So, had Big Mom actually recovered her senses?
She really had.
It wasn't because her Craving Sickness had vanished, but rather due to sheer, unadulterated fury!
The exact microsecond the acoustic signature of Drake's voice registered in her mind, a massive torrent of rage surged straight to her brain, completely overriding the parameters of her hunger. Even the volatile Craving Sickness was forced to yield its position to this burning hatred.
Drake: "..."
This old hag was clearly in the middle of a full-blown psychotic food tantrum, so how the hell is she speaking so coherently? What he failed to calculate was that Big Mom's sudden clarity was ninety-nine percent his own doing.
For someone like Big Mom, who essentially treated food as her literal life force, being marooned within that empty void for so long meant she hadn't consumed a single calorie or drop of water. Her burning animosity toward Drake had expanded to the absolute threshold of a volcanic eruption. It was a massive backlog of resentment!
"Zeus! Prometheus! Napoleon!" Big Mom bellowed, casually hurling the Vinsmoke brothers from her grip like discarded trash.
"Coming, Mama!"
Clutching her transforming broadsword, with her two elemental homies flanking her sides, she had re-synchronized her apex combat configuration.
"Vale D. Drake! Not a single soul among your ranks departs this territory alive today!" With a thunderous roar, Big Mom kicked off the earth, launching her massive frame forward to blitz Drake's coordinates. The sheer kinetic force left a massive, gaping crater in the stone floor.
Drake calmly raised his eyes. Shielding Luffy behind his frame with one hand, his right hand flickered as the legendary sword, Canhong, materialized in his grip. He swung upward to meet her strike head-on.
"Utterly delusional! A couple of mere brats actually calculate they can withstand Mama's might?" The surrounding officers voiced their absolute disdain.
BOOM!!
The two blades collided in a spectacular clash. Drake's aura condensed to a razor-sharp point, a blinding light erupting from his pupils.
Advanced Conqueror's Haki Infusion!
"AAAAARGH!"
Both entities unleashed a savage roar, channeling one hundred percent of their raw output into a single point of impact. The resulting atmospheric shockwave expanded violently, carving a path of destruction that swept across a ten-thousand-meter radius.
Every single piece of luxurious decor and elite tea party equipment within the sector was instantly pulverized into gray ash. Strands of dark crimson lightning crackled and arced through the air; any low-tier combatant who lacked the baseline psychological fortitude to withstand the pressure was instantly knocked unconscious, their eyes rolling back as they collapsed in droves.
Even the heavy cloud layers hanging over the sky split cleanly in half.
An absolute, heavy silence fell over the ruined plaza. The surviving guests stared with wide eyes and dropped jaws, completely paralyzed by the sheer absurdity of the data.
"The... the sky itself has fractured!"
A significant distance away, Bege's jaw twitched uncontrollably upon processing the feedback, a comedic stream of snot involuntarily leaking from his nose in his stunned state.
Previously, he had harbored a heavy amount of skepticism toward the Straw Hat crew's description of Drake, calculating that their assessment was heavily laced with hyperbole. But seeing this reality play out before his eyes, he realized their description hadn't been exaggerated at all; if anything, it lacked sufficient depth.
Do not cross him. Absolutely do not cross him!
These four brothers were terrifying anomalies. Setting aside the newly crowned Yonko, Fire Emperor Ace, who among the existing global powers could afford to provoke either of the two siblings standing right before him?
He silently swore a mental oath that he would never casually utter another phrase about launching an offensive against the Straw Hat Pirates. That wouldn't be a test of strength; it would be a direct shortcut to his execution date!
"This is..." Positioned directly behind Drake, Luffy stared at the immense power radiating from his brother's frame, a deep sense of familiarity registering within his instincts.
"Conqueror's...!"
"No... wait... this signature..." Luffy shook his head subconsciously, his senses indicating that this output felt distinctly detached from conventional Conqueror's Haki manipulation.
"Luffy, I calculate you've been itching for a high-intensity duel, correct?" Drake spoke casually, a calm smile playing on his lips even as his blade remained locked against Big Mom's crushing mass. "Katakuri stands as the absolute apex Sweet Commander of the Big Mom Pirates. If you can systematically dismantle his defensive parameters, it will serve as definitive verification of your growth."
"Drake..." Luffy cast a brief glance toward the surrounding Straw Hat units, a hint of hesitation flickering in his eyes, but it was quickly devoured by an overwhelming surge of battle lust.
"I grasp your calculations. I'll secure their perimeter for the duration. Go. This encounter contains the exact variables required to elevate your combat metrics..."
"Mamamama... You rookies possess far too much unearned arrogance! You dare to partition your cognitive focus to handle extraneous variables while actively trading blows with me!?" Big Mom roared. Reaching out with her left hand, she snatched Zeus from the air, and a localized column of catastrophic lightning tore down from the heavens, completely enveloping Drake's coordinates.
RUMBLE...
"Drake!" Luffy lunged forward to reinforce his brother, but Katakuri wasn't about to let him alter his coordinates so easily. Moving with sub-second reaction speeds, he drove a heavy fist straight toward Luffy's skull.
BOOM!
"This is bad...!" Nami and Chopper's pupils shrank to pinpricks. Could anyone truly emerge unscathed after sustaining a direct hit from a lightning column of that magnitude?
"Wrath of the Thunder God: Lightning Pillar!"
