Charlotte Linlin's brutal punch sent Finn hurtling backward through the air. As he flew, she turned to glance at Katakuri behind her, standing aboard the Queen Mama Chanter.
She wasn't angry about her son interfering in her fight. Instead, an approving smile spread across her features, dark and satisfied. She seemed genuinely pleased with his son's decisiveness and tactical sense.
Finn flew with desperate effort to control his trajectory. Just as he was about to plunge into the ocean, he forcibly summoned gravitational force to support himself, creating an invisible platform of compressed air and energy.
His entire body skidded across the sea's surface for dozens of meters, water spraying outward in a violent wake before he finally released the force and stabilized himself.
Floating on the water's surface through gravity manipulation, Finn raised one hand to rub his arm gingerly. It felt sore, muscles protesting, but he'd successfully blocked Charlotte Linlin's devastating attack. That was something.
After repelling Finn, Charlotte Linlin didn't pursue him. She even ignored the Marine warship that continued firing at her position. Instead, she flew directly toward Kusagumo Island on Zeus, her focus entirely on the island itself.
Finn caught his breath momentarily, then stepped on empty air. Using Geppo in combination with weightlessness manipulation, he rushed toward Charlotte Linlin at tremendous speed, pursuing her relentlessly.
Behind them, the Queen Mama Chanter and Finn's warship exchanged cannon fire as they passed each other at a distance. Neither ship closed for boarding range. Katakuri and the other Big Mom Pirates also approached the island, while the Marine warship turned its bow and gave chase, continuing its bombardment.
Seeing Charlotte Linlin about to land on Kusagumo Island, Finn's eyes flashed with cold determination. He wanted to stop her from reaching land, but knew that would probably be impossible given the distance remaining.
At that moment, Finn spotted two Marine warships anchored in the harbor. They quickly began moving, heading toward the opposite side of the island, deliberately avoiding Charlotte Linlin's approach vector as they sailed away with urgent speed.
"Borsalino succeeded!" Finn thought with satisfaction.
Their mission this time wasn't truly to fight Charlotte Linlin to the death. It was to secure Dr. Vegapunk before she could. Now that Borsalino had accomplished the objective, all Finn needed to do was delay Charlotte Linlin for a reasonable period.
At this point, most of the scientists and researchers on the island had already fled. When the Marines had suddenly arrived to arrest people, many scientists engaged in illegal research had immediately run at the very beginning. To be honest, it was rare for civilian scientific organizations like this to not engage in some kind of banned research, but normally nobody bothered investigating.
Afterward, when Finn and Charlotte Linlin had clashed in the distant waters, their terrifying display of power had scared the remaining people on the island into fleeing as well. What had originally been a sparsely populated civilian scientific research island was now almost completely deserted.
Seeing this situation, Finn acted without any hesitation whatsoever.
Charlotte Linlin didn't know the Marines' true purpose. She assumed they were here specifically to stop her from recruiting Vegapunk. She didn't realize that Vegapunk had already been taken away by Borsalino on those departing warships.
Therefore, she ignored the fleeing vessels completely. Her feet touched down on the island's surface, and she immediately grabbed a scientist in a white coat who'd been too slow to escape. "Where is Vegapunk?" she demanded.
"V-V-Vegapunk... Dr. Vegapunk has just been taken away by the Marines!" the terrified researcher stammered.
"Taken away?" Charlotte Linlin's eyes flashed with murderous intent. Without another word, she suddenly crushed the man to death on the spot, his body crumpling in her massive grip.
After killing this unfortunate scientist, Charlotte Linlin turned and looked toward the warships departing the harbor not far away. She raised her hand, dark green soul energy manifesting as a visible halo in her palm. Just as she was about to attack the distant ships, she suddenly felt an invisible force wrapping around her body.
Then the ground beneath her feet collapsed instantly. Broken soil and rocks stuck directly to her body as if magnetized, clinging to her flesh.
"What is this?" Charlotte Linlin's expression showed momentary confusion.
She turned around and saw Finn stretching out one hand toward her in the distance, his stance focused and intense. As she watched, Finn's extended palm suddenly clenched into a fist.
"Gravity Domain: Planetary Devastation!!!" Finn shouted with commanding force.
Before Charlotte Linlin could fully react, the entire island began shaking violently. The ground started breaking apart from the harbor area outward, as if struck by a catastrophic earthquake. Massive amounts of soil and rock began crumbling. Buildings collapsed into rubble.
Then Charlotte Linlin, along with all the surrounding ruins, flew into the air as if pulled by some irresistible cosmic force.
Charlotte Linlin herself was the core focal point of this technique. Countless pieces of debris kept falling onto her body, layering over each other. In just moments, her huge figure was completely buried beneath the accumulating mass.
This was different from the situation at Kenzan Island years ago. Back then, when Finn had used his full strength to create Planetary Devastation against Katakuri, it had ultimately been only the size of a warship.
