"What?!"
High in the sky, the clash continued.
Five Color Strings wrapped in Armament Haki swept out from Doflamingo's fingertips, directly blocking the slash that had come from the distance.
The smile on Doflamingo's face vanished. He frowned and looked toward the clouds in the distance, faintly sensing that something was not quite right.
A dragon tail emerged from the clouds, making his pupils shrink for an instant.
But he quickly returned to normal.
"Kaido...? No, that's not right."
"Then who could it be?"
Using the force of the slash, Doflamingo retreated dozens of meters. His strings hooked into the clouds, allowing him to stand steadily in the sky.
The figure stepping on auspicious clouds appeared.
It was a woman with long hair flowing behind her.
She held a black blade dyed with Armament Haki. Her vertical pupils stared tightly at Doflamingo. Her facial lines had changed, and pink dragon-human features appeared across her body.
"This is Teacher Ozz's battle. Interference is not allowed."
"Fuffuffuffuffu. Teacher Ozz? So he has another female disciple I haven't seen before?"
Having moved through the underworld for many years, Doflamingo naturally had a sharp eye. Especially when it came to rare Devil Fruits, he knew them like the back of his hand.
The woman before him looked almost no different from Kaido's hybrid dragon form, apart from the wrong color. At most, she was a little smaller.
But that alone was shocking enough.
"After a seagull, even a female disciple now has a legendary Mythical Zoan Devil Fruit ability? Fuffuffuffuffu!"
"As expected of Mr. Ozz. When he makes a move, it's always extravagant."
Behind Kuina, a huge pink dragon tail swayed from side to side as she walked forward with her black blade in hand, staring at Doflamingo.
"Teacher Ozz will always be the mentor I respect most, both in swordsmanship and in life!"
"So I will do everything I can to carry out my teacher's will!"
Kuina's resolve was firm.
After going out to sea, she had experienced many things, pirates, Marines, and dangerous battles that made her heart tremble.
The sea was cruel.
For those who were not blessed by heaven, climbing to the summit of the strong was harder than reaching the sky.
Yet Ozz was willing to give her a hand.
He had even solved the fundamental gap between her body and Zoro's.
That was why she would do everything she could for him.
For example, stopping anyone from interrupting this battle that Ozz cared about.
"Fuffuffuffuffu, hahahaha!"
"Don't tell me you think you're the one closest to Mr. Ozz?"
Perhaps sensing an internal challenge from someone who was not part of the younger generation, veins bulged on Doflamingo's forehead.
"Don't get carried away! When we Warlords were active on the sea, you were still playing house!"
"Overheat!"
Kuina showed no wavering in the face of Doflamingo's words. Instead, she raised the black blade in her hand and forcibly blocked the attack.
Kuina, who had only just eaten the Pink Dragon Fruit, might not be Doflamingo's match yet.
But by experiencing battles on the edge of life and death, and by clashing against the strong to temper her Haki, perhaps she could begin with this fight against Doflamingo.
The two sides were locked in an even battle.
After all, Mythical Zoans specialized in being absurdly durable.
When the gap in strength was not overwhelmingly large, battles between the strong often lasted days and nights.
"Is that... Colonel Tashigi?"
"She's actually fighting Doflamingo?!"
Some Marine soldiers who did not know Kuina saw those familiar facial features and could not help crying out in shock.
Smoker looked toward Doflamingo with a complicated expression, then shifted his gaze toward the roaring glacier.
Compared to Doflamingo, the battle over there was far more dangerous.
No matter how he looked at it, Kuzan's chances of winning were almost nonexistent.
Within the glacier, the battle had become an overwhelmingly one-sided disadvantage.
Kuzan stood in the cold wind as countless ice crystals spread outward, but the instant they touched Ozz, they turned to ash and scattered through the air.
He simply transformed his entire body into ice and merged into the enormous glacier.
Ozz stood at the center of the crater in the glacier, his long black hair dancing wildly. Black energy that distorted space coiled around his body.
He casually shattered the ice crystals constantly growing both inside and outside his body, while using Observation Haki to search the glacier for Kuzan's figure.
Ozz had no killing intent toward Kuzan, so naturally he had not used his full strength.
But since the other man had earnestly issued a challenge, Ozz had to give him a proper answer.
How about a memory carved into his bones?
Standing at the center of the glacier, Ozz's Observation Haki could see Kuzan moving inside the ice the entire time, just like Pica moving within a stone statue.
Unlike Zoro, who would have to use slashes to narrow the target area, Ozz's Observation Haki could clearly perceive the subtle changes within the glacier.
Standing in place, Ozz's scarlet-glowing pupils moved rapidly in his eye sockets like a Mangekyo Sharingan, always locked onto Kuzan's position.
"Found you."
Bang!
Ozz instantly shattered the ice crystals around him and stared at a high point in the distant glacier. His body lowered slightly.
In the next instant, he appeared at the highest point of that glacier.
Countless ice balls shot toward him and struck his shoulder.
But black-red lightning flashed over Ozz's shoulder, and the ice instantly shattered into fragments.
Kuzan's body separated from the ice. His expression was solemn, as if his instincts had sensed a terrifying Conqueror's Haki approaching.
He leaped into the air.
He fought with all his strength. An ice ball of extreme cold condensed in his hand, containing Haki within it.
But that figure destroyed every defense and every obstacle.
A large hand coated in Armament Haki and Conqueror's Haki reached straight out of the cold mist.
With monstrous strength added to it, the black-red hand grabbed Kuzan's entire face.
"Hey, Kuzan. Do you want me to kill you that badly?"
The figure wrapped in black-red lightning held Kuzan's face in midair. Looking into those eyes that showed no panic at all, Ozz spoke calmly.
"If you want to stop me, then stop acting like you're ready to die all the time. Chase the things you can only achieve by staying alive!"
For some reason, Ozz felt annoyed.
Hearing this, Kuzan gritted his teeth and grabbed the hand covering his face. Ice kept freezing over Ozz's arm.
He even tried to launch a Haki-coated low kick.
But before absolute Haki, none of it could advance even an inch.
"The Kuzan I know wouldn't give up his life so easily just because he can't beat me!"
Ozz laughed loudly. Black-red lightning crackled through the air in his hand as he made a throwing motion toward the ground.
"King, Dropped to the Seabed!"
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