Chapter 235: Fruit Awakening Failed? Heavenly Palace Wonderland!
BOOM!
BOOM!
Inside the arena, the battle raged on. However, calling it a "battle" was becoming increasingly inaccurate.
"Nightmare Cave: Nightmare Army!" Saint Qilingorm roared as colorful dream fragments coalesced around him. Countless hideous nightmare creatures, emitting an ominous aura, surged forward like a dark tide toward Saru.
"God-Killing Spear: Bone Spears!" Saint Pierre raised both hands, hurling dozens of jagged bone projectiles in unison.
"Cut Shot: Fast Forward!" Saint Fabian waved the glowing screen in his hand.
In an instant, the nightmare army and the bone spears accelerated unnaturally, appearing before Saru in the blink of an eye. Their cooperation was seamless, and their combined attack power was undeniably devastating.
But...
"Cheap tricks," Saru sneered.
He didn't bother dodging. He simply shifted his weight and delivered a powerful shoulder check to the air.
BOOM!
The bone spears shattered instantly upon contact with his shoulder. The sheer physical force of the impact created a shockwave that turned the vanguard of the nightmare army into dust.
[Indestructible Vajra Body: Mountain Shaker]
Simultaneously, Saru reached up and plucked a handful of hair from his head, blowing it into the wind.
Hoo!
Golden light flashed. Numerous clones—identical to Saru, clad in simplified golden armor and wielding iron staffs—leaped into existence.
[Homie: Body Outside Body · Monkey Progeny]
The clones formed an army of their own, their movements as swift as lightning as they charged into the nightmare horde with their staffs raised.
Earlier, Saru's clones had been spread across Dressrosa saving citizens, but the clones he summoned now were on a completely different level of power. In "Fighting God Mode," all allies near Saru received a massive power boost. To put it bluntly, every "Monkey Grandchild" on this battlefield possessed the strength of a high-level powerhouse from the Grand Line.
BOOM!
The two armies collided. Iron staffs whirled in golden arcs, eyes flashed with divine light, and the clones' staff techniques were flawless. Like snow meeting a scorching sun, the nightmare army was routed in an instant, smashed into clusters of fading dream fragments.
But Saru wasn't finished.
BOOM!
Saru's main body moved. He broke the sound barrier, his figure becoming a blur invisible to the naked eye as he closed the distance to the three God's Knights. He raised the Jingu Bang, which crackled with black-and-red lightning, and brought it down on Pierre.
Pierre raised his arms instinctively, bone spears sprouting from his armor to intercept the strike.
CRACK!
The sound of shattering bone echoed through the arena. Pierre's bone spears were as fragile as tofu before the staff. The blood mist surrounding him—his "Absolute Defense"—was vaporized instantly by the overwhelming power of the Conqueror's Infusion.
"Dispatch Shot: Switch!" Fabian shouted.
The two Knights were suddenly teleported to Saru's flanks.
"Dispatch Shot: Prop · Earth-Destroying Sword!" Fabian waved his hand, turning the shattered boulders of the arena into a colossal stone sword. He coated it in Armament Haki and swung!
"Dream Trident: Nightmare Poison Sting!" Qilingorm shifted into his half-human, half-Qilin form. He lunged with his trident, its tips dripping with a lethal purple venom.
They took the opening while Saru was attacking Pierre to launch a pincer attack.
CLANG! CLANG!
Two crisp metallic collisions rang out. The giant sword and the trident were both blocked by iron staffs.
The three God's Knights watched in horror. Two additional heads, both wearing Sea Beast Masks, had grown from Saru's shoulders, along with four more muscular arms wielding identical iron staffs.
[Fighting God Mode: Form Change · Three Heads, Six Arms]
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Six arms and three staffs danced in a whirlwind of violence. The trident shattered, the stone sword turned to dust, and the bodies of the three God's Knights were pulverized under the shadow of staffs wrapped in Conqueror's Haki.
Their broken bodies were sent flying, smashing through the walls of the Corrida Colosseum.
"Argh... Dispatch Shot: Transfer!" Fabian groaned through the agony, forcibly teleporting their reassembling bodies to another part of the arena to gain a second of breathing room.
Saru had no intention of letting them rest.
"Fiery Golden Eyes!"
Twin beams of golden light lanced across the colosseum, incinerating the Knights as they tried to reform. Their bodies were halved before they could even stand.
Suddenly, Saru's body expanded, growing into a towering giant in seconds. He brought the Jingu Bang down like a pillar of heaven, crushing the three of them into powder once more.
"Un... Unbelievable!"
