"Pfft…"
In midair, Kizaru's enlarged face twisted violently as a sharp, chilling crack rang out. The sound of bones fracturing echoed clearly through the battlefield. Luffy's face was contorted with fury as he poured all his strength into his legs, smashing both feet straight into Kizaru's face without holding back.
Brilliant beams of golden light cascaded down from the sky. The ground within a thousand meters convulsed instantly, rising and collapsing as the destruction spread outward, rapidly extending to tens of thousands of meters. Hills were torn apart, shockwaves whipped through the air, and crushing wind pressure rolled across the battlefield.
A deafening explosion followed. A towering mushroom cloud of dust and debris swallowed the entire area, blotting out the sky.
Almost at the same instant Kizaru was sent crashing down, Lucien Graves, standing nearly a thousand meters away, leaned forward. His amethyst eyes flared with blinding golden lightning, and his spiky hair rose as if charged by the heavens themselves. As the earth behind him erupted upward, his body dissolved into a streak of golden lightning and vanished.
"Tenfold Instant Kill."
All power focused into a single point, driven to its absolute limit.
The eternal golden lightning tore through heaven and earth, crossing a thousand meters in an instant.
Emma, who had been staring up at the sky moments earlier, was suddenly engulfed by an overwhelming sense of death. Her blood ran cold, her limbs stiffened, and terror crushed her lungs until she could barely breathe.
At that moment, time itself seemed to slow.
Emma leaned backward, twisting her head just in time to see the golden lightning bolt tearing toward her from afar. Her pupils shrank to pinpricks. Without hesitation, her entire body hardened, diamondization spreading instantly as Armament Haki coated her form. Even so, she knew she could not evade it.
The assimilated diamond ground beneath her surged upward, forming a massive stone monument in an attempt to shield her.
It was still too late.
"Emma!"
High in the air, Luffy's vision blurred. In the next instant, the earth split apart with a terrifying roar, a monstrous chasm ripping through the land from afar and stopping only where Emma stood.
"Pfft…"
A diamondized head flew into the air, its expression frozen in shock, its gaze unchanged.
A violent explosion erupted immediately afterward.
Lucien Graves appeared a hundred meters behind Emma's fallen body, standing calmly amid the devastation. In his hand was a kukri blazing with extreme heat and coated in Armament Haki. Golden lightning coiled endlessly around his body, crackling with lethal intent.
Originally, Lucien's target had been Luffy.
But after careful consideration, he realized these so called fellow outsiders were far more dangerous. He had no idea what kind of cheats or unnatural advantages they possessed.
Compared to them, Luffy was far easier to deal with.
"No…!"
Luffy stared at the severed head spinning through the air. His eyes burned red as he let out a furious, grief filled roar.
Lucien stood within the shattered pit and calmly turned his head toward a distant direction.
A terrifying aura arrived almost instantly.
At the same moment, a foot clad in worn flip flops, wrapped in overwhelmingly powerful Haki, swept toward him like a rainbow piercing through the sun itself.
Hardening, extreme heat, and Armament Haki fused together in an instant. Lucien's right foot crystallized into a black red sheen, steam billowing around it as it collided head on with the incoming kick.
Boom.
A violent shockwave burst outward, ripping through the surroundings and sending both their hair whipping wildly in the air.
"Silvers Rayleigh."
Lucien, now in the body of an eleven or twelve year old boy, stared calmly ahead. Reflected within his amethyst, diamond patterned eyes was the imposing figure of the Dark King himself.
"I'm late," Rayleigh said quietly.
He withdrew his attack and stepped back, putting distance between himself and Lucien. His gaze shifted to Emma's headless body on the ground, then to Luffy, whose face was twisted in anguish as tears streamed down his cheeks.
Lucien had chosen to act precisely because he sensed Rayleigh's constant approach, along with another immense aura rapidly closing in from the horizon. He feared losing the best opportunity for an ambush, so he struck decisively.
"Ding."
Just as everyone believed Emma was truly dead, a golden coin engraved with an unfamiliar symbol fell from the sky. It landed beside her body and released a clear, resonant chime.
As the coin appeared, Emma's separated body and head dissolved into countless points of light. The glowing fragments drifted together and rapidly reformed. Within just two breaths, Emma stood whole once more, staring at Lucien with eyes filled with icy fury.
