Gan Fall stared in disbelief as a flying slash cut through the sky, dispersing what should have been an irresistible, incomprehensible divine punishment.
He just stood there, mouth hanging open.
Below the ship, Wyper was equally stunned. Yet somewhere deep within, a strange feeling of... inevitability... began welling up inside him. The sensation confused him greatly. Since a moment ago, he'd sensed something within his own thoughts starting to shift. He didn't know how to stop it. He couldn't even muster up resistance toward it.
Meanwhile, the Straw Hat crew had snapped into combat mode. They were under attack, and everyone could feel it.
Those who were close to mastering Haki wore particularly alert expressions. That sense of danger pressed heavily against their chests, making it hard to breathe.
Marcus had already cut apart the so-called divine punishment, but his expression remained grim. Sure, Luffy was Enel's natural counter thanks to his rubber body, but that didn't mean he was just gonna stand around doing nothing while some asshole rained lightning down on them.
Especially since that asshole had attacked first.
His gaze turned toward the distant horizon where he could sense Enel's presence.
At that same moment, Enel himself was visibly shaken. No one had ever blocked that technique before. Not once in his entire reign as god.
This guy is dangerous. I need to finish him quickly!
"60,000,000 V Jamboule!"
He struck the special drums mounted on his back with his staff, channeling the massive electrical energy stored within them.
Thunder roared across the White Sea, the sound so loud it made everyone's ears ring.
The explosion of lightning was blindingly obvious even against the white clouds. Everyone aboard the Going Merry turned their eyes toward the spectacle, momentarily dazed by the sheer scale of the attack.
By the time they snapped out of it, an enormous creature made of pure electricity was already sweeping toward them. The speed was unreal, like watching a nightmare manifest in fast-forward.
They'd just arrived in Skypiea, and already they were getting hit with ultimate attacks?
If Blackbeard were here, he'd probably be clapping and cheering at the karmic justice of it all. This was exactly the same bullshit that had happened to his crew before, getting attacked out of nowhere without warning or reason.
But Marcus showed zero fear. Ghostly energy coiled around his body. At first glance, he looked like some kind of Super Saiyan powering up for a final attack.
"Simple slash."
The blade flashed.
Thunder and dark flames mixed as the sword light cleaved the thunder dragon cleanly in half. But the dragon didn't dissipate. Instead, it was drawn into the sword strike itself, absorbed and fused into the attack.
The lightning absorption effect had activated.
The instant the blade cut through the dragon, it drained away all of the technique's power, leaving nothing behind but empty air. Then that stolen energy merged with Marcus' slash, amplifying its strength to a terrifying new level.
The enhanced attack surged straight toward Enel.
The sudden reversal caught him completely off guard. It wasn't that he couldn't react fast enough. It was that he couldn't comprehend what the fuck had just happened.
His thunder dragon being destroyed? Sure, he could accept that. Strong people existed in the world. But having his own attack absorbed and reflected back at him? That shouldn't be possible!
As he stared at the dragon-like slash wrapped in purple-black flames racing toward him, his mind went blank for a crucial second.
He shook his head violently, trying to convince himself this wasn't real.
"Impossible! This has to be a dream. Yeah, a nightmare. This can't be... ugh!"
He had always been confident in his Logia body. After all, he was lightning incarnate. He'd never been injured before, never felt pain or had reason to fear attacks.
"AAAAHHHHHH!"
The scream tore from his throat as countless bolts of lightning and purple-black flames engulfed him.
For the first time in his life, he felt what it was like to be electrocuted. The sensation of electricity coursing through his body, the numbness spreading through his limbs, the paralysis making his muscles seize up.
It was unbelievable, and incomprehensible. He was the user of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, a Logia-type Devil Fruit, the very embodiment of lightning itself. How could he possibly feel the effects of electrical shock?
Too many strange, impossible things were happening all at once. His mind struggled to process any of it.
At least his Logia elementalization still worked. That was something.
He was just about to transform into pure lightning and retreat to a safe distance when, to his horror, he realized someone had appeared right beside him.
The figure's hand was already swinging a sword straight toward his body.
"What?!"
His Observation Haki screamed warnings in his mind, danger signals firing off like alarm bells. But the opponent was too fast. There was no time to dodge.
He panicked. Everything was happening outside his expectations, beyond his control. This wasn't how gods were supposed to be treated!
He tried to elementalize and escape, but that strange pulling force grabbed hold of his lightning form, dragging his transformed body toward the enemy's blade.
"What is this?!"
His eyes went wide as the overwhelming attraction made it impossible to break free. His elementalized form was being sucked in like metal to a magnet.
In the end, his body could only try instinctively to minimize the damage, expanding his lightning form to spread out the impact.
