Chapter 180: The Fall of Charlotte Linlin
Laughing and chatting, the two of them turned to leave the chaos of the venue behind.
They did not get far.
Charlotte Linlin's massive body loomed up in front of them like a mountain, blocking their path.
She held a woman in a white wedding dress in both hands, a woman whose face was identical to Chiffon's.
"Hey, Loki! I found your bride for you!"
She practically roared it, clinging to one last twisted thread of hope as she locked her bloodshot eyes on Loki.
The "bride" cooperated at once, giving him a radiant smile. "Let's go back and finish the wedding."
To everyone's surprise, Loki only shot her a cold sidelong glance and snorted. "That is not Chiffon at all. She looks nothing like her."
Lola—Chiffon's twin sister—forced a smile under her mother's devouring stare and tried to bluff it out. "H-how could that be. I am Chiffon."
"Tch. I said you are not, so you are not. You think I am an idiot?"
Loki waved a hand at her as if shooing a fly.
Then he twisted the knife. "With a mother like you, no wonder Chiffon ran away."
The last thread holding Linlin's marriage fantasy together snapped.
Just imagining that she might never repair relations with Elbaf sent the final sliver of sanity in her mind breaking with an audible crack.
"If you brats do not want to marry into this old lady's family… if you are all going to betray this old lady…"
Her muddy eyes filled with red. Her voice sounded like it crawled up from the abyss. "Then you can all die!"
"Prometheus."
"Mama, I am here!"
An eager, fawning voice answered at once.
Whoosh.
A miniature sun popped into existence in Linlin's open palm.
Blazing fire burst around it.
The stupidly cheerful face on the flame twisted into something savage and cruel.
"Heavenly Fire!"
Linlin hurled the fireball with all her might.
It swelled as it flew, in the blink of an eye, becoming a twenty-meter sphere of searing destruction. Heat waves rolled off it hard enough to warp the air.
"That is why nobody with a brain touches the Flame-Flame Fruit," Kai said idly, as if commenting on the weather. His face stayed perfectly calm. He did not spare the massive fireball a glance.
"You want a shot at our captain? Get past me first!"
Loki roared and stepped up without hesitation, his mountain of a body planting itself between Kai and the incoming sun.
Boom.
The fireball slammed into Loki dead-on, swallowing his bulk in a storm of flame.
Gasps rippled through the crowd.
A few seconds later, Prometheus's smug cackle turned into a panicked scream.
"Mama! Something is wrong! I… I cannot burn him!"
"My power is draining!"
He felt it clearly. His flames were doing nothing to the giant.
Worse, they were helping him.
The giant was stealing his strength.
"Mmm. That is nice and warm," Loki's lazy, contented voice drifted out from within the inferno.
A moment later, a colossal arm reached from the fire, wreathed in flame but completely unscathed. His palm closed around a chunk of burning light.
Loki yanked his arm back.
The raging blaze collapsed like soft clay in his grip, compressing and twisting in an instant into a long spear of living fire.
"Have a taste of your own flames."
He bellowed, muscles bulging, and hurled the fire lance with enough power to throw a mountain, straight at its original master.
A Mythical Zoan in Surtr form was not going to fear a little fire.
Bang.
Linlin slapped the spear apart with one hand.
"Zeus."
"Mama, I am here!"
From where he had been circling overhead, Zeus dove into position above Kai.
His fluffy white form darkened into a thunderhead. Lightning churned inside him.
"Thunder!"
Linlin swept her hand and gave the order.
A pillar of lightning several meters thick and packed with annihilating force crashed down from Zeus's belly, aimed right at Kai.
Kai did not even take his hands out of his pockets.
He stood where he was. Not a flicker of emotion disturbed his eyes.
He only said one name.
"Enel."
Just before the lightning swallowed him, a figure blurred into place between the bolt and Kai, too fast to see clearly.
"What?!"
Linlin's eyes flew wide.
