A true white giant, one that stood tall enough to touch the heavens, had appeared.
Like sunlight piercing through the darkness.
A fleeting brightness illuminated the gloomy sky.
Luffy's size was now rivaling the island-formed lion's head behind Shiki!
"So it's not just one part of your body that can grow huge—your whole body can? Your ability is truly fascinating!"
Shiki paused for a moment, then burst into wild laughter.
As everyone knew, the development of a Devil Fruit was the development of imagination.
Among the people he knew, the only one with such imagination was that woman, Linlin.
Zoans could transform and possessed formidable recovery.
Logias could command the power of the elements.
But in terms of ceiling, it seemed Paramecia stood the highest.
Whatever powers other types had, Paramecia could develop them too, just in different ways.
"The sea is full of wonders! You can make islands fly, old man—so why can't I make myself bigger?!"
Luffy grinned.
Shiki narrowed his eyes, sizing up the giant before him. "I'd very much like to confirm—you ate the Gum-Gum Fruit, didn't you?"
Even with awakening, for a Paramecia to manifest the flame clouds characteristic of Mythical Zoan awakening, and to freely grow this massive—it was utterly baffling.
"Does it really matter?"
Shiki blinked. Then, as if suddenly letting go of something, he laughed even more wildly: "You're right! It doesn't matter now! What matters now is defeating you. You'd better not run!"
"I wasn't planning on running!"
Luffy's colossal form leaped. The several-hundred-meter-tall giant launched himself skyward like a rocket, disappearing into the thick, dark thunderclouds that had gathered from their earlier battle!
"Nature's lightning really is the easiest to use." Luffy's voice echoed from within the clouds, rumbling like thunder.
From the heavy thunderclouds, a pure white giant hand suddenly thrust out. In its grip was a spear as massive as a mountain, formed entirely of lightning.
Gomu Gomu no: Raijin Spear!
BOOM!
The giant hand hurled the lightning spear downward toward Shiki like a javelin.
Where the lightning spear passed, the air ionized with a deafening crackle, as if the sky itself was being torn apart by that bolt of light.
"I'd love to crack open your skull and see just how many ideas are rattling around in there!"
"That would kill me," Luffy said.
"I know there's a Devil Fruit that can do exactly that!"
Shiki watched this cataclysmic attack descending upon him and laughed with sheer, unbridled joy.
First the giant's strength, then the future-seeing Kenbunshoku, and now—he was grabbing natural lightning itself to use as a weapon.
It was just like those Homies under that madwoman Big Mom.
Elemental attacks like lightning were always the hardest to defend against.
Haki was, at its core, a power of will—it could defend against and strike physical objects. But against formless, intangible, and wildly violent elemental forces like lightning and fire, its defensive effectiveness was greatly diminished!
Why else were Logias called the most noble Devil Fruits?
Shiki extended his hand toward the sky. "Don't underestimate pirates from the old era!"
No one wanted to admit their era had passed.
That was always how it was in the struggle between old and new eras!
As his words faded, the massive lion's head behind Shiki seemed to come alive, letting out a silent roar.
The energy cannon gathered within its mouth—an amalgamation of awakened Devil Fruit power, top-tier Busoshoku Haki, and Haoshoku Haki—locked onto Luffy and erupted forth like a river of death piercing the heavens!
Where the light passed, space itself seemed to melt.
Realm of Emptiness: Demise!
Locked on. No escape.
The energy torrent covered too vast an area.
The Raijin Spear shattered the moment it collided.
Unstoppable.
Luffy roared. The lightning wreathing his body surged violently, connecting with the natural thunder he had drawn from the clouds, transforming him into something like an ancient god of lightning descending from the heavens.
He plummeted from the sky, his colossal fist wreathed in Busoshoku Haki and the surging heavenly thunder, driving it forward without an ounce of hesitation toward that torrent of destructive energy.
Gear Fifth: Raijin Hakoku!
BOOM!
Hakoku and the destructive energy torrent collided.
Time seemed to stand still.
An incandescent light erupted first, swallowing all sound and vision. Then, an unimaginably massive explosion detonated.
A shockwave rippled through the sky, spanning the entire battlefield, carrying it hurricane winds and lightning.
Both fighters could see the future.
But in a clash of techniques like this, the so-called future no longer matters.
Because there was no avoiding it.
After the successive shockwaves, a mushroom cloud rose—so enormous it covered nearly half the sky.
Luffy still had strength left.
Rubber could be compressed!
As Luffy pressed forward, the torrent of energy began to falter. Seeing this, the ship's wheel lodged in Shiki's head nearly flew off.
Shiki was still laughing, blood now seeing from all over his body. He pushed himself recklessly, and the energy in the lion's mouth swelled a second time, surging toward the heavens as if trying to punch a hole through the sky itself.