"Ahhhh!!!"
Thunder exploded from his body in all directions as he tried to either force Marcus back or at least disrupt the attack. Lightning bolts scattered wildly across the sky, vaporizing white clouds wherever they struck.
But it was useless.
The Shichiseiken sliced straight through his elementalized form like it wasn't even there. More lightning burst out, completely uncontrolled, spreading chaos across the battlefield.
Yet Marcus stood completely untouched. Every bolt of lightning that struck him was quietly drawn into the Shichiseiken through the ghostly aura surrounding his body. The sword only grew darker as it absorbed more energy, its demonic presence surging even fiercer.
Enel clutched his side, forcibly de-materializing from his lightning form. Blood seeped between his fingers.
He stared at Marcus and the cursed blade. "What is that thing?!"
Logia elementalization was supposed to completely avoid physical attacks. He'd even expanded his form at the moment of impact, spreading out his lightning body to minimize damage.
That sword strike should have only scratched his surface at best. Yet somehow it had cut through his expanded form and carved a shallow wound across his torso.
Marcus looked at Enel with an amused expression. He could tell something unusual was happening with the god's Devil Fruit abilities, and he was starting to understand the interaction.
A smirk crossed his face. "The Rumble-Rumble Fruit doesn't just have one counter. Rubber's the famous one, sure. But it also has a weakness to someone like me, who can absorb and redirect lightning. Guess why."
The moment he finished speaking, he vanished from his position.
In the next instant, he materialized directly beside Enel, having used an ender pearl for spatial teleportation.
For someone like Enel, who had never encountered such an ability, the sudden appearance caught him completely off guard. Again.
Instinctively, he tried to elementalize and escape. But that eerie pulling force returned immediately.
Pft.
This time, the sword carved a deep wound into his chest, the cut reaching down to the bone. Blood sprayed from the injury as he staggered backward.
"Damn it! This is impossible! I'm a god! You're just some Blue Sea human piece of shit!"
Marcus looked at the now-panicking Enel with something approaching pity. "Giving the Rumble-Rumble Fruit to you... what a waste of a top-tier power."
"What did you say?!"
"Alright then, let's play a bit."
An ender pearl appeared in Marcus' hand.
Enel tensed immediately. He'd been caught off guard too many times already, and every surprise had resulted in pain. The opponent's bizarre abilities had completely rattled him.
He wanted to elementalize and escape, but he didn't. He'd learned his lesson. Whenever he transformed into lightning, that cursed sword pulled him in, forcing his elemental form to collide with the blade.
But fighting without elementalization? For a Logia user, that was nearly impossible. Elementalization was instinct, a reflexive response to danger. Not doing it required constant conscious effort.
If he had to describe the mental strain, it was like trying to keep your sphincter clenched at all times. Normally it's relaxed, and nothing goes wrong. But now there was the constant threat that something might suddenly penetrate if he let his guard down for even a second.
Who could handle that kind of pressure?
One moment of lost focus and he'd be impaled again.
Enel was losing his composure fast. Meanwhile, Marcus casually tossed several ender pearls into the air around them.
The moment Enel tried to process what was happening, crisis signals exploded from every direction at once.
His Mantra was screaming at him, showing him fragments of immediate futures. Multiple attack vectors, and points of impact. All converging on his position simultaneously.
He saw himself getting slashed from the left. From the right. From above. From behind.
Marcus was already moving, the Shichiseiken cutting through the air.
Enel raised his golden staff to block, but the combination of Haki-infused strikes and the sword's ghostly energy sheared through the divine metal like it was made of butter.
The staff split cleanly in two.
His mind couldn't keep up with the speed of the assault.
Should he elementalize? Transforming into pure lightning would let him move faster, maybe even escape this nightmare.
But that strange pulling force was still there. The instant he started to transform, his body froze, caught between states.
He had only two options now: Take the hit as a solid body. Or take the hit while partially elementalized.
The first option meant his real, physical body would absorb the full impact. The second meant he could expand his lightning form to spread out the damage, but he'd still get hit.
He chose option two, his body beginning to disperse into crackling electricity. But the expected pain never came.
For one brief moment, he felt relief, maybe the attack had missed, then pain exploded across his back.
Another deep wound appeared, this one cutting so deep he could feel it scraping against bone.
Rage flooded through his chest, drowning out everything else. He was the God of Skypiea, and this Blue Sea dweller was making him look like a fool. He still didn't understand what kind of power his opponent possessed.
Fury had completely shattered his composure. And without composure, he couldn't maintain his Mantra. The one advantage he'd had was now gone.
"200,000,000 V Amaru!"
Fuck it. Even if elementalizing meant getting pulled toward that sword, he didn't care anymore. Anger had taken over completely.
