Gorum stared at the resurrected Luffy striding toward them, his expression twisting in shock. "What exactly is going on?! I clearly killed him just now… and this form—could it be…?"
Saint Garling also fixed his gaze on Luffy, now completely white and wreathed in white flame-like clouds. His tone grew grave. "This is a Devil Fruit Awakening. How is this possible? This Devil Fruit hasn't awakened in the past eight hundred years. Could this lowly pirate really be the reincarnation of Joy Boy?"
"Luffy…" From the distance, Hancock looked at Luffy's drastically changed figure. A spark of surprise flickered in her once-despairing, beautiful eyes. She immediately cried out, voice trembling with hope, "Luffy, save me, save me…"
"Shut up…" Gorum snarled. He stomped down hard on Hancock's head, slamming her beautiful face directly into the ground.
Yet Hancock felt no anger toward him—only a crushing, endless fear.
"Hmph, you're just a slave. Who allowed you to speak?" Gorum said coldly. "It seems that more than twenty years of running away has made you forget the rules. When we return, this saint will personally discipline you."
"Hahahaha, it's Hancock! What the hell happened to you?!" Luffy kept laughing, "ha ha ha," not stopping even after seeing Hancock's miserable state.
To Hancock's ears, that laughter sounded unbearably harsh, as if Luffy were mocking her.
But she quickly rejected the thought. Luffy would never mock her. He knew she had been a slave and had promised he would never look down on her. Even so, the Luffy before her now felt strangely unfamiliar.
"Luffy…" Hancock whispered his name, uncertain if this person, who looked so much like him, was still truly Luffy.
Gorum also sensed that Straw Hat Luffy was completely different from before. His gaze chilled. "Is this a failed Devil Fruit Awakening? Has the Sun God taken over his body or something else?"
He cut off his own speculation and said icily, "No matter whether you're Straw Hat Luffy, Joy Boy's reincarnation, or the Sun God born from a failed Devil Fruit Awakening… I just have to kill you one more time."
With that, Gorum pushed off the ground and shot straight toward Nika Luffy.
Saint Garling's voice rang directly in his mind. "Be careful, Gorum. He is not the same."
"I know, Father…" Gorum replied instantly through telepathy.
In the next moment, he shifted into his three‑headed, six‑armed Shura form and lunged at Nika Luffy with ferocious speed. But by now, Nika Luffy's fighting style—and even his whole "art style"—had completely changed. He sprang lightly into the air, and the ground under his feet turned bouncy like a trampoline, catapulting the rushing Gorum straight up toward the sky.
"What kind of move is this?! His body's changed, and he can even affect the surrounding environment…" Gorum gasped, stunned as he was flung upward.
Luffy's whole vibe had shifted into a full-on Tom and Jerry mode. He drove his fist straight into Gorum's abdomen. Gorum's body warped like rubber, the struck spot stretching out dozens of meters before rebounding—then the recoil finally blasted Gorum away.
Sent flying, Gorum crashed down, spat out a mouthful of blood, and skidded back with his feet digging into the ground. Clutching his stomach, he coughed and snarled, "Cough, cough, cough… you lowly ant…"
With that, Gorum roared and charged at Nika Luffy again. "Six Consecutive Light Slashes…!"
Six blades of sword energy tore toward Luffy. Luffy reached out with both hands, and a huge shield surged up from the ground as if summoned from nowhere. A rapid series of metallic clangs rang out—ping, ping, ping—as the sword auras slammed into the shield and were completely blocked.
"Hahahaha, fun, fun…" Nika Luffy laughed wildly. He stomped his right foot hard onto the ground, and in the next instant the earth beneath Gorum swelled up, twisting into a whip‑like leg. With a heavy bang, that gigantic foot snapped up and kicked Gorum square in the face.
"Damn it…" Gorum was sent flying again. Covering his bleeding nose with his palm, he felt an unprecedented humiliation. "Damn it… a mere ant actually made this saint—a god—bleed. This saint will definitely kill you."
Luffy, meanwhile, treated the battlefield like a playground, constantly stomping on the ground. The rubberized earth around them bulged up into one foot-shaped protrusion after another, all lashing out at Gorum the Saint and battering him into a completely disheveled state.
"Ah ah ah ah!!!!" Gorum bellowed. He unleashed six more razor-sharp slashes, shredding the rubberized ground around him. Then he leaped straight into the air, closing in on Luffy, and roared, "No matter if you are Sun God, or Joy Boy, or Straw Hat Luffy—you must die now!"
"Hahahahaha…!"
Nika Luffy howled with laughter as he sprinted across the rubberized ground. With each step, the surface beneath his feet stretched and rolled like a living carpet, waves of rubber surging backward toward Gorum chasing behind him.
Gorum landed on the shifting ground and staggered, thrown off balance. He glared at the Straw Hat bouncing wildly around the battlefield and roared, "Stop right there, Straw Hat!"
Seeing his son losing his composure, Saint Garling hoisted the severely wounded Rayleigh higher, using him as a shield, and shouted, "Stop right there, Straw Hat! If you don't want him to die—!"
At those words, Nika Luffy turned his head. He was still laughing, but his eyes flicked to Rayleigh. "Hahahahaha! Rayleigh, what's wrong with you? Rayleigh!"
Garling's brows drew together in irritation. Marines had Rayleigh pinned, and Garling pressed his sword against the old man's neck, the blade kissing skin. His voice went cold. "Surrender immediately, Straw Hat, or this saint will kill him on the spot."
