"Gomu Gomu no—!"
Seizing the split second while Enel was speaking, Luffy suddenly lashed out with a fierce kick.
"Stamp!!"
His left leg stretched instantly, elongating like a whip as it shot straight toward Enel's chest.
But it was futile.
The attack passed through him once again, nothing more than a ripple spreading across the lightning in his torso.
Enel glanced down at the gaping hole in his chest. There was no anger on his face—no irritation at all. Instead, it was as though he had just confirmed something profoundly absurd.
He looked at the flickering lightning knitting his body back together… then at Luffy's unyielding glare.
"So that's it…"
He muttered to himself, a flicker of understanding—and incredulity—passing through his pupils.
"The reason my Mantra performs so poorly against you… why my predictions always deviate…"
His gaze sharpened.
"It's because you… are a single-celled organism with no inner monologue whatsoever!!"
No layered schemes. No hidden intentions. No concealed calculations.
Every action sprang directly from instinct and raw emotion.
That extreme purity—an almost total absence of mental fluctuation—created a kind of blankness. And that blankness made it impossible for his Mantra, which relied on reading emotional and cognitive currents, to achieve perfect predictive accuracy.
At that moment, Luffy abruptly turned his head and shouted at his struggling crewmates behind him with every ounce of strength in his lungs:
"Everyone!! Split up and run!! Run as fast as you can! We'll regroup later!!"
He stared at Enel.
There was no hesitation. No humiliation.
Only pure, decisive clarity.
"This guy… against this guy…"
"I can't beat him right now!!!"
"So run!!!"
The moment those words—"run"—left his mouth, every member of the Straw Hat crew felt their hearts quake.
They knew their captain better than anyone.
Luffy was the kind of reckless idiot who, even when staring into the abyss, would only shout "I'll beat you!" and charge forward.
And yet now—
He had admitted, with his own mouth, "I can't win."
And ordered them to flee.
Nothing could speak more clearly of how terrifying their opponent truly was.
"Scatter and escape?"
Enel didn't seem bothered in the slightest that Luffy had exposed the gap in their strength. He didn't even pay attention to the hole that had been kicked through his chest. He simply twirled the golden staff lazily in his hand.
Then switched grips—
And swung it viciously into Luffy's leg.
"Bang!"
Luffy cried out as his balance shattered, his body crashing to the ground.
In the next instant, Enel's left foot stomped down on Luffy's right arm. The head of the golden staff slammed down with crushing force, pinning Luffy's left palm to the earth with a heavy thud.
At the same time, Enel bent down.
His right hand, hardened with Armament Haki like iron tongs, clamped around Luffy's head.
The grip was absolute.
Luffy couldn't break free.
He couldn't even open his mouth properly under the crushing force—only muffled, strangled sounds escaped him.
Only after securing him completely did Enel lift his head and look toward the fleeing Straw Hats, a cruel grin spreading across his face.
"Since following Gern Reginald Sigmar to the Blue Sea, the number of pirates I've killed…"
He spoke calmly, as though observing the deaths of insects from on high.
"Has long surpassed what even I can count."
"But among those countless pirates… there are always some strange ones."
"They set sail for treasure and fame… yet place absurd importance on something called…"
He paused deliberately.
Then enunciated the word with clarity.
"Comrades."
The instant that word reached him, Luffy's entire body thrashed violently.
Pinned to the ground, his muffled growls became desperate. His eyes burned with fury.
He understood.
Enel was about to weaponize the very thing he cherished most.
Enel watched Luffy's desperate expression with visible satisfaction.
Then he delivered his ultimatum.
"If any of you dare take one more step…"
His free left hand condensed a blade of highly compressed lightning. It hummed with lethal brilliance as he slowly pressed it against Luffy's throat.
"I will sever his head… right now."
In an instant—
The battlefield fell into absolute silence.
There were no Pacifistas here.
No Sentomaru.
No Admiral Kizaru.
Kuma had not yet intervened.
The path of escape lay wide open before the Straw Hats.
And yet—
It was completely sealed.
Because Enel had turned the word "comrades" into shackles.
