At the end of the blinding light—
"Is that so?"
Ren brushed the dust off his body. Light enveloped him, then transformed into a six-winged angel.
"Then let me show you the gap that this so-called month and a half has created."
Three pairs of golden wings beat at once. The first pair flew at 300 meters per second, the second at 310 meters per second, and the third at 320 meters per second.
In other words, Ren currently possessed three separate power sources, and the phantom equipment Angel of Light Wings was now in effect.
Air resistance and similar factors had all been eliminated at this moment!
"Is that it? Then let me have a good look! Gold: Hellfire!"
Inside the control room, Tesoro launched his attack without hesitation. A blazing beam shot from his eye socket and crossed the sky in an instant before crashing down.
The scorching heat ignited the air itself, creating a towering explosion at the point of impact. Fire mixed with black clouds of detonation and surged more than a hundred meters into the air.
But—
"It didn't hit!?"
Tesoro used both his eyesight and Observation Haki to search, and finally discovered the six-winged angel up in the clouds.
So fast.
How had he moved to that position in less than a second!?
Teleportation?
Was it really that far?
Disbelief filled Tesoro's eyes—then his vision was swallowed by an incomparably searing light.
"Radiant thunder's might cannot be reversed!"
Ren plucked off one of his purple gourd earrings and hurled it into the sky. At the same time, he reached out and seized the Thunder Spear answering his call from within the thunderclouds.
With a violent swing of his arm, the savage lightning turned into an enormous spear of thunder over a hundred meters thick, smashing into the golden giant in the blink of an eye.
Crackle—!
The lightning spread wildly across the giant golden body like flowing water, melting through the surface and invading the interior, bringing unbelievably destructive power with it!
Even the branching arcs of electricity that merely spread down to the giant's legs accidentally brushed against the tall buildings below as the lightning danced.
And in one deafening blast, the released energy directly destroyed buildings dozens of meters tall!
"Lightning again—but at this scale... It's only been a month and a half. No! Did he hide his true strength from the very beginning?"
The control room shook violently. Tesoro's expression changed as he sensed the golden giant falling apart. The excessive heat was melting the entire structure of gold and even disrupting the machinery inside.
He tried to reshape it with his Devil Fruit ability, but his Observation Haki picked up a sudden shift in presence.
Ren, who had been in the sky just a moment ago, had somehow appeared beneath the golden giant's feet!
"Don't think hiding a little strength means you can beat me. I'll crush you to death!"
Tesoro immediately controlled the giant to stomp down, but the feedback he received felt like he had stepped on something rapidly swelling upward at high speed.
The golden giant lowered its head—and what entered its vision was Ren growing larger and larger, along with his fist—
No, not just a fist.
A giant had leaped upward!?
"This is bad..."
Divine Power: Size at Will!
The six-winged angel swelled crazily in size, and in the blink of an eye became a colossal Angel of Light Wings forty-five meters tall. The enlarged wings beat furiously, providing immense propulsion.
The enlarged fist filled the entire field of vision like some giant hero transforming, and with strength multiplied fourfold, a single punch blasted straight through the golden giant's head!
Boom—!
Chunks of gold exploded across the sky. The giant six-winged angel seized one of the fragments and infused it with lightning. Tesoro, curled up inside it, was shocked until his eyes rolled back.
With his other hand, Ren made a casual grab, and the Thunder Spear wrapped around the golden giant erupted with terrifying heat!
"This is what true lightning-forged gold looks like!"
Thunder and Flame Mastery!
High-energy lightning wrapped in flames reforged the gold into a gigantic halberd. Ren gripped it, twisted his body, then hurled it with a violent snap!
With a shrieking howl—
The giant halberd tore through the air, skimming past a bridge-like building as it shot toward the location his Observation Haki had detected!
'Next up—it's you, Doflamingo!'
At the same time, within a blazing tornado of destructive wind—
Floating in the sky, Doflamingo let out a furious roar. "You're not Kaido! How dare you play me for a fool!"
The moment he realized something was wrong after facing her, he immediately chose to attack.
And just as he had guessed, although the appearance and abilities were almost identical, the difference in strength was far too great.
The other side had stirred up a destructive tornado and added flames to it, turning the sky into a sea of fiery blades and wind blades.
But compared to the original version, which could carve up the landscape itself, this was still far too immature!
Countless threads appeared before Doflamingo, weaving themselves into a spherical cage that tightly bound the pink dragon inside.
The threads were both tough and incomparably sharp, cutting sparks off the pink scales and carving countless bloody marks into them.
If it had really been Kaido, then even managing to restrain him with a Birdcage formed from Shadow Riding Thread would have counted as sheer luck—let alone leave wounds like these!
"Idiot."
Nojiko still struggled stubbornly, twisting her dragon body as she generated another destructive tornado within the ever-shrinking Birdcage, adding flames to it as well.
This was—
Flame Dragon Torch: Destructive Tornado!
But instead of trying to cut through or burn away the cage, it continued wrapping around and besieging Doflamingo.
"The idiot is you, isn't it? A brat like you who doesn't know the difference between heaven and earth.
Even the slightest thought that you could defeat me is an unbearable humiliation to me!"
Doflamingo continuously used moves like Bullet Thread to destroy the endless incoming fire blades and wind blades.
Compared to the earlier blazing destructive tornado, the current blades of fire and wind were still dense enough to blot out the sky, but clearly fewer than before.