"Well done, Straw Hat! Don't let this fight end! Maximum output! Realm of Emptiness!"
Shiki burned the last of his will and lifeblood, pouring everything he had into this final strike.
All of it!
"Then bring it!"
BOOM!
Behind Luffy, endless steam poured forth.
His Haki, compressed to its absolute limit, and his Haoshoku Haki fully bloomed in this moment, expanding the mushroom cloud even further, deepening its color to a dark crimson.
The enormous mushroom cloud rising into the sky spawned a vacuum ring mixed with fragments of energy, ripping outward like a death wave!
Everything it touched—whether residual island debris, clouds, or any unfortunate pirate ships caught in its wake—instantly disintegrated to dust.
The main floating island that had served as their battlefield, already shattered beyond recognition, collapsed from its center outward under this final impact.
The sky had truly torn apart.
A terrifying blast wave swept outward like a hurricane of several dozen magnitudes. The Thousand Sunny, despite Vivi and Merry's desperate efforts to control it, was tossed about like a leaf in a storm, hurled violently outward by the immense force.
In this scene of utter devastation, Luffy was nowhere to be seen.
Nami gripped the railing, her knuckles white, staring at the center of the destruction. She called out to Vivi and Merry anxiously, "Can we get any closer? We have to pick up Luffy."
Win or lose—
Luffy couldn't stay airborne indefinitely. If he fell, the endless sea below was the grave of every Devil Fruit user.
In this chaos...
If they didn't find him immediately, they never would.
"I'll try!"
Vivi's face was pale as she pushed the Fū Fū no Mi's power to its limit, trying to stabilize the ship and push against the shockwave. But the force was simply too strong—just staying in place was already an achievement.
As for the pirate ships under Shiki's command, they had long since been blown out of sight.
Suddenly, a relatively small figure plummeted from the sky toward the Thousand Sunny like a shooting star.
"Someone's flying this way! It's Luffy!" Vivi cried out.
"Catch him!"
Zoro and Sanji's expressions shifted. They leaped simultaneously.
Sanji adjusted his position mid-air, while Zoro twisted with his powerful core strength.
But the force carried by that figure was beyond their expectations.
The moment they made contact, it felt like being hit by a small mountain. They grunted, nearly sent flying along with him.
"Super Relay!"
Franky, seeing this, immediately activated his Jet Dial system and shot up to help. With the three of them working together, they barely managed to slow the falling figure before it crashed heavily onto the deck.
"Luffy!"
"Are you okay?!" Nami cried out.
"Let me through, let me through!" Chopper shouted, medical kit in hand.
Everyone crowded around anxiously.
Luffy had already reverted from his giant form and Gear Fifth, back to his normal size—but his condition was dire.
He was covered in blood, his skin crisscrossed with fine cracks and burns, as if he'd just been put through a meat grinder. He lay curled up, barely breathing, looking as if he'd aged decades in an instant.
"Cough... cough cough!"
Luffy forced his eyes open a crack, coughing up mouthfuls of blood mixed with fragments of his own organs. His aura had dropped to its lowest point.
After spitting out a few mouthfuls of blood, he managed to sit up with great difficulty. "Meat... give me meat."
"Get all the meat out, now!"
Sanji and Zoro didn't waste a second. Fortunately, Sanji had anticipated such a scenario—he knew that when Luffy was injured, eating meat helped him recover quickly—so he had stored an ample supply.
Chopper, meanwhile, scrambled to tend to Luffy's wounds.
"Luffy, are you okay?! Don't scare me like this!"
Nami knelt beside him, her voice breaking. She wanted to touch him but was afraid to, instead feeding him meat as fast as she could.
"Don't worry... I got off easy," Luffy said weakly.
After swallowing several large chunks of meat, his presence steadied slightly. But his gaze remained fixed on the distant sky, where energy still raged and the heavens were collapsing. He grinned. "As expected of a legendary pirate. That old man's power was something else."
In the distant sky, the wind and clouds churned. The massive mushroom cloud slowly expanded, and the sky seemed to have caved in, revealing a twisted void behind it.
Island fragments rained down into the sea like a meteor shower.
Luffy had used his last ounce of strength, riding the explosion's shockwave and his own rubber elasticity, to hurl himself toward the
Thousand Sunny.
But Shiki was different.
Luffy could clearly sense it—that once fierce, overwhelming presence was now rapidly fading like a candle in the wind... and falling.
Luffy stood up.
"Where are you going?" Nami asked urgently.
Seeing Luffy trying to rise and stagger toward the edge of the ship, Nami grabbed hold of him. "You're this injured and you still want to go out there?!"
"How about we go get that old man Golden Lion?"
***
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