That sudden attacker had forced her to consume a revival coin.
A single revival coin was worth one hundred thousand exchange points.
This was her second life, purchased using every exchange point her brother Ethan had given her, combined with all of her own accumulated wealth.
It represented the entirety of both siblings' fortunes.
And in a single instant, it was gone.
She was now completely penniless. Worse still, Ethan's exchange points had also been exhausted. If she encountered danger again in the future, she would have nothing left to exchange for survival.
Lucien narrowed his eyes as he stared at the golden coin and the unharmed Emma. Without hesitation, his body transformed into golden lightning once more and vanished.
As expected, it was a cheat.
If his judgment was correct, that item had been a revival coin.
Now that Silvers Rayleigh had appeared, and another powerful aura was rapidly approaching from the horizon, it was time to retreat.
Although the ambush had failed and even alerted the enemy, Lucien knew he had not suffered a loss.
Judging from Emma's clenched teeth and the venom in her gaze, as though he had slaughtered her entire family, that single revival coin had cost her something beyond imagination.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Emma refused to let this despicable attacker escape. Her immense mental power condensed into an invisible spear and shot toward Lucien with ruthless speed.
This kind of mental assault was nearly impossible to detect, except by those possessing exceptionally strong Observation Haki.
It resembled an unseen force, invisible and intangible, perceivable only to select individuals or those of overwhelming strength.
In the past, attacks targeting the mind, spirit, or soul would have been a serious threat to Lucien.
But now, they were meaningless.
The power of the Soul Fruit directly countered such abnormal abilities.
Emma's mental spear plunged into Lucien's consciousness like a stone sinking into the ocean, vanishing without a ripple.
As Lucien disappeared beyond the horizon, Emma's cold eyes widened in disbelief.
Her attack had done nothing.
"Emma, how did you…?"
Luffy still had tears on his face, completely unable to comprehend what he had just witnessed.
"It must be the power of a Devil Fruit," Rayleigh said calmly as he stepped forward, offering a simple explanation.
Only a Devil Fruit could produce something so unbelievable.
Emma nodded slightly, accepting the explanation without offering further clarification.
"Uncle Rayleigh, why are you here?" Luffy asked, his carefree nature already resurfacing.
"Two Admirals have arrived at the Sabaody Archipelago," Rayleigh replied. "I came to take a look."
"Thank you, Uncle Rayleigh," Luffy said, scratching the back of his head with a wide grin.
"Our crisis isn't over yet," Emma said coldly.
Her mood was terrible. A palpable aura of hostility radiated from her body, warning everyone to keep their distance. Her bloodshot eyes locked firmly onto Kizaru in the distance.
Kizaru was under immense pressure.
He had not fully understood what had just happened.
An unknown attacker had appeared out of nowhere, struck Emma, and even severed her head. Then, with the fall of a single coin, she had revived as if nothing had happened.
Kizaru also assumed this was the result of a Devil Fruit.
But the problem was that Emma possessed far too many abilities. Diamondization, suspected mental attacks, and now even resurrection.
What kind of monster was she?
Even worse, Silvers Rayleigh clearly intended to watch over the Straw Hat crew.
Facing two opponents at once had been manageable. But three?
Kizaru knew he could not handle that.
"Dark King Silvers Rayleigh," Kizaru said, spreading his hands as his earlier anger slowly faded. "Do you intend to interfere?"
"Don't misunderstand," Rayleigh replied casually. "I'm just passing by."
He withdrew his gaze from the horizon, signaling Kizaru not to be nervous. Then he turned to Luffy.
"You handle the rest yourselves. I'll be waiting at the tavern. Remember to bring Ace."
Without giving Luffy a chance to respond, Rayleigh leapt across the ruins and vanished from sight.
Kizaru frowned slightly. He had not expected Rayleigh to leave so easily.
Suddenly, Kizaru, Luffy, Emma, Momousagi, and everyone else across the battlefield all looked up in the same direction.
A colossal aura surged forth, its presence no weaker than that of an Admiral.
Even before it arrived, the temperature across the entire Sabaody Archipelago began to rise. The sea churned violently, parting to form a massive trench as seawater evaporated and sank under the overwhelming heat.
Something terrifying was approaching.
___
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