.
Golden-red flames intertwined with jet-black Haki patterns.
And the instant the technique fully formed—
Big Mom vanished from sight.
With a roar, she reappeared in front of Nao, bringing the strike down!
The very air around her trembled violently as she passed.
One could hardly imagine how catastrophic the destruction would be once that blade landed.
Just like that one strike Roger unleashed back then…
A power that could turn heavens and earth upside down.
A force that even gods would fear!
"Conqueror's coating, huh…"
Watching the familiar scene unfold, Nao snorted coldly.
Without a moment's hesitation, he mirrored her movements.
"This power isn't yours alone anymore, Charlotte Linlin!"
BOOM!
A terrifying aura erupted from him—
one that made the world pale, one that made all life tremble.
Its magnitude completely dwarfed Big Mom's.
Three years ago—
He had not yet mastered Conqueror's Haki coating.
Under Big Mom's technique, he was forced to teleport again and again, avoiding her edge, stalling until her Haki ran dry before turning the tide.
But now—
He no longer needed such strategies.
After three years of relentless refinement,
his Conqueror's Haki coating—
in mastery and in power—
had surpassed Big Mom's entirely.
BOOM!
His Conqueror's Haki compressed around both of Yone's swords.
Their figures collided violently atop the scorched earth.
The shockwave that erupted made the entire Cake Island shake like molten rock.
Cracks opened everywhere, radiating outward from the ruins of the Cake Castle and covering nearly half the island.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Explosions echoed endlessly.
Big Mom, driven into a frenzy, unleashed everything she had, allowing her to barely keep pace at the start.
But as the minutes passed—
as her stamina plummeted—
After over an hour, she once again fell into a crushing disadvantage.
"So you can't hold on anymore, Charlotte Linlin?"
After that strike, their bodies crossed paths again.
Nao looked at Big Mom, who had landed opposite him—her face pale, drained of blood.
Expressionless, he tightened his grip on both swords.
"Looks like…"
"…this is about where it ends."
Hum—
With those words, the twin sword tips suddenly rose toward the sky.
Under the moonlight, their gleam looked like lightning rods drawing in a storm.
RUMBLE!
In an instant, thunder roared across the heavens.
Torrential rain poured down.
Countless thick, dragon-like bolts of white lightning clawed through the darkness, turning the night sky bright as day.
Not just above Cake Island—
Nut Island, Butter Island, Cheese Island…
All 36 islands of Totto Land—
the entire Totto Land sea—
seemed to have every speck of lightning element drawn madly toward the point of Nao's swords.
"Look! Up there!"
"What… what is that?!"
Gasps broke out from the crowd in the distance.
Because in that moment—like an illusion—
the night sky manifested a colossal thunder bear.
A giant phantom, hundreds of meters tall, formed entirely of lightning.
Its body was pale blue, its expression solemn—neither sorrowful nor joyful.
Nao hovered in midair, lightning swirling around him like a mantle of divinity.
His gaze was ice-cold.
He lowered the sword tips, pointing straight at Big Mom.
"Heaven's Voice—Thunderfall!"
The instant his voice dropped, the thunder bear raised its massive paw—
And slammed it down.
As it descended, endless lightning infused with Conqueror's Haki burst forth—
radiant and blinding—
swallowing everyone's vision in a single flash.
At the core of that radiant inferno,
Big Mom was like a lone, fragile boat helpless in a storm—
small, insignificant.
She screamed in despair, resisting with everything she had.
Her remaining soul power nearly burned out entirely,
but it changed nothing.
The lightning consumed her whole.
Next moment—
Under the shocked gaze of countless people, a completely scorched, unrecognizable body plummeted from mid-air. After smashing a bottomless crater into the ground, there was no longer any sign of life.
…
As the lightning slowly faded—
Every member of the Charlotte Family watching from afar felt their limbs go cold.
Silence swallowed them whole.
