"Grampa Jarul… what is happening here?" Lightning rippled violently around Dora's towering frame, crawling over her shoulders and down the haft of Stormbreaker. The fractured throne hall flickered in blue-white flashes as she kept her gaze fixed on Harald.
"Why is the King slaughtering his own guards?" she demanded. "And who are those people?" Jarul opened his mouth— But it was Gaban who answered.
"That," he said calmly, eyes never leaving Harald, "is no longer your king, young one." His voice was steady, but iron lay beneath it. "He's being controlled. Bound by something dark. Something not of this world."
The words settled heavily in the ruined chamber. Harald stood motionless at the center of the devastation, massive frame silhouetted against the open sky where half the palace once stood. Those vacant eyes stared forward, lifeless and predatory all at once. Gaban's gaze shifted briefly toward Dora.
And for the first time since stepping into the hall, his expression softened—if only slightly. He let out a low whistle.
"The Donquixote pirates are a den of monsters, aren't they?" he muttered to himself with grudging admiration. "A giantess… ancient blood running through her veins… and the Lightning Logia on top of it." He clicked his tongue. "Even our crew didn't stack this many freaks of nature on one ship."
There was no exaggeration in his tone—only honest assessment. He could feel it. The pressure radiating from Dora wasn't just her Devil Fruit. Beneath the lightning, beneath the fury, something else coiled quietly.
A king's will. Untamed. Unrefined. But unmistakable.
"You're still young," Gaban continued, stepping slightly closer to her side. His twin axes rested loosely in his hands, but red lightning danced along their edges. "By giant standards, you've barely begun." His eyes narrowed toward the God's Knights. "But listen carefully, kid."
His Conqueror's Haki surged outward in a sudden pulse, splitting the air between both sides with crackling arcs. "Unless you can imbue your attacks with Haoshoku… unless you can coat your strikes in a king's will… you won't kill them."
His voice hardened. "No matter how strong your lightning logia is..." Dora's eyes flickered faintly. She had noticed it. Her full-powered strike had pierced Harald clean through. And yet he stood. Unscarred. Untouched. As if the storm had been nothing more than rain.
Gaban continued, tone sharp now. "This isn't my first time fighting some of them before us. Their immortality isn't absolute—but it might as well be if you're swinging without Conqueror's coating."
His axes lowered into a ready stance, red lightning thickening around them.
"If you can't do it—retreat." That word landed heavily. "If you can… then fight."
Dora's jaw tightened. "Grampa Jarul," she muttered without looking away from Harald, "who is this annoying old human?" Lightning flared brighter around her. "Is he another enemy?"
There was no malice in the question—only blunt suspicion. Jarul straightened despite his injuries. "He is a friend of Elbaf," the elder giant said firmly. "He stands with us." His weathered eyes softened briefly as they rested on Gaban. "He is no ordinary man, Dora. He sailed with the Pirate King himself."
The wind howled louder through the shattered palace as the name hung unspoken between them.
"He chose to settle here," Jarul continued. "Built a family here." In truth, Scopper Gaban had long ago ceased being an outsider. Though not born of giant blood, he had earned Elbaf's respect the only way that mattered—through strength, loyalty, and battle.
"In every way that matters," Jarul finished, "he is one of us." Dora finally allowed her gaze to shift—just slightly. She studied the small human beside her. The scars. The twin axes humming with red lightning. The suffocating weight of his Conqueror's Haki pressing outward in steady waves. He did not look intimidated. He did not look hesitant. He looked ready.
Across the ruined hall, Sommers sneered, though his wound still smoked faintly. Killingham adjusted his stance. Gunko's eyes remained calculating, unreadable.
"Don't get distracted," Gunko said sharply, her voice slicing cleanly through the rising tension. Her gaze did not waver from Gaban—but her awareness had already shifted elsewhere.
"They aren't alone." A faint distortion shimmered around her as her Observation Haki stretched outward again, this time deeper… finer… searching the fractures between heartbeats and shadows.
