"No rush, we need to change the plan," Lucien Graves said as he lowered his binoculars. His body shimmered, shrinking and shifting, until he became a mature man built like a seasoned warrior. His amethyst eyes gleamed with calculated intent.
Behind him, the crew stiffened, uneasy. The oversized pink dress from before lay forgotten on the ground.
"All of you, return to the book," Lucien ordered, voice calm and authoritative.
Blackbeard and his crew hesitated, then obeyed. As Mondor opened a massive tome, Prometheus, the three Hoze, and every other ally stepped into its pages. Finally, Mondor himself entered, and the book shrank down, settling neatly into Lucien's palm.
He would not make a grand announcement. A wise fighter seized the moment chaos offered; a sneak strike to secure the first kill was far more strategic. Blackbeard, Katakuri, Magellan, and their forces — they were too valuable to waste all at once. They would strike when others were weakened, when Marines, the Whitebeard Pirates, and the Revolutionary Army were spread thin or wounded.
That would be the true opportunity.
The Battlefield Burns
A thick cloud of smoke hovered over the plaza. Ivankov was sent sprawling, quickly rising to stand as Smoker hovered in mid-air, his body partially transformed into dense fog and gripping his Seastone weapon.
"You should surrender," Smoker growled, ash swirling around his legs.
Ivankov's expression twisted as adrenaline surged through him. His fingernails elongating, piercing the fog around Smoker.
"Double Emporio Ambition Hormone," Ivankov announced with fervor. His massive face steamed, perverted grin glowing brightly, eyes a wild green as if no woman had crossed his path in centuries.
In an instant, Ivankov vanished.
"Death Wink… Death Wink… Death Wink…"
Ivankov flashed painful afterimages, eyes fluttering grotesquely as Smoker's form was shredded. Dense fog burst into tears, and Smoker couldn't reintegrate his body fast enough.
All around them, cannons thundered and bullets sprayed without pause. The weak were struck down by stray fire. Corpses lay tangled, limbs scattered, organs splayed in grotesque disarray. The battlefield was ruthless — a hellish landscape of death.
Near the center, Roronoa Zoro fought fiercely. Wounds crisscrossed his lean body as he panted, having already felled three Vice Admirals.
But he was surrounded — enemies converging from every angle.
Zoro's style was different here. Instead of broad, dominating blows, his strikes were swift, cunning, precise. There was an almost feminine elegance in his movements, but each attack cut like a blade.
Yet even so, he stood without fear. Three or four Vice Admirals at once were no threat to him — not at this stage of the fight.
At a distance, Robin, Brook, Chopper, Franky, and the rest scattered, fighting for survival in a battlefield too vast and violent for mercy.
"Cough… cough…"
Robin's dress was torn, and she pushed herself up with trembling arms, breathing heavily. Chopper hopped anxiously beside her.
Luffy and Sabo had charged the Marine rear, only to collide with fierce resistance — even Akainu had risen again. Though his body was badly injured, Tsuru's cleansing had restored much of his strength.
Sabo warned, "Luffy, be careful. That one's Tokikake — an Admiral candidate."
But Luffy, still in Gear Fourth: Snake-Man, only grinned fiercely. Smoke curled around him like a demon freed from chains.
"This one is mine!" Luffy roared as he lunged at Akainu without waiting for a response.
On the Edge of Catastrophe
No one noticed a pirate with purple spiked hair — rough features, approach steadily. He held a kukri and a flintlock pistol scavenged from the debris.
This was where Doflamingo and Emma battled — a battlefield Lucien had taken in from afar.
Lucien had surveyed the chaos as he entered. Strong fighters were engaged with opponents worthy of them. These were secondary characters shining in brilliance, but they did not draw Lucien's focus.
The struggle between Green Fatty and the Silver Dragon raged both in the air and on the ground. Lucien could not intervene there. Luffy was deep in combat. The only opportunity lay with the woman fighting Doflamingo — a beautiful and deadly opponent known as the Rose Queen. Even from afar, Lucien could see her VIP symbol gleaming like a radiant sun over her head.
She tugged at something deep in Lucien's mind, a temptation he refused to acknowledge. Still, her presence stirred something undeniable within him.
Doflamingo's Blood Demon Art
A powerful wind wave spread outward as Doflamingo engaged Emma, his sunglasses glinting beneath harsh light.
Emma's diamond transformation gleamed, and diamond spikes erupted to counter Doflamingo's own string attacks. Her face was cold, but her intuition buzzed with unease, sharpened by her Observation Haki.
"You're distracted while fighting me — how infuriating," Doflamingo taunted.
Then he unleashed his power.
"Sixteen Holy Bullets," he declared, drawing a sequence of white compressed waves infused with Armament Haki — dyed blood-red by the intensity of his will. This was his Blood Demon Art, an assault that shattered defenses with ferocious strength.
Emma moved swiftly, erecting ten diamond walls reinforced with Armament Haki.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The first five walls shattered like brittle wood. The remaining bullets drove forward until the ninth wall fell. Only the last barrier held firm.
Emma planted her feet deep into the ground, resisting. Her body trembled as she fought Doflamingo's relentless assault.
In an Instant, Death Comes Without Warning
Far across the chaos — three hundred meters away — the earth trembled with a streak of golden lightning.
Lucien appeared, his body shimmering with black-red crystal heat. His amethyst eyes pierced through the smoke and death.
Wherever he stepped, the ground cratered outward, screams echoing behind him. In a flash, Lucien was gone, leaving a storm of torn earth in his wake.
Emma's hair rose, her diamond form flickering. Her amethyst eyes boggled with terror.
Memories of the Sabaody Archipelago — and the passage where death had arrived unbidden — flared in her mind.
"Brother…"
Her voice quavered, fear dominating her senses. Though her body was hardened like diamond, her neck slowly separated from her shoulders.
No pain struck her — only the horror of seeing those purple, patterned pupils staring without emotion.
Moments stretched like centuries.
The air vibrated with thunder as Lucien stood one hundred meters away, surrounded by mounds of cracked earth. A savage wind howled across the battlefield.
Purple-red hair streamed behind him as Emma's diamond transformation receded, revealing her exquisite face now frozen in terror.
Golden lightning flared again.
Lucien's kukri arced downward — precise, merciless.
"No…"
Across the field, Ethan felt something, eyes widening as he sprinted desperately toward her. But the distance was too great.
The kukri struck without obstruction. A sliver of blood appeared on her forehead, then her head split cleanly.
Before flesh or brains could spill, one of Lucien's black-red high-temperature thorns separated. It ended in a serrated mouth that devoured the severed halves instantly.
The remaining thorns — seven in total — lashed into her headless body like venomous serpents. In two breaths, all that remained was a cloud of dust and a fallen rose-patterned dress.
"Emma…" Ethan's voice cut through the chaos, disbelief and anguish warring in his expression.
Luffy, Nami, and the others watched in stunned silence, unable to fathom what they had just witnessed.
===
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