"Ehee, maybe that woman is just trying to cause trouble for us."
A shrill voice rang out as Dellinger covered his mouth and laughed softly. Though he was clearly a boy, he still gave off an awkwardly feminine air.
"How about I go kill her? She surrendered anyway."
"Before Young Master confirms whether that is true, if you actually act on your own, I'll kill you."
Diamante shot him a cold glance, and Dellinger instantly fell silent.
Then he turned to the family members standing by nearby. "Call and ask. Make sure there's no problem.
Also, raise the alert everywhere else. Since Young Master said they need to be taken seriously, then there is absolutely a reason for it."
"Yes, sir!"
The family members who received the order moved quickly, and the Den Den Mushi was soon connected.
"Thunderclouds? That does fit the signs, but…"
Violet paused for a moment, then said coldly, "…I can't see the end of the thunderclouds. That thing covers at least a hundred kilometers of the surrounding area.
But the range marked in the intelligence was only one to five kilometers. It doesn't match the conditions."
After saying that, Violet hung up the call just as she always did.
But after ending the call, she looked at the person sitting calmly in front of her with a complicated expression. "Can you let me go now?"
"Nope, I can't. After all, you haven't actually done anything that counts as true betrayal yet, have you?"
Robin smiled lightly and flicked a fingertip, causing even more arms to sprout across Violet's body. "Because you weren't lying just now."
As the arms twisted, a series of cracking sounds came from Violet's body, making her frown as she endured the pain.
It was true.
She hadn't lied just now, because the truth was exactly that—a thundercloud system spanning over a hundred kilometers had covered the skies above this country.
Even if they investigated afterward, she could still cover her mistake by saying she had been captured by the enemy but had still tried her best to tell the truth.
At the same time, a little preliminary cooperation might make the enemy think she had started to comply and stop tormenting her.
But… had she still been seen through?
"You won't win. This is Dressrosa, the Donquixote Family's territory!"
Violet spoke with difficulty. "I don't know what your goal is, but even if you capture me, the family won't yield even a single step!"
"You didn't say that you yourself would never submit, though. Didn't I already tell you? If you cooperate with us, your father can return alive to your side."
"You won't win."
"Is that so? Because you can't see any chance of victory, you've chosen to maintain the status quo… That really is troublesome."
Robin sighed with a slight headache. "In other words, you need to see a glimmer of hope before you'll surrender and cooperate with us in finding that officer called Sugar, right?"
"…"
Violet said nothing, but her struggling stopped, and her body gave its answer.
"All right, all right. But that won't be too difficult."
Robin seemed to be implying something.
"At least tell me this—how did you get past my perception?"
At that moment, Violet finally asked the question that had been tormenting her.
She was the user of the Glare-Glare Fruit, capable of observing a radius of four thousand kilometers—a true all-seeing eye!
Even with a Devil Fruit ability, no one should be able to cross four thousand kilometers in an instant, right?!
"Your Devil Fruit lets you see. Your range is huge and incredibly far, and you can even raise your line of sight to observe vast areas.
But in the end, you're still only looking. That means there will always be blind spots in your field of vision. For example…"
Robin looked up toward the sky.
Violet's pupils shrank. "Don't tell me… you didn't come from the sea, but from the sky?!
How is that even possible—"
"For him, nothing is impossible."
Robin smiled faintly, her tone filled with absolute confidence in "him."
Violet: "…"
The terror of the Demon Pirates far exceeded her imagination. She had originally thought the family was making too much of this, but now it seemed that level of caution had been absolutely necessary.
Putting everything else aside, this level of intelligence-gathering ability alone was horrifying. She had no idea how her information had been leaked.
Could it be that bastard Buffalo lost a bet and sold her information to pay off his debts?
That thought alone made Violet's mood sour even further.
Even so, she had no intention of changing her stance.
The Demon Pirates might be powerful, but only someone like her, who had personally witnessed Doflamingo make his move, truly knew how terrifying that man was.
A monster who had pushed something as ordinary as string to its very limit—even reaching the level of Awakening—was not someone that could be defeated with schemes and tricks!
As that thought crossed her mind, Violet silently cast a glance to the side. With the power of her all-seeing eyes, she saw it.
She saw Doflamingo leap from the golden ship, walking through the air.
And his direction was exactly this way!
'Just wait. You're going to fail! If Doflamingo were that easy to deal with, those pirates would have killed him long ago.'
Having reached that conclusion, Violet coldly watched the man she despised soar through the sky toward them.
And then—
Her vision went white!
Boom—!!
A savage pillar of lightning descended from the heavens, swallowing that entire area within Violet's field of vision.
The blinding brilliance was so intense that it even stabbed at her eyes, causing her to cry out and squeeze them shut.
Thunder rolled across the heavens, and amid that deafening roar, the chaos of Dressrosa officially began!
"Listen to the furious thunder's long cry."
Robin closed her eyes, the corners of her lips curling upward. "What you wanted to see… has already begun."
When Violet opened her eyes again, Doflamingo was already gone from the sky.
