"Germa! Assault!" Judge barked, wiping the lingering traces of tears from his face.
Accompanied by a blinding flash of vibrant light, four distinct figures shot into the sky. Their specialized capes fluttered in the gale, and their unique combat gear radiated an oppressive, dangerous edge.
Every single one of them possessed a highly respectable tier of raw power. This was the pinnacle of Germa technology—the Raid Suits!
With the dynamic entry of the Germa siblings into the fray, the suffocating deadlock hanging over the summit showed subtle signs of fracturing.
"BIG MOM!" Judge roared, clutching a specialized technological spear as he tore through the upper atmosphere, aiming a lethal thrust straight toward her coordinates.
As if registering his incoming vector through pure instinct, Big Mom casually raised a single massive hand to intercept his assault line.
CLANG!
The stone floor beneath them split open under the sheer feedback. Gripping the shaft of the spear with a vice-like hold, Big Mom exerted a terrifying surge of raw force, violently wrenching Judge toward her frame.
Judge displayed zero hesitation. The propulsion devices embedded in his heels erupted at maximum capacity, driving his knee forward in a devastating strike aimed square at her temple.
However, the anomalous mass of raw power shifting through Big Mom's grip was simply too astronomical. Sensing the danger, Judge made a sub-second calculation and abandoned his weapon. But what met his trajectory was a colossal fist, driving straight into his face with catastrophic momentum.
Blood sprayed across the air as Judge's eyes rolled back into his head, his consciousness evaporating instantly as he was sent hurtling backward.
Yet, the deranged Big Mom held zero intention of letting her prey slip from the grid. Reaching out with a blindingly fast movement, she snatched his ankle mid-flight and violently slammed his limp frame back down into the earth.
BOOM!
The impact left a massive crater in the summit. "Cough... pfft... ugh..." Judge spat a thick torrent of blood, his body going completely still as his vital signs degraded into silence.
"Mama... Mamamama! The wedding cake!" Big Mom snarled, casually stepping forward and bringing her massive foot down directly onto Judge's chest.
CRACK! Statistically speaking, the probability that this stomp was purely accidental was exceptionally high. But under these parameters, the motivation behind the action held zero weight. The only critical calculation left was whether the old bastard possessed enough structural integrity to survive the night.
This exact sequence was processed cleanly by the newly arrived Drake. One could only conclude that his arrival coordinates had aligned with impeccable, comedic timing. Staring at the feedback of that stomp... Yikes.
Perched atop the highest structural point of the ruined chateau, Vale D. Drake casually stretched his arms.
When he had first re-entered the physical sector and locked eyes on Big Mom, a heavy wave of astonishment had rippled through his mind. He had genuinely failed to anticipate that an entity could rely solely on unadulterated physical output to force a breach through the constraints of space. Even though he had utilized a baseline Class-1 Dimension, her execution completely defied standard physical principles.
After his diagnostic sweeps within the sub-space returned zero results, he had logically deduced that she had already mapped back to reality, forcing him to sprint back to the summit. The data had proven his calculations correct.
"Fourth Gear!!"
Right at that microsecond, a desperate, thunderous roar erupted from the depths of the local debris. Drake snapped his gaze toward the source.
BOOM! Luffy's silhouette exploded from the wreckage. His skin held the distinct, deep crimson tint that defined the structural parameters of Bounce-Man.
"Gum-Gum King Kong Gun!"
Erupting with maximum velocity, Luffy's legs compressed and struck the air, propelling his frame forward with peerless acceleration as he drove a catastrophic fist straight toward Katakuri.
"Bring it!" Katakuri growled. Coating his massive forearms in a thick, polished layer of Armament Haki, he swung to meet the blow.
BOOM!!
Fist met fist in a pure collision of raw kinetic energy, unleashing a massive, visible shockwave that swept across the entire plaza.
"Luffy!" Nami shouted, her face pale upon seeing the captain engage the elite commander in a direct duel. "We need to execute our extraction protocol immediately! Do not lose sight of our primary operational objective!"
Following the impact, Luffy bounced backward to reset his stance. "I know! Just one more punch!"
Banging his heels against the air, Luffy transformed his frame into a high-velocity projectile, hurtling straight back toward Katakuri's coordinates. He drew his fists back, systematically gathering torque for a maximum-output strike.
Yet, Katakuri remained completely motionless, a sharp flash of crimson light erupting within his eyes. The exact microsecond Luffy's fist neared his coordinate, he executed a sub-second micro-tilt of his head.
"What!?" Luffy's pupils shrank to pinpricks. His calculated strike had cleanly threaded through empty air!