The sight she had expected—her enemy charred black by lightning—never came.
The pillar of thunder hit the newcomer and simply flowed into him.
No explosion. No stray arcs. Not even a spark escaped.
The blast went on for a full ten seconds before tapering off.
Zeus's body shrank rapidly, his strength spent. He sagged back into the shape of a stubby, dopey little white cloud.
"Hic."
Enel dropped lightly to the ground and let out a small burp, as if he had just finished a big meal.
After devouring so much of Zeus's power, faint bolts crawled across his skin. Even his frame felt a shade larger, his presence heavier.
"M-Mama… what do we do now?" Prometheus and Zeus asked, huddling nervously at their mistress's side after their failed assault.
"Heh."
Kai had not so much as brushed dust from his clothes. He smiled faintly and looked across the ruined floor. "Want to keep going?"
Seeing Kai framed by Loki and Enel, not a hair out of place and outrageously calm, Linlin's reason did not return.
Her eating fit and her rage drove her even further off the deep end.
She lifted Napoleon, now shaped into a massive blade.
"Spear of Elbaf: Ikoku"
A gigantic shockwave of sword force roared toward the trio like a rampaging beast.
"Honestly. Are you done not listening yet?"
Kai shook his head, helpless.
At the same time, he raised his right fist. Armament Haki hardened over it, turning it pitch‑black. Black‑and‑red Conqueror's Haki crackled around it, lightning snapping like furious serpents and radiating raw destruction.
He threw the punch with casual ease.
Boom.
Fist and sword wave met and slammed together.
The explosion shook the entire venue.
The shockwave at the collision point blasted outward like a solid tsunami, ripping up rubble, tearing at stands, and forcing even distant onlookers to squint and fight for breath.
When the wind died, the guests stared toward the center of the clash and all sucked in sharp breaths.
It looked like a meteor had hit, or a super-typhoon had chewed through. A massive crater and raw devastation were all that remained to mark that single exchange.
Only Kai and Charlotte Linlin still stood at ground zero.
Crack.
Stone burst under his feet as Kai vanished.
In the next heartbeat, he was right in front of Linlin's face.
"Ah?"
Her scrambled thoughts did not have time to catch up.
A black hand, wrapped in dense, snarling coils of Conqueror's Haki, clawed forward.
"Know when to quit, you crazy old hag."
His fingers clamped over her distorted face. Muscles bunched along his arm. Power surged.
Linlin, eight meters tall and built like a small mountain, might as well have been a rag doll. He spun her and hammered her straight into the ground.
Boom.
The impact deafened the crowd. The earth shook. Dust geysered upward.
He did not stop there.
Krak-krak-krak.
An even denser storm of black and red lightning erupted from him, spreading across the field like a nest of enraged dragons.
Bolts as thick as tree trunks slammed down on Linlin's prone form, detonating again and again.
Even the tiny scraps of energy that spilled away were enough to punch gaping craters in the ground wherever they struck.
The force was so overwhelming that people far from the epicenter shook under the mere aftershock. Fear rose from the depths of their souls, an animal urge to kneel pressing at their knees.
"H-he is that strong?"
Every guest swallowed hard, faces bloodless.
From this display of raw superiority alone, Calamity Kai fully deserved a seat among the Yonko.
At last, the storm of black-red thunder ebbed.
Kai still stood tall and straight in the middle of the wreckage.
For him, that world-ending barrage had been nothing more than a passing exertion.
At his feet, Charlotte Linlin lay sprawled and unconscious.
When the guests finally realized what they were seeing, their minds went blank.
Charlotte Linlin—one of the Four Emperors—had fallen.
The fight had not even lasted long enough for a full meal.
"I am losing my mind over this!"
Morgans was so excited he almost forgot how to speak.
He clutched a camera snail in each hand, firing both nonstop.
One was not enough to capture a scene like this.
Of course, it was not that simple.