"He's trying to draw our attention," she continued coolly. "There's another presence." Earlier, Gaban's sudden strike had momentarily disrupted her focus. She would not allow that mistake twice. The abyss within her—an unnatural tether to the Great One—had sharpened her perception. And now she felt it clearly.
Someone was there. Lurking. Waiting. And that presence carried a familiar mark. Gaban exhaled slowly through his nose.
"…Tch." So they noticed. He tilted his head slightly, not turning around.
"You brat," he called into the wind, irritation masking quiet approval, "you still need to work on concealing your presence." His axes lowered a fraction. "Look how easily you got caught."
For a brief moment, confusion flickered across Sommers' face. But Gunko and Harald had already locked onto it. The shadow along the broken wall shifted. Then— A figure stepped forward into the open.
Red hair stirred in the wind sweeping through the bisected throne hall. A long red cloak settled against broad shoulders. His expression was not playful. Not relaxed. It was calm. Grave. Deliberate. Shanks walked into the ruined throne room.
The moment both feet touched the fractured marble, his Conqueror's Haki exploded outward. It did not erupt wildly like Dora's storm. It expanded with suffocating precision. The air cracked. Jagged streaks of red lightning tore across the exposed sky above Aurust Castle, colliding violently with Harald's oppressive aura and Gaban's seasoned Haoshoku. The three wills clashed in invisible shockwaves that rippled across Elbaf, causing distant warriors to stagger as if struck by an unseen force.
The ground beneath Shanks' boots splintered. Dust rose and disintegrated before touching him. He rested one hand near the hilt at his side—not drawing yet, but ready. There was no grin on his face. No casual banter. Only resolve.
Because this was not a skirmish. This was war against beings who could not be killed by ordinary means. Gunko's eyes narrowed immediately. Sommers' lips parted slightly. Recognition. Maffey, however, burst into harsh laughter that echoed through the shattered hall.
"Well, well… look what the tide dragged in!" Her eyes gleamed with cruel amusement as she stepped forward. "It's the Supreme Commander's offspring… the one who fled the Holy Land."
Her smile sharpened. "The one who signed the contract and accepted the blessing of the shallow covenant from the great one and then ran." Her gaze raked over him mockingly. "I wonder how the Commander would react if he knew his precious bloodline was standing here—defying the will of the throne." The words hung heavy with implication.
Before Maffey could finish her taunt, a screaming red arc tore through the ruined throne hall. It came without warning. A crescent of compressed air and burning will, ripping through fractured pillars and shattered marble, aimed directly for her neck.
Shanks had already moved. Gryphon was in his hand. He hadn't drawn it dramatically. There had been no flourish. Only intent.
The blade hummed as Conqueror's Haki flooded into it—dense, refined, absolute. red lightning coiled along its edge, bleeding into the red slash that now split the air with a shriek. Standing so close to the abyssal circle etched into the throne room floor, Shanks could feel it more clearly than anyone else—the subtle tug beneath his skin.
The mark on his arm pulsed faintly. A whisper. A pull. An attempt to influence. To dominate. To command. His jaw tightened. Harald wasn't even fighting at full strength. Not yet. Five God's Knights. One of them a giant king capable of wielding Haoshoku.
Even with Gaban and the lightning giantess at his side, their odds were brutal. But whatever ritual, whatever corruption, whatever plan was unfolding here— Shanks would try his absolute best to end it. The slash reached Maffey in an instant. She reacted—barely. Her head snapped back as she twisted away, but not fast enough.
The screaming arc grazed her face, carving across her cheek in a violent spray of blood. The force behind it shattered the wall behind her, the red crescent continuing outward into the open sky before dissipating.
For a being who rarely felt anything beyond mild irritation—the pain was sharp. Real. Conqueror's coating. Her fingers rose slowly to her cheek. Blood stained them crimson.
"You bastard—!" she roared, fury distorting her features. "I will gut you! I don't care if you're the Commander's offspring!"
Her blade flashed into her hand, Haki igniting along its length. Before she could launch forward—
Gunko's voice cut across the battlefield.
"Sommers. Killingham." Both turned instantly. "The commotion has surely alerted the rest of Elbaf. I want the castle secured. Now." Her tone allowed no argument. "Ensure no other giants approach the castle."
