"Those two idiots!"
Down on the ground, Jilingom—who'd finally recovered—watched the two reserve fighters get wrecked in the sky. His face flipped between green and purple with rage.
He swept a hand across the dirt, and every nightmare cave snapped open at once.
All the MMA monsters—forged from the drained souls of Elshahe's citizens—awoke in a flash. A flood of horrors surged upward.
Grotesque giants, world-encircling snakes wreathed in karmic fire, six-armed fishmen with razor fangs, flaming skeletal titans, gold-digging stepmoms, bitter ex-wives…
Every fear buried in the hypnotized hearts of Elshahe's people was now yanked into reality by a Devil Fruit power and given claws.
"Go! Kill that sea beast!"
At his command, the nightmare horde roared and charged the distant Leviathan.
Jilingom's body ignited with flame clouds. His hooves kicked off the air as he rocketed back into the fray.
"Huh? Nightmare monsters?"
Sakura cleaved Manmaia Millia clean in half with one axe swing, then spun the blade in her right hand, winding up a slash for the swarm below.
Smack!
A cold grip clamped her left arm. Observation Haki flared—it was the bisected Manmaia, still clinging to her fight.
Black flames licked the severed waist, knitting her back together piece by piece.
"Pointless. This is my world. Here, I'm immortal. No one can stand against me in a realm of pure soul!"
She raised her free hand—soul-manipulating light flickering—and stabbed straight for Sakura's heart.
"Same trick won't work twice!"
Sakura let the axe drop. A tiny cherry-blossom seal on the falling blade bloomed with light.
Whoosh!
Chakra flow was clogged, but Sakura's elite control still caught the space-time tether. She blinked through the dream barrier and reappeared beside the plummeting axe.
"There it is! That energy—what is it? It's been fighting my dominion, rejecting my embrace!"
This time Manmaia felt it crystal-clear: the strange power that had resisted her assimilation, her caress, from the very start.
It only made her hungrier.
"I have to take you home and dissect every inch of you!"
Her sick laughter echoed. Wings flared; searing flames coalesced into a blazing knight's lance forged from stolen willpower. She dove.
"Jeez, you undead freaks are annoying!"
Sakura crossed her axes. Overwhelming Haki poured into the edges, turning both blades pitch-black.
CLANG!
Fire lance met icy axe. Dark lightning crackled through the void.
Below, Jilingom's halberd carved a bloody gash across Leviathan's hide. The MMA swarm scrambled up the beast's flanks, tearing and stabbing.
"Leviathan!"
Chakra surged through Sakura's palms. She hurled the Flying Thunder God–sealed axe.
"No you don't!"
Snap!
Manmaia's fingers snapped in sync with her words. Dream and soul domination clashed against Sakura's willpower-forged Haki and the chakra coursing through her spirit.
She couldn't erase them completely, but a split-second glitch was enough to scramble the ultra-precise teleport.
"I'm not letting you bother Boss Jilingom. Stay right here and be my wife (slave)!"
Manmaia tackled her from above, driving them both into a spiraling crash.
Leviathan grew smaller in Sakura's vision. Every Celestial Dragon strike drew a pained bellow from the beast.
"So you're the one jamming the dream. Time to end this!"
Jilingom yanked a skyscraper-sized greatsword straight out of the dreamscape and swung it down at Leviathan.
But beneath the beast, amid the endless white, a white figure stepped on air and blitzed to the sword's flank.
"You…"
Jilingom's moss-green eyes reflected the white cat who once stormed the holy city alone—only to be shattered by the three of them combined.
"You're still alive?!"
"Not until I drag you trash to hell with me!"
Kingdom Legion Commander Christoph. Haki swirled around his claws. In a final, life-burning explosion, endless torrents of flame erupted from his paws and slammed down.
"Bone-Shattering Grand Fork!!!"
The punch shattered the mountain-sized blade, blasting a gaping hole straight through. Residual Haki kept chewing the broken metal, boiling it into slag as it rocketed toward Jilingom.
"Shit—!"
Jilingom crossed his arms.
BOOM!
Catastrophic Haki collision. Black lightning screamed between Christoph's fist and Jilingom's guard.
A single tear rolled from the white cat's eye.
In that crystalline drop flashed three years of Elshahe's torment—and every sleepless night his student spent lost in despair.
The fist broke through. It cratered Jilingom's skull.
An air-ring exploded around the flying knight, punching through the already-crumbling cloud layer. He plummeted all the way to the Demon Sky Realm.
CRASH!
He smashed into the garbage-choked bottom, kicking up a tsunami of trash and wind.
The shockwave rippled to the lowest battlefield.
"What the—?!"
Marcus Dorian instinctively raised an arm. Observation Haki screamed—he saw Jilingom buried in a trash mountain.
"Boss Jilingom—?! What the hell's happening up there?!"
The paint-slime knight spread his arms to fly upward.
A hole ripped open in front of him. An avalanche of garbage poured down, burying him.
"ENOUGH! I'm sick of you filthy lower-world ants!"
The moment the words left his mouth, paint-thorn forests erupted like enraged titans blooming from the earth.
Five more openings left in his body…
Prince White Rabbit Helmud panted hard, raised a trembling paw, and glared at the frenzied Marcus.
Five is plenty. I'll end you in five.
The boy's eyes hardened. He charged.
"DIE! DIE!"
Marcus whipped paint-thorn lashes like flails.
The rabbit ignored the bloody welts, sprinting straight through the barrage.
Only lethal strikes earned a Body · Cave Open dodge.
Four… three… two… one.
Before the final use, the rabbit skidded to a stop right in front of Marcus.
"Heh. Lower-world trash. You really think you can beat me?"
Every thorn snapped back. Marcus bloated into a sea-urchin of spikes—hundreds bursting from the slime.
Spikes punched through vitals. The rabbit screamed. Blood painted the sky.
"HAHAHA! I WIN, ANT!"
A twisted face surfaced on the slime.
The rabbit wrapped both arms around the paint-mass, coughed blood, and roared:
"Earth · Cave Open!!!"
The garbage floor yawned wide.
But beneath was no tunnel—just roiling, empty chaos.
The incinerator built to burn excess dream-waste.
"The sewage vent?!"
Marcus's pupils shrank. He thrashed.
"LET GO! LET GO, YOU WANT TO DIE?!"
Blood dripping from his mouth, the rabbit looked down—and smiled. Pure, fevered malice.
"We won, you scum!"
He stepped forward. No hesitation.
"The rest is up to you, pirate!"
Up in the Colorless Realm, Sakura—locked in combat with Manmaia—felt it in her bones.
"Rabbit…"