When she turned back, all she could see was the faintly smiling Devil Child, Robin.
"How is that possible…?"
She pushed her ability to the limit in pursuit, and in the end, through the breach torn in the golden ship, she saw Young Master—and the unfamiliar figure stepping on him.
A scorching wind swept past, making two purple gourd earrings sway.
"Doflamingo is being stepped on?!"
No one could have predicted such an abrupt turn of events.
A massive hole had been blasted open in the golden ship, and violent lightning had torn through walls forged of gold.
At the edge of that breach, the newcomer stood on a mesh woven from several thin strings, suppressing Doflamingo with sheer brute force.
At the same time, he gazed indifferently at the tall man opposite him.
It was as if time itself had been paused, freezing everything inside the room.
Then Tesoro suddenly broke the silence, revealing a savage grin. "This really is… beyond all expectations, Ren!"
Bzzzt—!
Without any warning, Tesoro activated his Devil Fruit ability. Countless streams of gold shaped themselves like flowing water, transforming into a forest of spears that stabbed forward.
The golden floor opened like a giant maw, swallowing the charred Doflamingo down to the level below.
"A surprise that comes out of nowhere is what makes it a real surprise, isn't it?"
Ren glanced at Doflamingo sinking into the ground and casually waved his hand.
A dark crimson phantom emerged behind him, a hideous demonic shadow like a vicious evil spirit. It raised its arm as well, swinging its monstrous claw.
Shing—!
Five black-and-red slashes entwined with lightning shot out of his hand, cutting through the air in an instant!
The onrushing forest of spears was severed immediately, and the five condensed black-red blades crashed into the rising golden wall—
leaving behind five horrifying scars nearly five meters deep.
"He's changed… but why? It's only been a month and a half…"
Behind the golden wall, Tesoro's expression turned grave, and he instantly chose to reveal one of his trump cards.
Crackle—
Electric light raced across everything nearby, carrying away the golden master's will.
Boom—!!
The main structure of the entire golden ship twisted and deformed, then all at once gathered toward the battlefield.
The golden tide swallowed the combat zone in an instant, then piled up and reshaped itself into a gigantic giant made entirely of gold, hundreds of meters tall!
Its appearance resembled an enlarged version of Tesoro. Dark pink energy circuits ran across its body, and a striking five-pointed star-shaped scar was visible on its back.
The moment the golden giant appeared, everyone aboard the golden ship fled without hesitation.
"Run! Lord Tesoro is getting serious!"
"He's actually doing this here? The ship's going to sink!"
"Hahahaha!"
Tesoro himself was now inside the control chamber within the golden giant, laughing wildly. "I didn't get the chance last time.
But this time, no matter what, I'm going to let you witness the power of money—my ultimate form… the posture of a god!"
This was the masterpiece he was most proud of.
By using his awakened ability to manipulate gold on a massive scale, he could continuously reshape an enormous volume of gold again and again, drawing out the vast electrical energy generated in the process.
Then, using gold's excellent conductivity, he turned that into a colossal power source, driving the tens of thousands of mechanical systems inside the golden giant.
That allowed this golden colossus to possess terrifying strength, speed, and even techniques of its own!
Under the giant's gaze from above, the golden vessel let out groans like a dying beast. The immense kinetic force was making even the keel creak under the strain, while the remaining buildings began collapsing one after another.
"What an absurd bastard! But that Fiend God isn't having it easy either!"
Hidden among the chaos, Doflamingo had no choice but to reveal himself. But at that very moment, he seized the opportunity and reached out with one hand.
A dense web of strings extended from his fingertips, sealing off an area where smoke and dust were billowing upward.
Within it, the vague movements of a six-winged angel could be seen!
"Idiot! Pay for what you've done!"
Doflamingo's fury exploded forth. No one killed his family and got away without paying a price!
"Found you. Try this—Gold: Hellfire!"
Sweeping the area with Observation Haki, Tesoro suddenly threw a punch, and the giant's massive fist shifted into an armored form.
The gold inside the armor continuously reshaped itself, generating "transformational energy" that built up like a volcano preparing to erupt.
And when that fist slammed into the tiny six-winged angel, an intense burst of light exploded from the punch.
Boom—!!
It was as if a second sun had lit up the sky, its blinding thermal radiation illuminating Dressrosa beneath the darkened heavens.
Then the violent shockwave swept across the land like a hurricane, kicking up chaos and cries of alarm everywhere.
And amid that terrifying uproar, an explosive crash rang out from the King's Plateau.
Chunks of rock the size of houses tumbled down like rain, and when the smoke cleared, a gigantic impact crater a hundred meters wide had appeared.
At the center of the crater, Ren was embedded more than ten meters deep.
He had only just struggled to move when a blinding light flared outside the crater.
Out on the golden ship at sea, Tesoro controlled the golden giant, its head shifting into the shape of O.o.
A dazzling beam fired out from the "O"!
"Gold: Divine Fire!"
The high-temperature, ultra-dense energy beam streaked through the air like a spear, piercing straight into the King's Plateau.
(End of Chapter)