"Process this vector." Katakuri muttered. Two colossal donuts molded from pure mochi materialized smoothly at Luffy's flanks, and two massive fists erupted from the centers, closing in to crush him in a pincer movement.
"Luffy, his Observation Haki can process a sub-second snapshot of the immediate future. Abandon the brute-force approach," Drake's calm voice suddenly boomed across the quadrant.
The moment the acoustic signature processed, Katakuri's physical frame stiffened for a fraction of a second. Seizing that microscopic window of opportunity, Luffy contorted his body, cleanly dodging the crushing fists.
Katakuri's eyes narrowed into a razor-sharp glare. His predictive Haki... had completely failed to register exactly when Drake had materialized within the sector.
"You're Vale D. Drake!"
"Hahaha..." With a sub-second flicker, Drake materialized right beside Luffy, studying his Fourth Gear configuration with an appreciative grin. "Luffy, this architecture is remarkably solid."
"Shihihihi..." Luffy grinned broadly through his compressed form. "Drake, you made it!"
The chaotic friction of the battlefield gradually ground to a halt, an absolute, heavy silence descending over the plaza. Every single gaze in the sector locked squarely onto the two brothers. To the high command of the Big Mom Pirates, these two siblings represented the single highest threat level in the grid.
"Let's move. I'll be accompanying your crew to Wano Country," Drake spoke casually, treating the surrounding elite forces as if they were nothing more than empty space. He gestured for Luffy to walk out of the perimeter right before everyone's eyes.
The Charlotte family: "!!!"
Right at that exact microsecond, another flash of sharp crimson erupted within Katakuri's eyes. He whipped around, screaming frantically, "Perospero, abort your action! Secure your coordinates immediately!"
But his predictive data was too late.
"I'll execute this arrogant trash in Mama's stead!" Perospero roared, unleashing a colossal wave of high-viscosity candy fluid that surged into the sky like a tidal wave, aiming to bury the brothers entirely.
Luffy's fists compressed as he prepared to strike, but Drake simply raised a single hand, making a casual pushing motion forward.
CRACK! An absolute, circular void was carved cleanly through the center of the cascading candy wave. Drake and Luffy drifted smoothly through the breach. Standing mid-air, Drake's fingers curled into a tight clenching motion.
"Spatial Severance."
"Perospero!" Katakuri had already launched himself across the grid the exact microsecond the brothers emerged in the air. He had undeniably processed the incoming future.
But Drake's execution velocity was simply too fast. The exact microsecond Katakuri gripped Perospero's collar to violently wrench him backward, the space directly in front of his older brother's frame fractured into jagged, pitch-black lines.
SPLIT!
The fractures rippled from top to bottom, radiating a dense, bone-chilling coldness.
"AAAAAAAAGH!!"
A primal, agonizing shriek resonated across the entire summit as a severed arm, spraying a thick crimson arc of blood, flew into the air.
Perospero gritted his teeth so hard they threatened to shatter, thick veins bulging across his forehead as cold sweat drenched his face. If Katakuri hadn't altered his coordinates by that microscopic fraction of an inch, losing a solitary limb would have been the absolute best-case scenario. His entire physical frame would have been sliced cleanly in half!
The faces of the surrounding Big Mom Pirates turned dangerously dark. Perospero was the eldest son of their bloodline—and he had just been permanently maimed right inside their sovereign territory, with their highest-tier executives standing guard!
This was no longer a simple tactical deficit; this was a direct, violent degradation of their imperial pride.
BOOM!
Luffy drove a heavy fist forward, parrying an immediate, retaliatory strike launched by Katakuri.
"We are departing this sector. None of you possess the leverage to seal our movement vectors," Drake spoke smoothly, a sharp grin plastering his face as his calm gaze swept across the surrounding army.
The absolute disdain laced within his words drove the Charlotte family to the brink of incandescent fury. As a sovereign crew reigning over the New World, when the hell had they ever been subjected to this tier of absolute mockery?
"Mamamama... Mamamama... Is that a mathematically sound conclusion?"
Suddenly, a gravelly, authoritative voice boomed across the plaza, cutting through the tension.
The crowd snapped their gazes toward the source, only to find Big Mom standing tall, her massive hands clutching two distinct figures by their necks: Niji and Yonji of the Vinsmoke lineage!
Big Mom... had actually re-stabilized her cognitive identity!?
Forget Luffy and his companions; even the sons and daughters of the Charlotte family were paralyzed with utter bewilderment. In their entire recorded history, when the hell had their mother ever snapped out of her Craving Sickness without consuming the target of her culinary obsession!?