"Oh!"
"What a huge building!"
The sun was bright, and the atmosphere was blazing with excitement.
Whether they were Dressrosa locals or foreign visitors who had traveled from afar because of the Float-Float Fruit's famous name, everyone who approached that enormous structure could not help but cry out in amazement.
Even Sabo could not help breaking into a cold sweat. His mouth hung open as he raised his head and stared.
"I've heard one of Dressrosa's specialties is the Corrida Colosseum, where battles never stop, but this size is way too exaggerated..."
"Yeah. It looks like it could fit ten thousand people!"
A passing local saw that they were probably outsiders and enthusiastically explained,
"Actually, the original colosseum wasn't this big. The strange thing is, it suddenly became several times larger overnight. To be honest, even we locals were shocked! Hahahaha!"
"And apparently, it can't be destroyed at all."
"Can't be destroyed?"
The two watched the citizen enter the colosseum and exchanged glances.
"It looks like ordinary stone. How could it be indestructible?"
Ace crossed his arms, walked over to the side of the colosseum, and suspiciously knocked on the brickwork.
Sabo was even more direct. Seeing that no one was around, he raised his hand.
"Clang!"
Pitch-black Armament Haki instantly wrapped around his hand.
"Sabo?"
Ace took two steps back and watched as Sabo's fingers slowly curled into a shape like a dragon's claw.
"Dragon Claw Fist!"
It was a form of martial arts inherited from Dragon, famous for its destructive power and hardness.
When used by an ordinary martial artist, it could display enough power to tear down fortresses.
When used by a monster like Ozz, who already possessed abnormal strength, he could even grab a real dragon and drag it across the ground.
For example, a certain Kaido.
Yet this Dragon Claw Fist, powerful enough to crush a large stretch of ground and fill it with cracks, collided with the enormous colosseum wall...
"Hiss, hiss, hiss..."
Sparks burst out in waves. There were even stray arcs of Haki scattering away.
But not a single flake of stone fell.
"How is this possible?!"
The Armament Haki on Sabo's hand slowly faded. He widened his eyes at the completely undamaged wall and began doubting life itself.
"Let me try..."
Seeing this, Ace also became interested. He immediately clenched his fist, and faint black-red lightning began to coil around it.
But Sabo stopped him at once.
"Forget it. Let's go in and find Luffy first. That move of yours will cause a commotion."
...
On the other side.
The Straw Hat Pirates had also headed into the island, aside from a few members left behind to watch the ship.
"I'm so excited! A duel!"
Luffy disguised himself as Lucy, successfully sneaked into the colosseum, and registered for the match.
Originally, Zoro had come with him.
But because Zoro went looking for the sword stolen by the Tontatta Tribe...
He got lost.
Sanji had no interest in the colosseum, and before anyone noticed, he had been lured away by a beautiful woman.
With no other choice, they could only register Zoro first and try to find him before the match began.
As Luffy wandered around inside the arena, he nearly exposed himself several times because he was too reckless.
Here, Luffy also met other contestants.
For example, Cavendish.
The moment that figure arrived, many women in the colosseum had hearts in their eyes and fainted on the spot.
Only Cavendish's expression was not very good.
After briefly getting acquainted with Luffy, he asked Luffy for his name. Luffy almost shouted the wrong name, which drew Cavendish's attention.
"You had better not be Straw Hat Luffy. If you are, I will kill you right here."
As he spoke, Cavendish seemed to grow angrier and angrier.
"I entered the New World three years ago. Because my beauty made every woman in my country refuse to marry anyone else, I was exiled."
"I thought I was the most charming man in the world!"
"But that man, the man called Black Gun by the world, has been monopolizing everyone's attention!"
"When people speak of the handsomest and most charming man in the world, all they know is Ozz!"
Cavendish turned red with rage.
But there was nothing he could do about Ozz.
So he could only redirect his anger toward the other people who had shone brightly during the Summit War, furious that they had stolen his traffic and spotlight.
During this time, Rebecca, the princess who seemed born to give herself away, also appeared.
She wore an outfit that made it hard to tell whether she was here for combat or fanservice, then said goodbye to Luffy.
The successful registrants included not only Luffy, but also Ace, Sabo, Lucci, Zoro, Burgess, Cavendish, Bartolomeo, a mysterious female swordsman, and many others.
The audience soon filled the stands as well.
At the commentator's booth sat the veteran colosseum commentator Gatz, along with a mysterious long-haired man wearing sunglasses.
"I... I will now introduce our guest commentator for this match, Mr. Augur!"
"For this competition, we will be using a special arena that absolutely will not affect the audience stands and absolutely cannot be destroyed! Everyone, please enjoy the show to your heart's content!"
"Without further ado, the match is about to begin!"
...
"That is definitely Mr. Ozz, right?"
Sabo broke into a cold sweat.
He stood in the front row of the audience seats. Ace had already disappeared somewhere.
The first elimination match soon began.
Most of the contestants were not particularly outstanding.
The ones who drew the most attention were a muscular man wearing a paper bag over his head and laughing, "Weehahaha," and a man in a red coat who had glued on a mustache as part of his disguise.
"Weehahaha! The Float-Float Fruit is mine!"
"Shockwave Elbow!"
With a charged strike of immense strength, the muscular man sent a pile of fodder contestants flying.
On the other side, the young mustached man who had somehow signed up stood near the edge of the ring and fell asleep.
Seeing this, Sabo showed a pained expression.
"Hey... Ace!"
He lowered his voice and called out, but it was useless.
Soon, someone targeted the young man in the red captain's coat and mustache.
"Hmph! Where did this idiot come from? Falling asleep in the colosseum? If you die, you've got no one to blame!"
The man raised his blade and slashed toward the young man's chest.
But the instant the blade was about to cut across his chest, it seemed to pass through nothing solid.
A few tiny flames rose and flickered.
The blade went straight through.
The swordsman lost his balance, stumbled, and fell off the edge into the water.
The sleeping young man slowly woke up.
Looking at the arena, which had been crowded just moments ago, he saw only one muscular figure left before him.
"Mm... Is it about time to end this?"
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