Even with Harald under control, even with their overwhelming advantage, Gunko was not careless. A full-scale uprising across Elbaf would complicate matters. Their takeover had to be precise. Controlled. Clean. Sommers blinked.
"…Gunko-chan, can't you send Maffey to babysit the gates?" he complained, rolling his shoulders as the last of his wound sealed shut. "I want to test myself against the Pirate King's left hand."
His grin sharpened as he eyed Gaban.
"It's been almost a decade since Roger's crew disbanded. Old age must be catching up to him."
He chuckled darkly. "Maybe today I finally take his head."
Unlike Sommers—an immortal—Gaban aged. Time was a weapon. Gunko did not even glance at him. "That's an order, Knight Sommers." Her gaze remained fixed on Shanks and Gaban. "And restrain yourself. Do not slaughter the giants for your amusement."
Her voice cooled further. "They will soon serve the Great One. I expect discipline."
A subtle warning. Among the God's Knights, Sommers' cruelty stood out even in that company. Beneath his jovial laughter lurked something deeply sadistic. He pouted theatrically.
"Gunko-chan, you're such a spoilsport… With this many Haoshoku users gathered in one place, I thought I'd finally get to stretch a bit."
Still—he obeyed. With a final lingering glance at Gaban, he leapt backward, his Devil Fruit power warping his form around him as he vanished into the ground using his vines toward the outer corridors. Killingham followed without protest, already calculating how best to seal the castle grounds.
They moved at once. Gaban stepped to pursue Sommers. Shanks shifted to cut off Killingham. Dora surged forward in a burst of lightning—and the battlefield split instantly, but the God knights also moved to intercept. Gunko appeared before Gaban as though the air itself had folded.
Maffey's towering frame blurred into Shanks' path. And Harald— Harald moved. One swing. That was all it took. His colossal blade carved across Dora's interception path with a deafening roar. The force behind it wasn't coated in Haki. There was no red lightning. No advanced haki technique.
Just raw, titanic strength. "BOOM—!"
Dora barely raised Stormbreaker in time. The impact detonated against her axe, the shockwave ripping outward in a circular blast that shattered what remained of nearby pillars. The force lifted her clean off her feet.
She was sent flying across the ruined hall, crashing through fractured stone and into a standing column. Marble exploded in a storm of debris as her body was swallowed by dust—and then dissolved into lightning mid-impact.
Her form scattered into crackling arcs before reforming instantly several meters away, boots skidding across fractured marble. No damage. But the message was clear. That had been pure physical strength. No Haki. No technique.
If that was only his body—then how monstrous was he truly? Harald lowered his blade slowly, empty eyes fixed on her. He had completely sealed her path.
"You are mine, little traitor…!" Maffey's voice cut sharply across the chaos.
She stepped toward Shanks, towering even among the God's Knights. Nearly twice his height, her shadow stretched long over him. She dragged her blade across the floor, sparks trailing behind as Haki began to crawl along its edge. She licked the flat of her weapon, crimson still staining her cheek from his earlier strike.
"The Commander's family truly breeds betrayal," she mocked. "First you… then your elder sister."
Her grin twisted cruelly. "I've always wondered… if that little brat Shamrock—your brother, wasn't he? Will he betray us too someday?"
Her eyes narrowed playfully. "Tell me, Red Hair brat… are you the younger twin? Or is he?" The provocation was deliberate. Surgical. She swung. The blade came down in a brutal diagonal arc meant to cleave him from shoulder to hip. The force behind it split the air in a shriek.
Shanks moved before the swing even began. His Observation Haki read the intent in her muscles, the shift in her weight, and the killing line forming before it manifested. Gryphon rose smoothly, intercepting the strike with precise timing.
Steel met steel—red lightning exploded outward. The clash cracked the already fractured floor beneath them. Shanks' boots slid back inches—but his expression did not change. Calm. Focused. Unmoved. Maffey's grin faltered slightly.
"Oh?" she hummed. "Still sharp. It seems like all that special training you underwent years ago in the Holy Land didn't go to waste, but it's a shame you didn't embrace the great one's blessing."