But now? With this casting of Planetary Devastation, Finn had demolished half the island in less than five breaths.
The originally circular island had been forcibly transformed into a semicircle, as if some cosmic being had taken a bite from it.
The rest of the land had already flown into the air, imprisoning Charlotte Linlin inside, forming a massive sphere of compressed earth and stone.
This sphere was several times larger than the meteorite he'd used against Shiki. It looked like a small artificial moon floating in the sky above the ocean.
The Queen Mama Chanter, which had originally been speeding toward the port, quickly stopped its approach.
Katakuri didn't dare move forward another meter. If he advanced a few more steps, he'd enter Finn's attack range. Given the current power displayed by Gravity Domain: Planetary Devastation, the ship beneath his feet would probably be sucked into the sky and incorporated into that floating sphere.
"So powerful..." Perospero murmured, shock evident in his eyes as he stared at the island-sized sphere hovering impossibly in the sky.
Although the previous meteorite attack had shocked him, it had still been somewhat comprehensible. But this sphere in the sky now completely stunned Perospero into speechless awe.
Are all Marines this monstrous? Do they just casually destroy entire islands whenever they fight?
"What should we do about Mama?" Perospero finally found his voice, quickly turning to Katakuri for guidance.
After all, he'd heard that Katakuri had also suffered this exact technique before, so his brother should have relevant experience.
Katakuri looked at the Gravity Domain: Planetary Devastation sphere floating in the sky with serious, analytical eyes. He realized anew just how rapidly Finn's strength was improving.
However, after hearing Perospero's worried question, Katakuri's voice carried absolute certainty. "Don't worry. Although this technique is tremendously powerful, our mother is a real monster. She'll break free."
As expected, the instant Katakuri finished speaking, a burst of flames suddenly pierced through the surface of Planetary Devastation from the inside. From a distance, it looked as if this massive sphere had spontaneously erupted with volcanic fire.
Then an arm, infinitely smaller than the sphere itself, stretched out from within the flames and grabbed the hardened soil and rocks around the opening, pulling with monstrous strength.
Finn's feet had now landed on the remaining half of the island. He still stretched out one hand toward the sky, powerful gravitational force constantly exerting crushing pressure on the sphere above.
But Charlotte Linlin's strength was truly, genuinely formidable. She withstood the overwhelming attraction of Planetary Devastation through sheer physical might and managed to crawl half her body out of the compressed sphere.
A small amount of blood traced from the corner of Charlotte Linlin's mouth. Her internal organs had definitely sustained some injury from the crushing pressure. But it was barely noticeable, looking more like she'd accidentally bitten her lip rather than suffered serious internal damage.
Her revealed upper body showed no visible external injuries whatsoever. Occasionally, sharp rocks and earth fragments would strike her exposed flesh, but they were completely useless. They might even crush themselves to powder against her skin rather than causing any harm.
"Iron balloon..." Finn whispered with shocked recognition, while simultaneously increasing the gravitational force in his outstretched hand.
Sometimes you had to admit an uncomfortable truth about this ocean. Some people were simply born standing at the endpoint that countless others spent their entire lives trying to reach.
They were monsters in the truest sense of the word.
Charlotte Linlin exemplified this reality perfectly.
Born with supernatural strength and monstrous physical power, she could kill a bear with a single punch at age five. And that was the kind of casual blow you'd use to stop children from fighting. She could almost kill a giant warrior by accidentally slapping them while trying to kill a mosquito on their back.
Her body was invulnerable to swords and spears, as resilient as diamond. She didn't need to use Armament Haki or Tekkai techniques to possess essentially invincible defense. When she was very young, giant warriors had attacked her with full force using their weapons, but she remained completely uninjured. Instead, the giants' swords had shattered against her skin.
If you combined this natural defense with advanced Armament Haki for protection? There were very few people in the entire world who could genuinely hurt her.
Now, this monster was crawling out of Finn's full-strength Planetary Devastation almost completely unscathed, relying purely on her physical capabilities.
"How terrifying..." Finn muttered in a deep voice, unconsciously echoing Borsalino's signature phrase.
As soon as the words left his mouth, Charlotte Linlin's hand began glowing with faint green soul energy. She slapped the Planetary Devastation sphere with her backhand, imbuing it with life force.
Finn immediately felt loss of control, as if the Gravity Domain: Planetary Devastation he was supposed to be commanding had developed its own consciousness and will.
Sure enough, the massive earthen sphere suddenly grew a face, features forming from the compressed soil and stone.
"Soul-imbuing!?" Finn's eyes widened with genuine shock.
Once her ability took effect, Charlotte Linlin was no longer bound by gravitational constraints. She escaped completely from the Planetary Devastation sphere. Her eyes blazed with furious anger. She stomped down hard on the sphere's surface, and the compressed earth instantly shattered beneath her monstrous brute force.