With the simplest, most brutal method possible, he transformed that double-edged sword into an unbreakable chain binding the entire crew.
"YOU BASTARD!!!!!"
Sanji was the first to turn back.
Anger and fear for his captain crushed any terror of the overwhelming enemy.
Dragging his injured body forward at full speed, he spun low against the ground and launched a vicious kick toward Enel's head.
"Get your filthy hands—off our captain!!"
"Diable Jambe!!!"
"Foolish."
Enel didn't even look at him.
With a subtle flick of his wrist, the golden staff extended and bent, refined Armament Haki coating it as it reshaped into a curved iron-like shackle.
"Clang!"
It snapped around Luffy's neck, locking him down completely. Even struggling became nearly impossible.
At the same time, Enel sidestepped with precision and caught Sanji's incoming ankle in one hand.
"You show great disrespect… to a god."
The sentence was cold—absolute.
In the next heartbeat, Enel's left elbow smashed brutally into the side of Sanji's knee.
"Crack!!"
The sound of bone splintering rang out clearly.
"AAAAAAH!!"
Sanji's scream tore through the air.
His right leg bent at an unnatural angle—snapped cleanly.
Without a shred of mercy, Enel grabbed him by his blond hair and flung him away like a torn sack.
"Twelve Fleur!"
At that exact moment, countless arms bloomed around Enel like a macabre flower, wrapping tightly around his limbs and torso.
Robin had activated her ability—buying Zoro an opening.
"Three-Sword Style Secret Technique—Three Thousand Worlds!!"
Zoro had already prepared himself.
He appeared directly in front of Enel, all three blades flashing with a light that seemed capable of tearing through space itself.
His strongest attack.
And yet—
"Discharge."
Enel uttered the two words without emotion.
"BZZZZT—!!!"
Violent electricity erupted from his body in an instant, lashing outward.
"Ugh!!"
Far away, Robin cried out in agony. Both her real body and the manifested limbs felt the searing burn and numbing paralysis simultaneously. Her technique shattered, and she collapsed to the ground.
As for Zoro—
To him, his slash felt like lightning.
But in Enel's Mantra, its trajectory was as clear as slow motion.
He didn't even bother to block with his weapon.
His free left hand shot forward.
"Smack!"
A crisp, brutal sound.
His palm struck Zoro square in the face, shattering the momentum of the attack completely.
"Too slow."
Then—
Before anyone could even process what was happening—
Enel seized Zoro by the head.
And began slamming him into the ground.
"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang…!"
Over and over.
Like smashing a worthless sack of trash against stone.
The dull, sickening impacts echoed without pause.
Blood sprayed from Zoro's mouth and nose instantly.
Dozens of times.
Only after the repetition did Enel finally lift him by his blood-soaked green hair—
And hurl him toward the struggling, broken-legged Sanji.
"Enough."
The silent observer, Bartholomew Kuma, finally moved.
He understood that if Enel continued "playing," these boys might truly be beaten to death—and that was not aligned with his intent of delivering a "profound lesson."
Kuma closed his Bible.
In a blink, his massive frame appeared before the airborne Zoro and the crawling Sanji.
His towering presence radiated crushing oppression.
He looked down at the two young men, battered and broken yet still glaring with fury and defiance.
Then he sighed quietly and stated a cruel truth.
"In the face of absolute power… your so-called all-out struggle…"
His palm slowly rose. The Paw-Paw Fruit's ability gathered.
"Looks like…"
"Pop."
The first strike landed squarely on Zoro.
"Buy one, get one free."
Zoro vanished instantly—sent flying to an unknown destination.
Sanji, leg shattered, tried to move through sheer willpower—
But Kuma's second palm fell just as effortlessly.
"Pop."
Sanji disappeared without resistance.
In the blink of an eye, the Straw Hat crew's three main combatants—
Two were gone.
One was shackled.
And one lay unconscious in the distance.
Usopp. Nami. Chopper. Brook. Franky—
They stood frozen.
Watching this nightmare unfold before them.
Their bodies went cold.
Even the thought of resisting was being crushed into dust.
Despair descended upon them all.