Gatz, still suspended in mid-air alongside Doflamingo, continued his frantic commentary. "This is a magnificent battle—and the outcome is clear even to the untrained eye! It is a one-sided crushing! Before Lord Saru, those three are no match at all! By my count, they have been 'killed' over fifty times!"
As Gatz said, even the audience outside could see the Knights were being dismantled. No matter how outstanding their cooperation or their individual fruits were, the gap in raw stats was insurmountable. Saru was faster, stronger, and more durable.
However, the audience remained anxious. They had realized the most terrifying trait of these God's Knights: their "immortality."
"The Birdcage is still shrinking!"
"Are these guys immortal? They recover even after being turned to sludge!"
"How can anyone win against a foul ability like that?"
In the crowd, Marco whispered to himself, "No... it won't be endless."
He watched the screen closely. While the Knights were still reassembling under the power of the Deep Sea Contract, the speed of their recovery was visibly slowing down. Marco knew that continuous, high-intensity strikes from Conqueror's Infusion could eventually drain that immortality, leaving them vulnerable.
Saru knows how to deal with them, Marco thought. But he was puzzled. Usually, these guys are cowards. If they see they can't win, they flee. Why are they staying? Do they think they still have a chance?
Inside the colosseum, Qilingorm and Pierre were struggling to reform.
"The Contract power is failing!"
They knew they were near their limit. If any of them faced Saru alone, the connection to the Deep Sea Contract would have been severed long ago. Their only hope was Fabian.
Fabian nodded to them imperceptibly. Pierre and Qilingorm immediately threw themselves forward, ignoring the pain of being smashed again to buy Fabian a single moment.
"Vector Manipulation: Stasis Field!"
"Dream Creation: Ten-Thousand-Year Ice!"
The air froze; massive glaciers formed from dream fragments to block Saru's path. As expected, Saru shattered both with a single swing of his staff, but it gave the Knights the second they needed.
Fabian raised the glowing light in his hand high into the air.
"Fruit Awakening: Eternal Stage!"
The light began to spill downward, ready to rewrite reality.
[LV5: Fruit Awakening · Unique · Eternal Stage (Single Use Only)]
After preparing on an established "Stage," the user can upgrade it to the "Eternal Stage" (500 sqm). The user dominates everything on the stage, controlling movement and destiny by writing a "Script." As long as the script is "Rational," all actors must follow it. (Requires 11.1 Billion Berries to Unlock Permanently).
This was Fabian's ultimate trump card. He had been preparing this "Stage" since the moment he arrived. He had explicit orders from his great-grandfather, Saint Saturn of the Five Elders: Capture the Zodiac or bring back his corpse. If you succeed, you will be promoted to Commander of the God's Knights.
Fabian grinned, expecting the power of a god to descend.
However... his expression froze. The world didn't change.
"Why... why can't I use it?"
He stared at his hand. The glow was flickering like a dying lightbulb before it extinguished completely. He was on his stage, he had prepared the time—so why did it fail?
"It failed!?" Qilingorm and Pierre shouted, their faces paling.
Qilingorm was the first to react. "If the Awakening won't work, we retreat! Now!"
"Right!" Fabian snapped out of his shock. "Retreat!"
If they couldn't rewrite the script, staying here was a death sentence.
"Retreat?" a mocking voice pierced their ears like cold steel. "Didn't I tell you?"
Saru's voice rumbled as the entire colosseum began to shake violently. The three Knights looked around and realized that four banners—[Qi], [Tian], [Da], and [Sheng]—which had been on Saru's back, were now floating at the four corners of the arena.
They had been so overwhelmed by the beatdown that they hadn't noticed when Saru had placed them.
[Fighting God Fruit - Extra Fusion Effect: Fighting God Domain]
Condense four Fighting Seals to create an absolute arena. Inside, the user takes no damage, ignores all status effects, and possesses infinite stamina. The user can manipulate the terrain at will. If an enemy feels fear or attempts to flee, the user's attacks cause "Instant Lethality," ignoring all defenses.
"I came here to beat you to death," Saru said, his voice dropping an octave. "Did you really think I'd let you leave?"
The four banners transformed into four massive, ornate gates that slammed into the ground.
BOOM!
The broken stone of the arena was swallowed by a surging sea of pure white clouds. The carnage of the battlefield melted away, replaced by endless celestial rosy clouds and magnificent golden pillars.
In an instant, they were no longer in Dressrosa. They stood within a majestic, infinite palace high above the heavens.
[Fighting God Domain: Heavenly Palace Wonderland]
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