She twisted her blade mid-clash, attempting to overpower him with sheer weight and immortality-backed endurance. Shanks pivoted, redirecting the force, deflecting rather than contesting it head-on. Another exchange. Another crack of Haki. Sparks and fractured lightning scattered like violent fireworks between them.
Across the hall, Gaban met Gunko's advance. Her presence distorted the very rules around her as if reality bent to accommodate her. Gaban's axes whirled into motion, each swing heavy with decades of battle experience.
Gunko's Aro Aro no Mi was no simple ability. The air around her bent unnaturally as though reality itself obeyed subtle, unseen threads in her grasp. Each time Gaban's twin axes descended with crushing force, the trajectory shifted at the last possible instant—angles warping, momentum dispersing, killing blows glancing away by inches.
Black lightning exploded from Gaban's blades with every swing, his Conqueror's coating refined and brutal, yet Gunko's mastery over her fruit allowed her to redirect, distort, and reposition with terrifying precision. She was being pushed back—yes—but she was not overwhelmed.
Stone shattered beneath her heels as she slid across the fractured throne floor, golden eyes sharp and calculating. "You've aged," she observed coolly, deflecting another axe strike by bending its arc just enough to avoid a direct clash. "Your Haki is strong… but not what it once was."
Gaban smirked faintly. "Still strong enough. My hair has just started graying, you see..."
He stepped forward with explosive force, both axes crashing down in a cross-pattern strike. The air detonated between them, Haoshoku surging outward in a violent pulse that cracked the remaining walls. Gunko twisted space again—barely.
The shockwave still hurled her backward, boots carving trenches through stone. Across the ruined hall, Elder Jarul staggered between fallen giants, hauling wounded guards away from collapsing debris. His breathing was heavy, vision blurred at the edges, but he refused to fall.
In his current state, he knew the truth— This was a battle of monsters. And he was no longer one of them. His aged eyes flicked between the clashes. Gaban appeared to hold the advantage against the young female knight. Shanks—calm and precise—was matching Maffey strike for strike, his Observation Haki allowing him to slip through her overwhelming size and power.
But Dora— Jarul's heart tightened. She was being pushed back. Harald moved like a force of nature unchained. Each swing of his blade carried such immense physical might that the shockwaves alone split the ground. Dora's lightning crashed against him repeatedly—blinding bolts, arcs of compressed thunder, Stormbreaker cleaving down with roaring force— Yet Harald endured.
No. More than endured. He advanced. It was as if he were testing her. To the untrained eye, it might have seemed even. But Jarul saw it clearly. Dora's Conqueror's Haki flared sporadically—wild, unfocused. She could release it. She could infuse it instinctively in bursts.
But she did not wield it with the mastery required. And here, against beings who could not be slain by ordinary means— That deficiency was fatal. Harald, unlike the other God's Knights, possessed Haoshoku of his own. And even in his controlled state, it surged around him like a dark crown.
When their weapons clashed, black lightning devoured blue. Stormbreaker met Harald's blade in a thunderous collision that split the air apart. The ground beneath Dora's feet shattered, forcing her back several meters as her boots dug trenches into stone.
Harald did not budge. His empty eyes stared down at her. Another swing. Dora raised her axe, lightning roaring in defiance— The impact blasted her backward again. She dissolved into lightning mid-flight, reforming before she struck the ground, but each exchange forced her further across the hall.
She was powerful. Overwhelmingly so. But Harald's Conqueror's coating gave weight to his strikes that her attacks lacked. Without refined Haoshoku infusion, her lightning—no matter how devastating—could not deliver a decisive blow.
And he knew it. Across the battlefield, Shanks glanced briefly in her direction, sensing the imbalance. Maffey noticed.
"Worried?" she taunted, launching another heavy strike downward. "You can't save yourself why worry about others, little traitor." Shanks parried smoothly, black lightning exploding outward as Gryphon deflected her blade.
"No," he replied quietly. Then his gaze sharpened, turning his attention back to his opponent.