If Linlin were that easy to deal with, she would not be a Yonko.
Kai looked down at her. For all the dirt and disarray, there were no grievous wounds on her body.
He had to admit, it was a problem.
You rarely saw a nickname hit this close to the mark.
Iron Balloon was Iron Balloon.
He knew that until he ground down every last drop of her Conqueror's Haki, even a hit like that would only buy a brief knockout.
As for real, lasting damage?
Getting her to bleed at all was already proof that his own Conqueror's Haki was monstrous.
In-game terms, her Iron Balloon was like a huge pool of flat damage reduction, or absurdly high armor.
From what he had just tested, Kai figured there were only three theoretical ways to truly defeat her.
First, exhaust her until she was completely spent. Second, crush her with an attack whose force vastly exceeded Iron Balloon's maximum tolerance. Third, use true damage-type abilities like a fully awakened Ope Ope no Mi.
Honestly, the reason he had floored her this "easily" was because she was in the middle of an eating rampage and out of her mind.
If she had been fully lucid, they would have had to fight until the sky turned upside down.
"Mama!"
Seeing her fall, Katakuri shouted and started forward.
"Hey. Your opponent is me."
Yamato darted in and blocked his path, eyes blazing with battle lust.
"Move."
He was in no mood for games. His right arm swelled and stretched like flowing dough, reshaping into a massive, spiked mochi club.
Armament Haki flooded over it, turning it a deep metallic black.
"Sliced Mochi."
He roared and spun his arm. The bludgeon howled through the air like a meteor hammer and came crashing down at Yamato with devastating force.
"Good. Come on!"
She only grinned wider, excitement flaring.
Her hands tightened on her kanabo, and she swung up to meet the spinning mass.
"Thunder Bagua!"
Boom.
The two clubs slammed together.
The impact boomed like thunder, shockwaves blasting out from them. The ground shattered and caved in, dust billowing high.
The clash of two top-class monsters was the signal for all-out war.
On the other side, Kuma and the others were already engaged with the Charlotte children surging in, plunging the field into total chaos.
"Hey, Kai," Loki said, watching the battles break out, itching to move. "Should we just wipe them out while we are at it?"
Starting his grand work of destroying the world by erasing the Charlotte Family had a certain appeal.
Yonko officers were worthy targets.
"You think I am some kind of born butcher?" Kai said dryly.
"Now is not the time."
Breaking or recruiting the Charlotte Family was on his checklist, but not for today.
Beating them down would be easy. Taking over the territories and systems they had spent years building without creating a bigger mess would not.
This trip to Totto Land had been a spur-of-the-moment detour. The Beasts Pirates were in no way ready to absorb such a vast domain and its complex population.
If he actually annihilated the Charlottes today, the ones who reaped the reward would be the other hungry powers circling the New World.
Let Linlin keep the throne of Totto Land a while longer.
"Enough."
Kai's voice cut clearly across the uproar.
Both sides, neck-deep in killing intent, paused without thinking.
A scarecrow swordsman in a pumpkin-shaped helmet—Charlotte Kato—snapped before his brain caught up. "Who do you think you are, ordering the Charlottes—"
He never finished.
Kai's eyes went cold. His gaze locked on Kato.
A focused blast of Conqueror's Haki slammed into the man's spirit like a hammer.
"Guh—"
The curse died on Kato's tongue. An indescribable terror crashed over him, leaving his mind flat.
The world went black. His eyes rolled up, his sword clattered from numb fingers, and he toppled onto his back, dead to the world.
Silence dropped over the field.
Seeing Kai drop a family officer with nothing but a look, without even shifting his weight, froze the remaining Charlotte children in place.
Whatever anger and grief they felt, the sheer gap in power smothered it.
One by one, every Charlotte who could still stand forced their emotions down and stilled their hands.
With fear, resentment, and a grudging edge of respect in their eyes, they turned to Kai.
Waiting to hear what this man, clearly in control, would say next.