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Chapter 442: Madness! A Smoking Grenade Dooms Them All
The blue, high-voltage electric grid emitted a teeth-grinding crackle, resembling the desperate shrieks of ten thousand starving cicadas. The stench of charred ozone filled the air, leaving behind the distinct odor of scorched trees and burnt grass as the grid swept past the island's edges.
Sengoku lay prone behind a severely cracked cement pipe, his mouth full of gritty sand. He coughed violently. Every breath made his lungs feel as if they were being scrubbed with coarse sandpaper. The Marine Fleet Admiral was showing his age. Stripped of the Daibutsu fruit's power, his old bones screamed against the unforgiving concrete. Squinting through the dust, Sengoku struggled to check the electronic map on his wrist. The white circle representing the Safe Zone had shrunk to a diameter of barely a hundred meters, centered perfectly within this heavily bombed, crater-filled wasteland.
"Dammit, there isn't even a crack to hide in anymore," Sengoku cursed under his breath, his voice terribly hoarse.
His M416 Assault Rifle's handguard was slick with sweat, the slick sensation leaving a deep knot of unease in his stomach. But Sengoku wasn't the only one suffering.
Less than twenty meters away, behind a crumbling brick wall, Red-Haired Shanks sat slumped in the muddy water. His pristine white shirt had long been reduced to a filthy grey-black, and his empty left sleeve swayed limply in the wind. Shanks clamped his teeth down on one end of a bandage and gave a vicious tug with his right hand, tightly binding the gunshot wound on his thigh. A stray bullet had bitten off a chunk of his flesh during their bridge crossing, and blood had already soaked through most of the dressing.
Shanks's forehead was drenched in sweat, his complexion as pale as a sheet of paper. With a self-deprecating chuckle, he glanced over at the behemoth hiding not too far away.
Kaido crouched behind a stack of rotten wooden crates. Atop his head sat a Level 3 Helmet that was badly deformed and riddled with bullet scars. Half of the visor was shattered, revealing a single, bloodshot eye staring back. In his hand, Kaido tightly gripped a cast-iron pan, its flat bottom dented by several bullet impacts.
"This is all the space left. We're all gonna die right here." Kaido panted heavily, his chest heaving like a broken bellows.
Even his muscles—several times stronger than an average human's—were trembling slightly from sheer exhaustion. On this island, a massive physique only made you a larger target. He could feel his stamina draining away at a terrifying pace. Just then, the blue grid of light moved again. It advanced toward the center mercilessly. Though slow, it carried the suffocating pressure of impending death. Donquixote Doflamingo, hiding at the absolute edge, let out a bloodcurdling scream. With a broken left leg, he simply couldn't move fast enough. The electric grid swept ruthlessly over his back.
"Aaah—!"
Doflamingo rolled across the ground in agony. His notoriously expensive pink feather coat instantly reeked of burnt rot as the feathers curled and carbonized amidst the blue electric sparks. The former Heavenly Yaksha looked like a plucked vulture, clawing frantically at the mud with dirt caked under his fingernails.
"Run! If we don't run, we're actually gonna turn into charcoal!" Shanks endured the searing pain, pushed off the ground with his single arm, and limped out from behind cover.
Sengoku gritted his teeth and scrambled out from the cement pipe, leaving bloody streaks on the ground from his scraped knees. The center of the clearing offered zero cover—just a few scattered rocks and a half-dead, withered tree. Whoever stood up first became an open target. Bang! A muffled gunshot tore through the dead silence. A 7.62mm sniper bullet grazed past Sengoku's ear, leaving his eardrum stinging before obliterating the brick behind him into a cloud of dust. The shattered stone chips pelted the back of his head, stinging sharply.
"It's the sniper from Red-Haired's crew!" Sengoku immediately threw himself flat against the dirt, not daring to lift his head.
He knew exactly what that level of accuracy meant. In a world devoid of Observation Haki, a man named Yasopp was the grim reaper incarnate.
Yasopp was currently perched in the sole withered tree in the center of the clearing. Light on his feet, he crouched among the branches three meters up like a large bird. The SKS Semi-Automatic Rifle in his hands, equipped with a 4x Scope, radiated the scent of death. Looking through the lens, Yasopp watched these legendary figures who once controlled the seas squirm in the mud. A twisted sense of elation curled at the corner of his mouth. The thrill of trampling the strong beneath his feet was intoxicating. He readied his finger on the trigger, preparing to put a second bullet right through Sengoku's skull.
