It had to be said, Donquixote Doflamingo was a true genius.
A mere Paramecia type String String Devil Fruit had been pushed by him to an almost absurd level. What should have been a simple ability had become a weapon capable of reshaping the battlefield itself.
"Fufufufu…"
As Doflamingo sneered, the ground beneath his feet began to change. Stone, soil, and debris twisted and dissolved into countless white threads, spreading outward like a raging tide. The white sea expanded endlessly, writhing and overlapping as if alive.
Within a radius of nearly a hundred meters, Doflamingo stood at the absolute center.
Here, he was king.
Lucien could clearly feel it, Doflamingo's presence was still rising, climbing higher and higher, as though there was no limit.
"Who you are doesn't matter," Doflamingo said coldly, his voice filled with contempt as he looked at Lucien. "This is where your journey ends."
From the ground below, innumerable threads surged upward. They twisted together like living pillars, shooting toward Lucien's position in mid-air with terrifying speed.
Lucien did not respond.
He simply observed quietly, his amethyst eyes focused and calm. Devil Fruit Awakening fascinated him. Now that he was also a Devil Fruit user, he could not help but wonder what the awakened form of the Soul Fruit would truly look like.
"Five Color String."
Doflamingo vanished from where he stood and reappeared behind Lucien in an instant. Five vividly colored threads extended from the fingers of his right hand. His fingers curled like the talons of a beast, slashing downward toward Lucien's back.
The atmosphere screamed.
The five threads tore through the air with unparalleled cutting power, sharp enough to make one's scalp prickle with instinctive fear.
There was no resistance at all.
The threads sliced cleanly through Lucien's body from head to toe. Beneath them, the ground split apart like soft tofu, leaving behind five deep, seemingly bottomless fissures.
"Fufufufufu…"
Doflamingo's grin twisted with confidence. Until now, nothing had ever withstood the cutting power of Five Color String.
Then his expression froze.
The body that had been split into five parts shimmered, then fused back together in the blink of an eye. At the same time, a massive dragon shaped manifestation rose behind Lucien, stretching hundreds of meters into the sky. High temperature steam poured from its form, causing the air itself to tremble.
Lucien's voice rang out, steady and clear, his words spoken at an astonishing speed yet filled with unmistakable authority.
A colossal palm strike followed.
The roar of a dragon echoed through the heavens.
The massive draconic force swept forward with devastating momentum, engulfing Doflamingo completely.
Doflamingo's pupils shrank. His entire body was instantly coated in Armament Haki, his arms crossing in front of him just before impact.
The moment the strike landed, his expression twisted violently.
Pfft.
His chest collapsed inward as blood sprayed from his mouth and nose. His body was launched across King's Heights with a deafening sonic boom, crashing through more than a dozen streets. Wherever he passed, the earth buckled and surged upward, forming jagged hills before collapsing again in rolling explosions.
Lucien hovered above the battlefield, white flames enveloping his body while golden lightning occasionally danced across his form. He could clearly sense it now.
Doflamingo's aura had weakened.
And yet, it was recovering at a visible speed.
Lucien kicked his right foot forward. In the next instant, a ten meter crescent shaped Rankyaku tore through the air, blowing away the dust as it descended toward Doflamingo's position in the ruins.
Below, Doflamingo knelt on one knee, his mouth filled with blood. With a single thought, the awakened environment responded. A strand of white thread peeled away from the ground and shattered the incoming Rankyaku with ease.
"Thousand Arrows Piercing Heart, Feather Bullet."
Doflamingo's face contorted with ferocity.
The sea of white threads surged upward, forming two enormous feathered wings that stretched thousands of meters wide. The tips of the wings darkened, coated in Armament Haki, all of them pointing directly at Lucien in the sky.
"Die!"
With a thunderous roar, the wings erupted. Countless needle thin projectiles shot forward like a torrential rain of light, each one screaming through the air with overwhelming destructive force.
Boom. Rumble.
Explosions overlapped endlessly. Dust, stone, and debris were pulverized into nothingness. Massive boulders disintegrated into powder as the ground was swallowed whole.
Doflamingo stood amidst the chaos, breathing heavily, his eyes locked onto the center of the destruction.
Many powerful enemies had fallen to this attack.
This one should be no different.
Slowly, the dust began to settle.
A sinister smile crept across Doflamingo's bloodstained face.
At the center of the ruins stood Lucien.
His body was riddled with holes. Half of his torso was gone, exposed flesh and fragments suspended briefly in the air. The land around him had collapsed into a deep abyss.
"My defense is still lacking," Lucien said calmly.
Half of his face twitched slightly, carrying a faint sigh. He had deliberately tested the limits of his durability. The combination of Hardening, Armament Haki, and Iron Body had still failed to completely block an awakened attack.
It disappointed him.
"Fufufufu… still talking after injuries like that?" Doflamingo laughed, confidence overflowing. "Unless Marco the Phoenix himself shows up, no one survives this."
Then his smile abruptly stopped.
Lucien's body began to glow.
Five colored light erupted from him, brilliant and vibrant. High temperature steam rose as flesh regenerated wherever the light passed. Muscle reformed, bones knit together, and organs restored themselves seamlessly.
In just a few breaths, Lucien stood whole once more, as if he had never been injured at all.
"Devil Fruit…" Doflamingo muttered darkly.
Only one explanation made sense.
Lucien vanished.
A black and red crystalline whip kick swept horizontally through the air.
"Five Color String."
Doflamingo countered instantly, his threads slashing toward Lucien's chest.
Lucien did not dodge.
The threads pierced straight through his chest without resistance, yet in the same moment, Lucien's kick smashed into Doflamingo's torso.
Pfft.
Blood sprayed as Doflamingo was blasted away once more, his body vanishing with a sonic boom.
Lucien's chest healed instantly, damaged cells expelled and replaced in a smooth cycle.
At the far end of the ruins, Doflamingo was embedded deep into the ground. His right hand twitched repeatedly against his chest, threads stitching together damaged organs and crushed flesh.
A simple String String Devil Fruit had been refined by him into a perfect fusion of offense and defense.
"Who are you?" Doflamingo demanded, his face pale as he stared at Lucien in the air. Fear and disbelief crept into his voice.
An existence like this should not have gone unnoticed.
Lucien remained silent.
He placed his hands together at his waist. A faint blue point of light appeared between his palms, expanding steadily until it became a sphere the size of a basketball. Rays of light spilled outward, illuminating the sky.
Doflamingo's scalp tingled.
A sense of absolute danger enveloped him.
He activated his Devil Fruit to its fullest. The earth trembled violently as countless threads surged skyward, intertwining and compressing until sixteen terrifying, high density thread pillars formed around him.
"Sixteen Holy Bullets, God Slaying."
"Kamehameha."
A blue white torrent of energy erupted forward like a falling star, trailing a radiant tail as it descended.
The world was swallowed by light.
A massive mushroom cloud rose, surrounded by a luminous halo. The shockwave flattened everything in its path. Within ten thousand meters, nothing remained.
When silence finally returned, only a vast abyss marked the battlefield.
Above, the dark clouds slowly dispersed. Thunder faded, lightning vanished, and warm sunlight gently poured down upon the ruined land.