After all, there was less and less room to move inside the shrinking cage.
"If you stop struggling, return to human form, and beg for mercy now, I might still consider sparing your life!"
Doflamingo was obviously plotting something, trying to force this "little Kaido" back into human form.
But—
Nojiko's cold voice came from the dragon's mouth.
"My task is complete."
"What..."
Doflamingo was stunned at first, then abruptly turned his head.
The sea of blazing fire and storm blades attacking him had just been smashed open by brute force, leaving behind a hollow passage—and within it was a hundred-meter-long halberd!
His Observation Haki also picked up a familiar presence he had encountered just moments ago.
But—
What was going on?
Why had Tesoro lost so quickly!?
He had no time to think further. Doflamingo's expression changed as he flung up a hand.
"Spider Web!"
Tens of thousands of threads wove themselves into layer upon layer of netting, anchored to the surrounding buildings and even the clouds in the sky!
Just this reaction speed and scale alone was enough to show Doflamingo's strength.
Boom—!
The halberd tore through the air, carrying terrifying kinetic force as it slammed into the overlapping layers of Spider Web. Yet under the weight and momentum behind it, it still pierced straight through the nets.
Caught off guard, Doflamingo was rammed head-on by the halberd and blasted into the distance.
Whoosh—!
The restored six-winged angel immediately gave chase.
Almost at the same moment, a ground-level gale carrying yellow sand surged upward. Vivi condensed her body from it, shot into the air, and arrived before the spherical Birdcage. She stretched out a hand coated in Armament Haki and activated her power.
Dry up!
Starting from a single thread, the entire Birdcage lost its luster at a shocking speed. Then Nojiko lashed her tail and tore the restraints apart.
"Sister Nojiko."
"Vivi, that's amazing. You're already starting to approach the level of awakening, aren't you?"
"No, not yet. I'm still far from that. I just focused all my training on this one ability."
"Is that so? Ren's plan, huh... That really is just like him."
Nojiko laughed.
"Are you okay?"
Vivi landed atop the dragon's head and looked at the blood-covered scales with nervous concern.
"I'm fine. Everything is going according to plan. His Birdcage can't kill me instantly.
Don't be fooled by how miserable I look right now—I'm a Mythical Zoan user, remember?
These injuries are much lighter than what I suffered during training. Go do what you need to do."
Nojiko soared through the sky, her voice booming across the land.
"Now, let me kill the rest of them!"
She opened her huge maw, and the flames she had swallowed gathered once more in her dragon mouth.
Evil God Lighter: Hungry Lighter!
Burning House (4000°C) → Flame Envoy (6000°C)!
And below the sky—
Diamante had only just climbed out of the huge hole when he looked up and saw an incomparably blinding light reflected in his eyes.
Diamante: "???"
"Again!?"
Diamante let out a strange shriek.
He knew very clearly that this pink dragon was absolutely not Kaido. Otherwise, there was no way he could have survived a Blast Breath capable of vaporizing an entire mountain.
But his opponent was undeniably powerful enough.
Otherwise, he would never have been driven into such a miserable state.
Still, if she thought the same trick would work a second time to kill one of the top officers—
Then she was underestimating him far too much as a Devil Fruit user.
'I could defend against it earlier. I can do it again now!'
Diamante covered his entire body in thick Armament Haki, spread out his half-melted steel cape, and held several decorative cannons in his hands.
"Death Enjambre! Army Flag!"
The cannons sprayed countless confetti into the air. Diamante released the effects of his Devil Fruit ability, turning them back into solid iron spiked balls.
At the same time, he slammed one hand against the ground and used his Devil Fruit power on the edges of the hole, causing the earth to billow like cloth and wrap around the spiked iron balls, forming a layered iron-and-earth shield over his head.
"This'll work! She definitely can't use this kind of attack many times—"
Diamante burst into laughter as he declared that—but before he could finish, he watched with his own eyes as a red-hot glow appeared across his multiple layers of defense.
In the next instant, the searing beam pierced straight through the iron-and-earth shield!
The spiked iron balls blotting out the sky? The rolled-up ground?
None of it seemed to matter.
'Looks like... it won't work,' Diamante thought blankly.
Boom—!
The crimson flame beam plunged straight down. The flames, burning at an even higher temperature than before, were so terrifying that even the steel cape could not defend against them.
One second later, amid the towering inferno, the barely surviving Diamante followed Lao G, Jora, and Dellinger down the same path.
Haki, physical toughness, Devil Fruit abilities, steel—
In the face of six-thousand-degree flames, all of it was meaningless!
"It's not over yet!"
Nojiko activated the three major properties of the Evil God Lighter once more.
Evil God Lighter: Infinite Hellfire!
Evil God Lighter: Hungry Lighter!
Evil God Lighter: Controlled Flame!
The sea of fire that should have spread into the residential district suddenly gathered back together. The civilians who had yet to flee stared in stunned disbelief.
Those flames passed over them as if they didn't even exist, causing them no harm whatsoever.
Then they flew into the sky and poured into the open mouth of the pink dragon.
And yet, as the pink dragon flew overhead, some residents discovered that other members of the Donquixote Family who had witnessed everything were suddenly bursting into flames as well.
This time, more than a thousand members of the Donquixote Family were ignited like human firewood.
Amid waves of screams and wailing, that dreadful cycle appeared once more.
And when the flames came again next time—
They would be even more terrifying than this time.