Suddenly, a dark figure launched out from the nearby bushes at a speed entirely unbefitting his age. Garp charged the base of the tree like a mad bull, limping heavily on his bleeding, bullet-pierced right ankle. Yet, he seemed entirely oblivious to the pain. Roaring furiously, Garp swung the scavenged submachine gun in his hands. Using the hard, folded stock as a bludgeon, he violently smashed it against the trunk of the withered tree.
Thud! A heavy, dull boom echoed out. The dead tree swayed violently under Garp's unreasonable, brute force. Yasopp, who had been fully concentrated on his scope, suddenly felt his footing slip as he lost his balance.
"Dammit!"
Crying out in shock, Yasopp tumbled straight down from the three-meter-high branch. The sniper rifle flew out of his grasp in an arc, crashing heavily against a rock and shattering the 4x Scope into a spray of glass dust.
Yasopp landed flat on his back, the impact nearly knocking the wind completely out of his lungs. Before he could even attempt to roll over and stand, Garp pounced on him, bringing a heavy wave of sour sweat. The two men engaged in a frenzied grapple in the mud.
"I'll show you what happens when you take cheap shots from the dark! Hiding in a tree playing pretend!" Garp straddled Yasopp's chest and buried a fist squarely into his nose.
Crack. Yasopp's nasal bone shattered on impact, spraying blood directly onto Garp's face. But Yasopp was no pushover. While primarily a sniper, his close-quarters combat skills were incredibly vicious. Yanking his neck back to dodge Garp's second punch, Yasopp drove his knee upward, slamming it ruthlessly into Garp's wounded leg.
"Hsss—!" Garp sucked in a sharp breath, his grip loosening just a fraction.
Seizing the opening, Yasopp rolled out from beneath the Marine Hero. In a seamless motion, he drew a gleaming paratrooper knife from his boot.
"Die, you crazy old man!" With a venomous glare, Yasopp thrust the blade straight toward Garp's throat.
Garp burst into laughter, catching Yasopp's wrist in an iron grip with his calloused hands. The bones of the two men ground against each other, emitting a sickening friction.
Right at that exact second, the surrounding blue Blue Zone let out a final, howling surge. It had completely closed in. All the blue light curtains converged, forming a tiny circle less than five meters in diameter. This tiny ring was packed with people. Sengoku, Shanks, Kaido, Garp, Yasopp… and the heavily charred Doflamingo, who was panting weakly on the ground. Everyone was practically pressed shoulder-to-shoulder, flesh against flesh.
In this absolute deathmatch zone, firearms had lost all meaning. At this range, pulling a trigger meant killing yourself in the crossfire.
Kaido suddenly stood up. His massive frame radiated an overwhelming sense of claustrophobic pressure in the cramped space. Swinging his pan, he aimed a brutal swat at Sengoku's head.
"I'll send you packing first, you Marine bastard!"
Sengoku's reaction wasn't slow. Despite his exhausted stamina, his combat instincts remained. Ducking sharply, the pan whistled right past his scalp, the chilling draft making the hairs on his arms stand up. Sengoku used the momentum to tackle Kaido's waist, trying to wrestle the giant to the ground, but Kaido stood as unmovable as a pillar nailed into the earth.
Shanks made his move too. Though fighting with one arm, his strikes were incredibly tricky. Grabbing a sharp rock from the dirt, he lunged to stab Kaido in the ribs.
The scene devolved into absolute, chaotic anarchy. The powerhouses who once stood at the pinnacle of the world were now fighting like street thugs. Pulling hair, choking throats, biting with their teeth. It was the most primal, barbaric form of violence imaginable. There was no Haki. No Devil Fruits. Only the raw, desperate instinct to survive.
Doflamingo lay trapped at the bottom of the pile. He felt as though his ribs were going to be stomped to pieces by these madmen. The eyes that were once filled with boundless ambition now held nothing but profound terror. Staring up at the twisted faces above him, he realized just how utterly absurd this world could be. And right while everyone was locked in an inseparable, violent tangle, right in the center of the clearing—directly beside their shuffling feet—sat a dark green lump of metal.
It had fallen out of Yasopp's tactical vest during his scuffle with Garp. It was the most lethal explosive on the island: a Frag Grenade.
The safety pin at the top had been pulled at some unknown point. The metal lever had long since sprung off. At this very moment, wisps of white smoke were hissing furiously from the grenade's fuse. In this claustrophobic ten-square-meter death zone, that grenade was nothing less than a ticking countdown from the Grim Reaper himself.
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