"LOYALTY!"
The cry was no longer just a word.
It was a physical force, a deafening, fanatical, unified roar that merged into an invisible storm.
It swept up from the sea, crashed against the Red Line, and shook every opulent corner of Mary Geoise.
In the eyes of every New Marine soldier, on every ship, a fire burned.
It was pure, absolute devotion.
Their leader had just pointed, and a god had vanished. And now... they waited for the next command.
"Hah—"
Amid this fervent, boiling tide of noise, one man remained eerdily quiet.
Bartholomew Kuma.
He stood behind the massive, reinvigorated frame of Whitebeard, but he was in a world of his own.
His gaze was a physical thing, a spear that pierced through all the chaos, all the distance, all the fear, and locked unerringly onto a single, grotesque figure high in Mary Geoise.
Jaygarcia Saturn.
The bull-headed, spider-legged thing was visibly shaken, his demonic form radiating confusion and a new, unfamiliar emotion..... fear.
He was bereft of his comrade, and he looked lost.
Inside Kuma's massive chest, a scalding, high-pressure emotion churned.
It was a furnace of pure, righteous fury, a heat he hadn't felt since he was... human.
Mike had kept his promise.
He had left this architect.
This creature of fate. This source of all his endless, bottomless suffering... for him.
For Kuma to personally, methodically, destroy.
Kuma knew, even as he thought it, that the debt he owed to Mike could never, ever be repaid.
Not in a thousand lifetimes. But... that was a matter for the future.
For his entire life as a tool, he had repelled the pain of countless people, absorbing their agony into his own body.
Yet, he had buried his own despair, his own suffering, so deep within his modified shell that he thought it was gone.
He was wrong.
Day by day, year by year, it had accumulated.
It hadn't vanished. It had transform into the darkest, most viscous, most flammable rage in the depths of his heart.
Until today.
Until this very moment. This all-consuming, world-ending fury... had finally found its target.
"Saturn..."
Kuma's lips moved, but no sound came out.
"Are you ready... to face the dual wrath of a husband... and a father?"
He slowly, almost tenderly, clenched his black-gloved fist.
The power within him, the power that Vegapunk had meticulously modified and that Mike had somehow reborn, surged like a torrent.
A faint, powerful tingling sensation spread from his palm—the true, awakened power of the Paw-Paw Fruit.
It was gathering. Compressing.
Waiting.
Waiting for the moment to unleash it, alongside every ounce of his rage.
'This time,' Kuma vowed, his gaze unblinking, 'I will shatter your body. I will shatter your power. And I will shatter your filthy, twisted soul...'
'Piece... by piece...'
'...Into absolute oblivion.'
"Hmph—"
Elsewhere on the deck, Boa Hancock's delicate chin was lifted at a sharp, imperious angle.
Her gaze, filled with a near-contemptuous satisfaction, surveyed the now-chaotic Holy Land.
Where Mars had been screeching just moments ago, only empty blue skies and white clouds remained.
That sight—that beautiful, perfect emptiness—stirred an indescribable thrill in her heart.
The World Nobles. The Celestial Dragons. And these arrogant, "untouchable" Five Elders...
They were the embodiment of the darkest, most filth-caked memories etched into her very soul.
Every grotesque, leering face of a Celestial Dragon, every humiliating, agonizing burn from the slave's brand on her back—each memory made her wish to tear them apart, limb from limb, with her bare hands.
And now... one of these "gods" had been erased.
Effortlessly.
Like wiping a stain from a window.
It was... exhilarating.
This. This was the fate they all deserved.
Her eyes, cold and sharp as blue diamonds, soon shifted.
They moved from the empty sky to the tall, upright figure standing at the bow of the Nautilus.
The frost in her gaze... instantly, comically, melted.
It was replaced by an unmistakable, all-consuming, white-hot fervor.
A faint, alluring blush, a high-stain crimson, crept onto her perfect cheeks.
Her breathing, usually so calm and controlled, softened and hitched unconsciously.
"Mike-sama..."
She whispered the name, her lips barely moving, her voice trembling with an adoration that bordered on religious.
To her, in this moment, it seemed as if all the light in the entire, vast world had converged, narrowed, and focused upon him, and him alone.
The deafening, ear-splitting chants of "LOYALTY!" from all around... they had reached her.
She'd heard them.
But now...
In her world, there was only that man.
Not only did he possess the power to overturn the entire world... but he also had an unparalleled, world-ending charm and... and...
...he was just so handsome.
"This... this feeling... it makes me..."
Hancock couldn't help but murmur, her eyes going glazed, her cheeks flushing with the most vivid rouge, a heat spreading all the way to the tips of her ears.
She felt her blood rushing, boiling, bringing waves of inexplicable, dizzying heat.
Her hands instinctively, almost in a panic, flew up to cup her own burning face as her body swayed slightly, unable to stay still.
"I want to... I want to... marry him..."
No! No! Stop it!
Hancock shook her head vigorously, her long black hair whipping, trying to snap herself out of it.
'This is it! This is the final battle! This is the moment deciding the fate of the entire world!'
'How... how can I be thinking such... inappropriate... wonderful... inappropriate thoughts!'
'Ahem!' she thought, composing herself with a monumental effort.
'Those... ahem... matters... can wait. Until after the war!'
(But not long after.)
"Fufufufufu—!"
A low, grating, and utterly amused chuckle started deep in Doflamingo's chest.
He adjusted his signature sunglasses, his lips curling into an irrepressible, razor-thin smirk.