"Mama! Secure your blind spot immediately!" Katakuri's pupils shrank violently as he roared a frantic warning.
Out of nowhere, a brilliant beam of pure electrical energy sliced through the sky, charting a lethal trajectory aimed straight at Big Mom's exposed back.
"Eh?" Before Big Mom's cognitive functions could fully process the incoming threat, the blinding pillar of lightning slammed heavily into her back. "Agh!"
RUMBLE...
"Who the hell did that!?" The members of the Charlotte family cried out in utter horror. Their gazes snapped upward, locking onto a lone silhouette drifting gracefully down from the upper atmosphere.
"When it comes to the manipulation of raw lightning... you aren't the solitary entity holding that asset," Kenshin spoke calmly. He dropped into a smooth half-crouch upon landing, his palm resting casually against the hilt of his long nodachi.
"That's the Thunder God, Kenshin, of the Drake Pirates!"
By now, the global intelligence network was intimately familiar with the roster of the Drake Pirates. Though the crew had maintained zero operational visibility on the high seas for the last two years, their prestige remained absolute. Their captain, Vale D. Drake, was a legendary figure who had fought an Admiral to a total standstill.
And after witnessing his brief clash with the Emperor just moments ago, every single individual present had formulated a terrifyingly upgraded calculation of Drake's baseline strength.
As a veteran who had actively deployed during the Paramount War, Kenshin's reputation was heavily established. After all, this was the exact combatant who had brazenly fired a localized cannon strike straight at the face of the former Fleet Admiral, Sengoku.
"How dare you strike Mama!" Smoothie drew her massive longsword, her long legs blurring as she launched a high-velocity slash aimed straight at Kenshin's throat.
SHEATH! CLANG!
As their weapons collided, the immense kinetic feedback caused both of their expressions to turn remarkably grave.
This opponent possesses an exceptionally high tier of raw power! The exact same evaluation processed simultaneously in both of their minds.
As the dense screen of smoke and ozone gradually dispersed, Drake's silhouette materialized back before the crowd, still casually clutching his sword. He stood entirely unscathed, his formal coat devoid of a single speck of dust!
On the adjacent sector of the battlefield, Ichiji, the Sparking Red of Germa, had already navigated his way to Judge's side, lifting his father's battered frame from the dirt. Niji and Yonji were spitting arcs of blood from their lips, but the vast majority of the concussive force had been successfully absorbed by the structural shielding of their Raid Suits, leaving their operational mobility largely uncompromised.
Reiju smoothly altered her coordinates to join them, forming a tight defensive front to face the incoming threat together.
In stark contrast to the reinforced Germa units, the tactical parameters for Sanji and the core Straw Hat members were rapidly deteriorating. The summit was packed to the brim with Big Mom's personal army. High-tier combatants were filtering into the sector in a continuous loop; any random officer plucked from their ranks possessed specialized techniques and Devil Fruit mechanics capable of keeping external forces heavily off-balance.
And at this exact microsecond, they had converged into a singular mass to systematically liquidate the Straw Hat Pirates, the Vinsmoke Family, and the Fire Tank Pirates!
"Nami, we need to consolidate our coordinates and break through to Bege's position immediately, or our defensive line will collapse within a limited timeframe!" Sanji shouted, unleashing a rapid succession of flaming kicks to hold the perimeter while drawing closer to Nami, Chopper, and Carrot.
"Understood!"
"Yo-ho-ho-ho... This is turning into quite the grueling calculation, isn't it?" Brook chimed in as he cleaved his way through the local garrison. Though given his casual, relaxed stride, it looked less like a frantic battle and more like a leisurely stroll through the plaza...
"Forge a path!" Sanji gritted his teeth, utilizing Sky Walk to launch himself to the vanguard of their formation.
"Halberd Demon!"
A massive, haki-coated blade cleaved through the air. Sanji swung his leg to intercept the trajectory head-on.
BANG!
"Not a single one of you leaves this summit alive today!" Daifuku and Oven materialized smoothly in front of Sanji's path, completely sealing his vanguard vector.
Watching the enemy numbers scale higher by the second, Sanji and Brook felt a cold knot of tension tighten in their chests. The current parameters were looking exceptionally grim!
Bege, too, found himself completely surrounded by an airtight dragnet, leaving him with zero operational clearance to execute a standard retreat. Fortunately, Caesar Clown had successfully managed to navigate through the chaos to reach his coordinates, keeping a microscopic sliver of escape utility alive within their strategic matrix.
"Joint alliance! Compress your coordinates and rally to my position immediately!" Bege roared at the top of his lungs, the heavy Gatling gun embedded in his chest infrastructure firing a non-stop torrent of lead into the encroaching crowd.
RATATATATATATA...
"Hahaha! Come on, you bastards! Let's see how many of you I can turn into literal Swiss cheese! Ahahahahaha!"
"Aaaagh!"
The front-line infantry who attempted to breach his perimeter sustained severe ballistic trauma, forcing the rest of the vanguard to halt their advance out of caution.
Yet, despite his defensive successes, Sanji was rapidly reaching the limits of his localized output. The sheer sheer volume of enemy combatants was simply too overwhelming, and their individual power metrics were remarkably high. Attempting to guide Nami and the non-combatants safely out of this high-density dragnet was rapidly approaching a mathematical impossibility.