Harald's blade descended. Not fast. Not wild. Just inevitable. Black lightning coiled thick around the weapon like a crown of kings made visible, the air shrieking as Conqueror's Haki compressed into the steel. The pressure alone forced the fractured marble beneath Dora's boots to crater inward.
Dora roared. Lightning detonated from her body in a blinding eruption, turning the shattered throne hall into a sunburst of blue-white fury. Stormbreaker swung upward to meet the strike, thunder spiraling around the axe head in a vortex. The two weapons never touched.
Their Haoshoku collided first.
Black and blue lightning tore across the space between them, crackling violently as if the sky itself had been dragged down into the castle. The impact split the remaining walls and sent a shockwave blasting outward across Aurust Castle. Giants miles away felt their knees buckle as the clash echoed through Elbaf like a war drum of gods.
Then—steel met steel. BOOOOM—!!
The collision flattened what little remained of the throne dais. Dora's arms trembled instantly as Harald's raw power drove downward. Her lightning surged desperately, coursing through Stormbreaker and exploding against Harald's blade in repeated bursts.
But his Haki was heavier. Denser. Refined. It crushed down on her like an ocean. The ground beneath Dora shattered completely, swallowing her legs to the knee as the force drove her backward. She gritted her teeth, muscles straining, ancient blood roaring in defiance.
"MOVE—!" she screamed, lightning bursting outward in jagged pillars that tore through the ceiling and into the storm-dark sky. For a heartbeat, Harald's blade stalled.
Then his eyes flickered. And the pressure doubled. Black lightning thickened, swallowing the blue entirely. Dora's axe was forced aside as Harald twisted his wrist and sent her skidding across the hall in a devastating backhanded swing. The shockwave alone obliterated three pillars and tore open the castle wall further.
Dora dissolved into lightning mid-flight, reforming behind him in a crack of thunder.
"RAIJIN—!"
She brought Stormbreaker down in a vertical cleave infused with everything she had—Devil Fruit power, Armament, and a desperate surge of Conqueror's will. The axe split the air— Harald turned. Too fast. His free hand caught the haft. Barehanded.
The impact sent a circular blast of Haki rippling outward, blowing debris away in a perfect sphere. Dora's eyes widened as black lightning crawled from his palm onto her weapon, overpowering her own coating. He lifted her. With one arm. And slammed her into the floor.
The impact detonated like a cannon fired into the earth. The castle trembled violently as Dora cratered into the stone, cracks spiderwebbing outward for dozens of meters. She coughed blood—but her body dissolved again before the pain could root her in place. Lightning scattered across the battlefield, reforming high above him in a swirling storm cloud contained within the ruined hall.
Thunder roared. Hundreds of bolts rained down simultaneously. Each one precise. Each one powerful enough to erase a fleet. Harald stood at the center of it. The lightning struck. And struck. And struck. The throne room became a sea of blue destruction.
When the storm cleared, he was still standing. Smoke rose from his skin. His body bore scorch marks, which healed at an alarming rate. But his posture had not shifted an inch. Then he stepped forward.
The pressure from his Conqueror's Haki expanded outward in a crushing wave. The very air seemed to thicken, becoming viscous. Dora's lightning flickered erratically as the oppressive will bore down on her, suppressing her Logia form.
Her breathing grew ragged. It felt like drowning. Harald leapt. The ground exploded beneath him as his colossal form shot upward, blade raised high. Dora swung Stormbreaker in desperation, but his weapon crashed down with merciless precision.
The strike blasted her from the air like a falling star. She slammed into the far wall of the castle, crashing through it entirely and skidding across the outer courtyard, carving a trench through stone and earth before finally stopping. Harald landed heavily in the courtyard moments later.
Boom….Boom.
Each step he took toward her cracked the ground. Dora struggled to her feet, lightning still flickering—but weaker now. Her Haoshoku flared instinctively in bursts, raw and untamed, but it lacked cohesion. Harald's did not. He raised his blade once more.
Black lightning surged skyward, splitting the clouds over Elbaf in two. Against the might of a king wielding refined Conqueror's Haki— Dora, for all her thunder and fury—was being utterly overpowered.