Nika Luffy's face kept its laughing grin, but his body was already lunging straight toward Garling. "Hahahahaha! What are you trying to do to Rayleigh? Hahahahaha! I won't let you kill Rayleigh. I'm gonna send you flying with a punch!"
Garling's expression darkened, veins standing out as he bellowed, "Surrender now, or I'll kill him at once!"
"Hahahahaha! No. I'm gonna send you flying with a punch." Nika Luffy didn't slow down, charging straight at him.
"Just you? Don't overestimate yourself, Straw Hat…"
At that moment, Gorum finally seized his opening. He flashed in from the side, closing the distance with Nika Luffy in an instant. His six black swords were gone; instead, his six arms folded into a calyx shape, palms cupped together as a basketball-sized, high-density black energy sphere gathered in their center.
Once he was in range, the Saint sneered, "Die! Dark Light Bullet…"
All six of Gorum's arms thrust forward at once. The Dark Light Bullet slammed into Nika Luffy's body, but it didn't explode on impact. Instead, Luffy's rubbery form twisted and warped grotesquely around the compressed energy—then, with a violent release of force, his entire body was blasted away, sent hurtling across the battlefield.
"Ah ah ah ah ah! Help! Hahahahaha!"
Luffy, struck by the Dark Light Bullet, still wore that ridiculous expression, eyes bulging out. The bullet was buried deep in Nika Luffy's body, flattening him like a sheet of paper as it drove him backward. He was pushed through the air for over a thousand meters before finally slamming down onto the rubberized ground.
Everyone expected the Dark Light Bullet to explode on impact—but the moment Luffy hit, the rubbery ground rebounded with a violent spring. The bullet was flung straight back into the sky, where it detonated high above in a burst of color.
This time, the fireworks were real—countless blazing sparks blossomed outward, filling the sky.
Nika Luffy was still laughing. "Hahahahaha, so amazing! So much fun..."
Gorum's face twisted, his expression dark and ugly. The Dark Light Bullet was his most destructive technique, yet Nika Luffy had brushed it off like a joke. The ease with which it was neutralized filled him with a humiliation he'd never felt before.
"Damn brat..." he snarled.
He lunged at Nika Luffy again. Seeing his son charging in recklessly, Saint Garling called out sharply, "Gorum, use Haki. No matter what kind of power he's awakened, as long as your Haki is strong enough, you can break it."
At his father's words, Gorum forced himself to calm down a little, lips curling into a cold sneer. "Indeed. Your stupid way of fighting pissed me off so much I almost lost my judgment."
He spread his arms, and six black swords appeared around him once more. Their blades were wreathed in Armament Haki and crackling with Haoshoku, his Observation Haki stretched to its limit. He laughed coldly. "No matter what kind of freakish ability this is, if my Haki is strong enough, I can break it."
Nika Luffy, just like before, burst out laughing and rushed straight at him, bouncing again and again off the rubberized ground with the power of the Nika Fruit. Each time he landed, the ground trembled and rippled outward like waves of rubber.
Faced with the shifting terrain, Gorum simply kicked off into Geppo, lifting himself into the air. From above, he unleashed another barrage of sword slashes at Nika Luffy.
"Hahahahaha..." Nika Luffy kept darting and weaving below, running and dodging through the rain of blades.
Saint Garling, standing behind, had been silently studying Nika Luffy. This ability was bizarre, no doubt, but the boy himself was far from invincible—if anything, his current strength was still comparatively weak.
Even so, the fact remained: the Devil Fruit that had lain dormant for eight hundred years had finally awakened. Straw Hat Luffy had to be suppressed here and now. Garling immediately used telepathy to relay everything to the other four Gorosei.
Staying calm and methodical, Gorum relied on his usual approach—using the Three Types of Haki and his swordsmanship as his main weapons, with his Devil Fruit as mere support. Under that relentless pressure, Nika Luffy's rubbery tricks began to lose their effectiveness.
"Six Consecutive Light Slashes…"
Reading the future, Gorum caught an opening and closed in. His blade flashed, and six black sword slashes, wreathed in Haoshoku and Armament Haki, struck Nika Luffy in an instant.
Luffy's rubber body failed to defend him. The six black blades tore through his skin, and bright red blood burst from the wounds. He coughed up fresh blood and crashed to the ground.
Immediately, Nika Luffy's body began to wither with age, his features shriveling as blood continued to pour from his injuries.
Watching this, Gorum's lips twisted into a cold sneer. "Hmph. The Devil Fruit's awakening was a bit unexpected, I'll admit—but that's all it amounts to. Haki can suppress any flashy ability."
Seeing Straw Hat Luffy fall, Saint Garling once again used telepathy to report the situation to the other four Gorosei and Imu in real time. The awakening of the Nika Fruit for the first time in eight hundred years put them all on edge.
"Luffy…" Hancock's voice broke with despair as tears streamed down her face.
"Ugh… so hungry… so tired… so painful…" Luffy, now shriveled into the body of a man in his twilight years, kept muttering weakly.
Step by step, Gorum walked toward Straw Hat Luffy. He looked down at Luffy—now appearing seventy or eighty years old—and sneered. "Looks like that state just now took a heavy toll on you. A weakling like you suddenly gained the power of awakening… I have to admit, that power is indeed tremendous. But unfortunately, your body simply can't withstand what that awakening brings."
"Now, I'll deal with you immediately."
With that, Gorum leveled his blade at Straw Hat Luffy, ready to end him.
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