Enel shot toward Big Mom at blinding speed.
Big Mom had already experienced this brat's attacks — the Bomb-Bomb Fruit combined with internal-destruction-level Armament Haki made even her take it seriously.
She clenched her left hand, crushing Thunder Cloud Zeus in her grip. In an instant, intense purple lightning crackled and fired outward, countless bolts streaking toward Enel like lasers!
The barrage of lightning was dense enough to turn anyone into Swiss cheese. But for Enel — a fighter who leaned heavily toward one specialty — his Observation Haki had always outshone his Armament Haki.
Facing the onslaught, it was as if he could see every single lightning bolt's trajectory clearly. He danced and weaved through the electrical storm.
Lightning grazed past him, stinging his skin, but it couldn't stop his advance.
Enel burst through the field of lightning, charging at Big Mom like a missile, and unleashed a flurry of savage punches!
Big Mom was extremely wary of Enel's ability. She immediately coated her body in Haki to prevent the explosions from penetrating her insides.
But to her surprise, this time it was as if Enel wasn't even using his power.
His fists were full of strength, yet when they struck her body, they didn't trigger the fierce explosions from before.
"What's wrong, kid? Can't use your power anymore?" Big Mom absorbed Enel's attacks while clenching her own fist. Flames coiled around it, and leveraging her towering frame, she brought it crashing down toward Enel!
Flame Barrage!
"BOOM—"
Big Mom's fist slammed down as if a sun had fallen from the sky.
Scorching flames spread outward like serpents, ceaselessly burning the rock.
Beneath Big Mom's fist, the shattered ground had been charred completely black. But Enel's figure had long since vanished.
"You're quick to run, I'll give you that."
Big Mom raised her head and looked over. Not far away, Enel was catching his breath, shooting her a smug look.
She was about to launch a ranged attack to snipe him — Zeus and Prometheus had already merged into Napoleon — but before she could strike, she suddenly felt her body growing unbearably hot.
"What's going on?"
It felt as if her entire body was burning. She looked down and saw her skin had turned bright red, and agonizing pain was tearing through her insides.
The blood flowing through her veins beneath the skin felt like it had been replaced by something else entirely!
"Brat, what did you do to—"
"BOOM!"
Big Mom was about to demand answers from Enel about what he'd done to her, but before she could finish her sentence, her entire body detonated like explosives!
A scorching shockwave erupted in every direction!
Big Mom had practically become a human bomb — as if Enel had stuffed thousands of kilograms of explosives inside her. The blast sent a pillar of smoke rocketing into the sky!
"THUD!"
Before the dust could even clear, a charred-black Big Mom rolled her eyes to the back of her head and dropped to her knees, then face-planted forward onto the ground.
"Well? Not so fun being turned into a bomb, is it?" Enel grinned triumphantly.
Big Mom had tried everything she could to defend against his bomb attacks at the start. But the truth was, after Awakening his Devil Fruit, Enel could transform anything he touched into a bomb.
Through his earlier barrage of strikes, Big Mom's entire body had already been turned into a ticking time bomb.
When even your own body becomes the bomb itself, defending against that kind of power becomes that much harder.
"Not bad, long-ears!" Buggy called out in praise.
"Did you take him down?" Mihawk asked in a low voice, propping himself up with his sword nearby.
"Of course… not." Shanks stared at the fallen Big Mom and spoke in a grave tone.
Just as he'd said, Big Mom — who had looked like she'd collapsed unconscious — started moving again. This time, the woman was truly enraged. Her heavily shadowed eyes were burning with fury.
"That hurt, you bastards!"
Just standing there, they could all feel her rage!
In an instant, the atmosphere across the entire battlefield shifted completely.
"Mihawk, get back!" Shanks's expression changed and he quickly warned.
Mihawk had only been training with Haki for too short a time. Honestly, facing an enemy of Big Mom's caliber head-on was still far too early for him. He would need at least two years of grinding in the New World before he could challenge those supreme rulers.
Hearing Shanks's words, Mihawk didn't try to be a hero.
After all, pushing yourself at a time like this would only get in the way. If he ended up dragging someone else down because of it, he'd never forgive himself.
As for the four — Buggy, Enel, and the rest — they were going to fight head-on!
…
"Ice Blade!" Kuzan's body vanished in the cold wind, then reappeared behind Yayoi in the form of shattered ice. A razor-sharp ice blade thrust viciously toward her back!
After tangling for this long, Kuzan had finally caught an opening in Yayoi and Qiyue's defenses. He was just about to land the strike when a violent whirlwind suddenly surged toward him, its terrifying pressure causing Kuzan to lose focus for a split second.
By the time he recovered, Yayoi had already vanished from his sight.
But Kuzan had no time to worry about Yayoi now. He looked up at the sky above the center of the island.
The sky there was choked with dark clouds, the thick overcast pressing down as if it had become solid.
What shocked him was that the center of that sky had been torn open like a vast rift, endless clouds streaming backward into the gaping wound!
"What's going on? How can the sky tear open?"
The still-young Kuzan had never seen anything like this. In fact, by the time his class of Marines had graduated from the training camp, the great "kings" who dominated the seas had long since stopped clashing head-on.
If anything, the last time something like this happened was when Golden Lion Shiki stormed a Marine base single-handedly not long ago — that had looked like the end of the world. But the three of them hadn't been at Headquarters at the time. They'd been out on missions.
"Could this be that Big Mom's doing? She really is a monster!" Borsalino temporarily paused his fight with Yukiko. Truth be told, he'd switched from attacking to a standoff over ten minutes ago.
That way he could slack off, and it also prevented his attacks from being refracted by Yukiko and interfering with Kuzan and Sakazuki's battle.
"But… just who is the person that can make that female monster bring out this kind of power?"
He certainly didn't believe CP0's trash could push Big Mom this far. The average power level of CP0 agents was roughly on par with a Marine Headquarters Vice Admiral.
They looked elite on paper, but they fell short of the real top tier.
With just a few of those agents, they probably wouldn't even need Big Mom herself to step in — her own children would handle them.
[
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