Sengoku let out a long sigh and did his best to calm Garp down.
"Yes. If we can trade the smallest price for the greatest benefit, let the Golden Lion inflate his ego until it's beyond saving, and make him firmly believe the Marines are clinging to Edd War Sea because there's a weapon here strong enough to threaten the whole world… then everything we're doing is worth it. The Flying Pirates have been making far too much noise lately, to the point of threatening the safety of the world itself.
This world doesn't need a second Rocks. As for Nazca's sacrifice, it pains this old man as well, but… certain necessary sacrifices can't be avoided."
Garp could run wild inside the Marines not just because of his strength, but because he was rough on the surface and sharp underneath, knowing exactly where the lines were. In fact, the moment Sengoku passed the information to him, Garp already understood that, among all the officers at G-35 Branch, aside from Nazca, no one else could have carried out the plan so perfectly without even knowing its details.
He exhaled deeply, loosening his fist. Garp finally lifted his head to stare at the sky, face full of helplessness.
"Ahh… I get it, Sengoku. That's exactly why I hate this way of doing things! When is this world ever going to stop with these pointless sacrifices?"
Sengoku knew Garp far too well. As soon as Garp finished speaking, he understood that Garp had already come to terms with it, so he simply continued,
"Garp, you should know this old man doesn't want it this way either. Peace still needs us to guard it, and it still needs the overwhelming power you wield to deter others. Besides, to make absolutely sure there are no mistakes, we still need you to chase the Roger Pirates all the way to Edd War Sea. If possible, this will be a rare chance to wipe out two pirate crews at once. This old man doesn't want even the slightest error."
"…Fine, I got it."
Garp wasn't in the mood at all, but he understood how important this was. So, hanging his head, he still led his adjutant aboard his dog-headed warship and set out to hunt down the Roger Pirates.
Watching the dog-headed warship sail off, a glint flashed off Sengoku's round spectacles.
"Let's hope… everything goes smoothly, Garp. If you knew your son Dragon abandoned his own ideals and cooperated with the World Government just to make this operation possible, I wonder what you'd think. Forget it… better to let this matter rot in this old man's stomach."
Time was like notes leaping across his fingertips, playing a captivating melody that drew people in so deeply they forgot the flow of time itself. Unknowingly, it had already been half a month since Doflamingo returned to Sky Island.
Over this half month, Doflamingo had spent his days training while thinking over his next moves.
During this period, Doflamingo had used Enel's techniques from the original story as reference and developed a few of his own. But he quickly realized that, for ordinary people in this world, several tens of millions of volts of lightning were only enough to knock them out.
To inflict real, serious injuries or kill outright, he needed at least one hundred million volts. Against someone as strong as Bullet, even lightning attacks in the hundreds of millions of volts were practically nothing more than noise after the thunder—plenty of sound, very little impact.
For someone at Bullet's level of physical toughness, simply piling on voltage no longer worked; he had to combine it with Haki if he wanted to inflict real, grievous damage.
Because of that, starting from the ultimate move he'd created as soon as he obtained the Goro Goro no Mi (Rumble-Rumble Fruit), Raijin no Ikari (Wrath of the Thunder God), Doflamingo kept pushing it further. Aside from not being able to freely overlay Haki yet, he cranked his lightning output up to the max.
For his standard techniques, Doflamingo fused Busoshoku Haki (Armament Haki) with lightning. On top of the original high-voltage current attacks, he added Armament Haki, turning all that blue lightning into jet-black lightning.
Precisely because of that, after half a month of high-intensity physical conditioning at sea, Doflamingo had reached the point where he could maintain this fusion of Busoshoku Haki and lightning for a whole day.
Thanks to the changes in his physical stats, every night after resting, Doflamingo felt that as long as he kept forcing himself to maintain Busoshoku Haki continuously, then one day, he'd be able to sustain it nonstop around the clock. When that time came, every move he threw out at any given moment would be nearly impossible to withstand.
Of course, to test his training results, Doflamingo fired off a single Senman Boruto: Kuro Raichō (Ten-Million Volt: Black Thunder Bird) and erased half of a man-made cloud island, then stopped testing right there.
If ten million volts already had that kind of power, Doflamingo didn't even dare imagine what would happen if he cranked the output any higher.
Letting his mind run wild, he even pictured this: if, in the future, he could switch from Busoshoku Haki to Haoshoku Haki (Conqueror's Haki) or combine them, freely merging Haoshoku Haki and lightning—or even overlapping Haoshoku Haki, Busoshoku Haki, and lightning all together at will—just how terrifying would that be? You could only say: the future was bright.
As for Raijin no Ikari (Wrath of the Thunder God), Doflamingo could only sigh that, with how things were going, this "ultimate move" would probably end up as nothing more than a casual, everyday strike for him in the future.
Maybe the rapid growth in his strength over this period had given Doflamingo a huge boost in confidence, so that some of the plans he'd originally thought were difficult no longer seemed so hard.
Because of that, Doflamingo planned that after settling Vice Admiral Kongming, he would temporarily divide the family into two parts. Bullet, Vergo, Pica, Lao G and the other combatants would follow him to form the Donquixote Pirates, head into the New World, and use raw strength to write a brand-new order there.
Diamante would stay behind on Sky Island to develop technology and train the family's reserve members until they were qualified to become full combatants.
Trebol would continue expanding the underground trade in the North Blue, searching for suitable recruits for the family—some to be sent to Amazon Lily, others to be sent up to Sky Island, letting both sides develop in tandem.
As for Sky Island's safety, there was nothing to worry about at all. Doflamingo was already preparing to lace the entire Summit of the Western Sky route with lightning, completely cutting off the possibility of reaching Sky Island via that path.
As for getting up via the Knock Up Stream, that was even simpler. No matter how powerful the updraft was, it could only reach the White Sea at seven thousand meters. All he had to do was use man-made clouds—his research-cloud projects—to completely remodel the White Sea, weave slaughter-tech weaponry throughout it, and then station a squad of God's Guard there to watch it tightly.
Even a crew as strong as the Roger Pirates would have to seriously consider whether their ship would be smashed to pieces and whether they could survive falling from seven thousand meters up.
And when it came to slaughter-tech weaponry, you had to mention Caesar.
After three days of being slowly stewed, Caesar finally couldn't hold out anymore and chose to submit, swearing loyalty to Doflamingo. As for whether Caesar was sincere, Doflamingo didn't care in the slightest. If he acted up, a good beating would fix it.
Of course, Doflamingo didn't only swing the stick; he offered a carrot as well. He promised Caesar a monthly salary of over a million Berries. That promise made Caesar feel like he'd just been pumped full of stimulants. A million Berries—just counting that amount would take all day.
On the very first day after Caesar yielded, Doflamingo gave him his first research assignment: develop biochemical weapons and man-made clouds that are effective against all human races, then deploy them throughout the White Sea. They didn't need to be lethal; as long as anyone who inhaled them would immediately lose all strength, that was enough. And it would be best if the gas could be embedded inside the man-made clouds themselves, and then self-replicate within the clouds.
(End of Chapter)
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