She herself launched from the disintegrating sphere like a cannon fired from sky, plummeting straight toward Finn's position.
Lightning crackled in her left hand, flames blazed in her right. Both arms formed into fists as she descended, Zeus's thunder and Prometheus's fire combining with her overwhelming physical might.
"Go to hell!!!" Charlotte Linlin roared, her voice shaking the air itself.
Faced with this devastating assault, Finn had absolutely no intention of trying to block or resist. He didn't even need to think about it. A single glance was enough to tell him he couldn't withstand this blow directly. If he tried to tank it, Charlotte Linlin's combined attack would probably inflict serious, potentially crippling injuries.
His feet shifted position instantly. As gravitational repulsion activated around his body, Finn's figure disappeared from his original location in a blur of motion, moving with the kind of explosive speed only weightlessness manipulation could provide.
The next second, Charlotte Linlin's ferocious form crashed into the ground where Finn had been standing. Both fists slammed into the island's surface simultaneously, and massive cracks spread outward instantly from the twin impact points.
Even without his feet touching the ground anymore, Finn could feel the entire island shaking and groaning as if in pain.
The combined power of fire and thunder exploded outward from the impact site, flying through the smoke and dust of the detonation like elemental dragons seeking prey.
"Gravity Blade: Flying Storm!" Finn raised Sōzai and slashed at the flames, lightning, and smoke sweeping toward him, trying to deflect the elemental aftermath with compressed gravitational force.
But before he could fully retract his blade, a massive black shadow burst through the obscuring smoke and dust. It was Charlotte Linlin, moving far faster than her size suggested possible.
The Emperor Sword Napoleon in her hand was completely coated in advanced Armament Haki, the blade turned obsidian black and radiating menace. At the same time, there was additional overwhelming force wrapped around the weapon, compressed and ready to explode on contact.
Finn's eyes flashed with alarm. He took a quick step backward, leaning forward into a stable bow stance. Simultaneously, he held Sōzai horizontally across his chest in a defensive guard, and stroked the intersection of blade and handle with his free hand in a flowing motion.
"One Sword Style: Cloud Flowing Tiger..." Finn said in a low, focused voice.
His palm brushed across the blade's length, and wherever it passed, Armament Haki like flowing clouds, like running water, like drifting cherry blossoms, attached itself to the steel.
This was the second stage of Armament Haki: Ryuo, the flowing application that could project force and create internal destruction.
This wasn't an offensive technique. It was purely defensive, designed to absorb and redirect impact force.
As the cloud-like Armament Haki clung to Sōzai's blade, Charlotte Linlin's Emperor Sword descended and crashed against Finn's weapon with earth-shaking force.
The powerful impact almost knocked Finn completely off his feet despite his preparation. Fortunately, he'd taken that backward step in advance and managed to stabilize his body through gravitational manipulation and sheer muscular strength.
The ground beneath his feet couldn't withstand the transmitted force. It collapsed instantly, broken earth and rocks flying upward from the compression like shrapnel fired from cannons.
"Elbaf Spear: Ikoku Sovereignty!!!" Charlotte Linlin shouted, unleashing her signature technique.
As she finished speaking, the already tremendously powerful slashing force compressed along Napoleon's edge suddenly burst forth with doubled intensity.
The air current released during the confrontation alone made it difficult for Finn to keep his eyes open. The cloak of justice draped over his shoulders was torn away by the violent winds, swept into the maelstrom and shredded, revealing his powerful physique beneath.
His arms trembled uncontrollably despite his best efforts. Veins throbbed visibly on his forehead, standing out like cords beneath the skin. The muscles in his arms seemed ready to burst. Blood began seeping out from beneath his skin where tiny blood vessels ruptured under the extreme strain.
He was exerting so much force that his own body was damaging itself.
Finn had been fighting on these seas for years now, but he'd never withstood such an overwhelmingly powerful attack before.
When fighting Golden Lion Shiki, he'd been more of a support combatant working alongside Sengoku. He hadn't directly experienced that kind of extreme, world-class power firsthand.
But now? Now he finally understood what genuine top-tier strength truly meant.
If it weren't for his exceptionally strong physical conditioning, enhanced repeatedly by the Iron Will's influence, Charlotte Linlin would have literally cut him in half with this strike.
He had to remember: what he was defending against was Charlotte Linlin's ultimate technique at her absolute peak physical condition. This was the Yonko-level power of one of the ocean's genuine monsters, unleashed without restraint.
At this moment, Finn heard a slight, crisp sound. Looking down, he saw that Sōzai, one of the twenty-one Great Grade swords, was developing visible cracks.
Even with the protection of second-stage Armament Haki flowing across its surface, the blade section intersecting with Napoleon's Emperor Sword was fracturing under the impossible pressure.