His body expanded rapidly, growing to massive proportions. The Amaru form manifested above the White Sea, a giant, potbellied, Raijin-esque lightning figure.
Marcus looked up at the form he'd seen Luffy punch into submission in the anime. He shook his head slightly.
Ever since Haki became standard in the One Piece world, Logia-type users had gone from gods to… well, not gods anymore. Before Haki, Logias were invincible. No physical attack could touch them, period.
After Haki? They became baseline. Some even became jokes.
Smoker was the perfect example, one of the earliest Logia users introduced, unstoppable when he first appeared. After the "Haki update" rolled out, he couldn't beat anyone worth a damn.
Enel was the same. When he'd first appeared, his entrance was all divine arrogance and overwhelming power. But he'd met his perfect counter in Luffy. Rubber boy was basically a god-killing build.
Back when he had first watched the series, he'd thought that if Enel hadn't run into his hard counter, he'd be at least Admiral-level. After all, lightning was one of nature's most destructive forces, easily on par with magma, ice, or light.
It combined magma's heat and destructive power with light's speed and lethality. Even if it wasn't the absolute best at either trait, the Rumble-Rumble Fruit should still be incredibly powerful.
But seeing Enel fight in person? Against an opponent he wasn't specifically countered by?
The guy wasn't as impressive as he had thought. Without Armament Haki, with only Observation Haki to rely on, Enel was showing his limitations.
The massive Amaru form raised its large fist, and brought it down toward Marcus, who didn't even bother dodging. He simply crafted a lightning rod and held it up.
Instantly, Enel's giant fist was yanked off-course, attracted to the rod.
"What?!"
The third ender pearl activated.
Marcus had already predicted this outcome. He'd known exactly how Enel would react, exactly where he'd be vulnerable.
"Simple slash."
The strike, wreathed in ghostly purple-black flames, twisted through the air like a vicious serpent. It slithered up Enel's enormous arm, coiling around the limb as it climbed toward his neck.
But the ghostly energy didn't stop there. It spread like a plague, marking everything it touched, racing across his giant form with relentless hunger.
Finally, like a volcanic eruption reaching its peak, the attack burst through the top of Enel's head and shot into the sky.
Marcus quietly sheathed the Shichiseiken at his waist.
Enel stared as cracks appeared across his entire Amaru form. The electrical body that had made him feel invincible was fracturing like broken glass. The lightning covering his body flickered and faded. A clear slash mark, running from his arm all the way to his forehead, appeared on his real body beneath the divine avatar.
When a Logia user expanded their form, Haki-based attacks would affect their real body based on where they struck the enlarged version. Enel had made himself a bigger target, thinking it would spread the damage.
It had, but not enough.
He numbly touched the wound on his face, and the smell of charred flesh hit his nostrils.
He looked toward Marcus. Rage flashed across his face one final time, but his body had reached its limit. His eyes rolled back, and he collapsed onto the clouds, unconscious and utterly defeated.
Marcus retracted the ghostly aura surrounding him and looked down at the fallen god. A mark had appeared on Enel's body.
Enel had become a sword slave.
Should he kill him and take the Rumble-Rumble Fruit for himself? He definitely wanted to. That Devil Fruit was top-tier, one of the best in the entire world.
But he decided to play it safe and keep Enel alive. He wasn't sure if the Rumble-Rumble Fruit would only reincarnate in Skypiea-grown fruits. If there were no suitable fruits nearby when Enel died, that incredible power might be lost forever, reappearing somewhere random in the world.
Better to keep his options open.
He turned back toward the Going Merry. The whole battle had taken maybe three minutes from start to finish.
When he returned to the ship, Gan Fall was just beginning to explain Enel's background and the current situation on Skypiea to the confused Straw Hats.
Then the elderly knight spotted Enel's unconscious form being dragged aboard. His jaw dropped open.
"Wh... what?! But... how?!"
He stared in utter disbelief, his entire worldview crumbling. The god who had ruled Skypiea with absolute power for years was now being hauled onto a pirate ship like yesterday's garbage.
The rest of the crew crowded around curiously.
"Who's this guy? Did he fall into the sea or something?"
"Nope," Marcus replied casually. "This is the so-called 'God' that Gan Fall mentioned. The one who just attacked us with that lightning."
The Straw Hats' eyes went wide. Had it even been three minutes since Marcus had left the ship?
They stared at him.
Usopp swallowed hard. "You're sure you're still you, right? Not possessed or anything?"
Marcus patted the Shichiseiken at his waist.
"Of course I'm still me. But now I'm the one controlling the sword, not the other way around."
If the Shichiseiken could speak, it would have said, "Enjoy it while it lasts, not that I care or anything!" like a tsundere.