"Truly... magnificent!"
The highest authority of the World Government? The "immortal" bodies? The rulers of the world?
In the face of absolute power...
What a colossal, magnificent, hilarious joke!
Doflamingo felt the blood in his entire body coursing with a raw, giddy excitement.
His long, spindly fingertips were actually trembling.
'This!' he thought, his grin widening. 'This... is true power!!!'
Compared to this... this power to delete reality...
The Ancient Weapon Uranus, the supposed "treasure" of Mary Geoise.. it all seemed so... insignificant.
So laughable!
Toys! They were all just toys for children!
"Mary Geoise... the seat of power... the Holy Land of the World Nobles..." he murmured under his breath, his lips curling into a grin that was now very near the edge of madness.
"I wonder... will it turn into ruins today?"
He could almost picture it.
The beautiful, opulent Pangea Castle, burning in cleansing flames.
The Red Line itself, crumbling in massive, continent-sized tremors.
Those self-proclaimed noble, pig-like Celestial Dragons, scattering like frightened insects, wailing in despair, their stupid bubble-helmets popping...
Fufufu... Fufufufufu!
Just the thought alone, the sheer spectacle of it, made him tremble uncontrollably!
Destruction!
Complete, total, beautiful destruction!
This... this was the grandest show he had longed to see ever since the day those so-called "brethren" abandoned him, the day his entire world shattered.
Doflamingo turned his gaze, full of a new, twisted kind of respect, toward Mike.
"Now..." he whispered, his voice vibrating with anticipation.
"All we need... is Mike-san's command."
He could hardly wait. He ached to personally partake in this feast.
To use his strings, to slice those offensive, eyesore buildings into a million pieces.
To hang those arrogant, sniveling Celestial Dragons, one by one, from the ruins of their own "Holy Land"!
This grand spectacle... it was about to reach its glorious climax!
Fufufufufu——!
At this moment, as countless eyes—filled with vengeance, with love, with bloodlust, and with the hope of the entire world—all watched.
"Haa—"
Mike, who had been standing at the bow, one hand in his pocket, slowly raised his other arm.
His index finger pointed, not at any one person, but at the entire distant Holy Land.
At the concept. At the 800-year-old symbol of the world's highest authority.
His voice was calm.
Almost casual.
Yet, it carried across the entire fleet, across the churning water, and, through the Den Den Mushi, resonated throughout the entire, watching world.
"Everyone."
"Today."
"We raze the Holy Land to the ground!"
The instant his words fell...
An indescribable, unfathomable, terrifying pressure erupted from Mike, centered on him, and then exploded outward, covering the world!
The sky didn't just change.
It broke.
The once-clear heavens were suddenly, instantly, shrouded in thick, roiling, poisonous-looking storm clouds, like a bottle of ink spilled across the heavens.
"WHOOOOOWL!"
Fierce, hurricane-force winds howled, whipping up monstrous, building-sized waves that crashed against the cliffs of the Red Line with deafening, thunderous roars!
The very air grew thick, heavy, and wet, as if it had solidified, suffocating all who breathed it!
KRA-KA-THOOOM!
Blinding, spidery bolts of crimson-black lightning tore across the sky.
Silver serpents of pure energy danced wildly, their apocalyptic light illuminating the countless, newly-terrified, and utterly despairing faces of the nobles below in Mary Geoise!
[Five-Star Conqueror Haki!][The pinnacle of Conqueror's Haki, surpassing all others!]
"Thud!" "Thud!" "Thud! Thud! Thud!"
Above, in the "Holy Land" Mary Geoise, the ordinary Celestial Dragons couldn't even scream.
They couldn't even process the terror.
Under the weight of this overwhelming, absolute will, their eyes simply rolled back into their heads.
Foam spilled from their slack-jawed mouths as they collapsed, not in ones or twos, but in waves.
Like wheat before a scythe.
A carpet of unconscious, fainted "gods."
Some, the weaker or older ones, didn't even faint.
Their hearts just... stopped.
They died on the spot, drowned by a power they couldn't even comprehend.
The thousands of CP0 agents, the supposed elite... fared no better.
Over half of their members—instantly—lost consciousness.
They folded like puppets with their strings cut, collapsing limply to the ground, their white suits staining in the filth.
Their bodies twitched and spasmed uncontrollably.
The remaining agents were pale as death, trembling like leaves in a hurricane, clinging desperately to the ground.
They were gritting their teeth, their nails digging into the pristine marble, barely—barely—clinging to the last, tattered shreds of consciousness.
Their eyes, wide and bloodshot, were filled with a pure, primal terror that shattered all their indoctrination.
Only the God's Knights, their faces grim, and the remaining four of the Five Elders, their monstrous forms braced, managed to hold their ground against this torrent of pure, absolute will.
The entire Holy Land, under this one, single, domineering Haki that reigned supreme, descended into a deathly, chaotic silence!
This overwhelming Conqueror's Haki... it was the final trumpet call for the assault.
The battlefield was set.
The fodder was cleared.
The silence was shattered.
"PUHAHAHAHA—!" "GURARARARA—!"
Garp and Whitebeard, the two old reinvigorated monsters, laughed—a sound of pure, unadulterated joy.
They had leaped simultaneously, their massive forms like two cannonballs fired from barrels.
They soared through the air, their fists cocked, charging toward the chaotic, reeling Mary Geoise with unstoppable momentum.
"Everyone, move aside!" Garp voice boomed.
"Don't you dare steal our military merits!" Whitebeard roared in agreement.