"Ma! Ma—!!"
Charlotte Perospero, the eldest son and the closest to the crater,
snapped out of his shock with a shrill, broken scream,
then sprinted toward the pit like a madman.
"Ma… mama…?"
Looking at the corpse—
burned beyond recognition, nothing but charcoal—
Perospero trembled violently.
Clinging to a final thread of hope,
he stumbled down the edge of the crater,
wanting to check whether Big Mom still had a breath left.
But—right then—
From the corner of his eye, he noticed countless small white lights rising into the air, drifting upward, and dissolving into nothing.
"That's… the Homies' souls…"
His pupils shrank violently.
Realization hit him like a hammer.
He turned his head stiffly.
Whoosh—whoosh—
Far away, many Homies created by the Soru Soru no Mi suddenly burst into clusters of light and shot skyward.
Within seconds—
bathed in moonlight—
they vanished like mist.
"Mama… is really dead."
There was no longer any need to check the body.
The last light in Perospero's eyes faded.
His knees buckled.
His entire body collapsed sideways onto the ground, powerless.
It was over. Completely over.
As the eldest son, he understood better than anyone: with Big Mom's death, not only were the remaining survivors on this battlefield finished—
even the entire Toto Land, thousands of kilometers away, had stepped into the abyss of destruction.
In the brutal, competitive New World, without the combat strength of an Emperor to anchor them…
The entire Totto Land sea—this massive foundation—was something the children of the Charlotte Family could never hold, no matter what they tried.
Let alone the fact that Katakuri and the others were now in unknown condition,
and the remaining core members of the Charlotte Family—including himself—
were still trapped on Cake Island.
There was no doubt about it.
That man called White Dragon would never let them go.
The more Perospero thought about it, the more despair consumed him.
He closed his eyes.
He knew that the Charlotte Family, who had dominated the seas for decades,
had finally reached their end today…
———
At the distant harbor, many visitors had already fled in terror.
But a considerable number had not yet left, and the ships there were now filled with a suffocating silence.
"Linlin… actually died just like that…"
Among them was Morgans, president of the World Economic News Paper.
He finally lowered his telescope after a long, stunned silence, his face full of disbelief.
This was one of the Sea Emperors—
one of the world's strongest figures standing at its very peak!
If she had merely been defeated and forced to retreat, that would still be within what he could mentally accept; it wouldn't shock him too much.
After all, Nao had already defeated Big Mom one-on-one three years ago.
But… dead?
And not just dead—killed while surrounded by the Sweet Commanders and powerful Streusen?
"That man… he's actually become this strong…?"
Morgans' talon-like fingers trembled around his telescope.
His breathing grew rapid.
He could already imagine the storm that would sweep the entire New World—
No.
The entire world—
once this news spread.
Thinking about everything White Dragon had done in the last three years, Morgans swallowed hard.
Even though it was obvious to anyone with eyes that White Dragon was striving to end the Great Pirate Era, most well-informed individuals—Morgans included—believed that after eliminating the small fry in the Four Blues, he would stop and return to the Marines.
After all, the New World wasn't a playground.
Pirates here had survived for decades; they were terrifying powerhouses.
And the territories of the Sea Emperors were not something anyone could afford to provoke.
No matter how strong an individual was, they couldn't shake the New World by themselves.
But now—
Reality landed like a slap, shattering all his previous assumptions.
The New World… was about to change.
"The Great Pirate Era…"
Morgans lowered his telescope and stared at the figure standing proudly in the sky.
In a dry whisper, he said:
"Is this guy… really going to end it… alone?"
…
Sea Circle Calendar, Year 1510, mid-March.
The former Marine Admiral Candidate, White Dragon Nao, stepped onto Whole Cake Island alone, fought against many, and killed the Sea Emperor Big Mom. The Charlotte Family was thus declared overthrown!
As the news spread, public opinion was in an uproar, and the world was shaken!