"Hey, long-ears! Hurry up and finish this!"
Crocodile saw Enel dawdling and rushed him with a volley of complaints. He was worried that once the island's king realized what was happening, he would deploy a swarm of war machines against them. If that happened, they would be in serious trouble.
Enel ignored the man who was all talk and no stakes.
His opponent was Katakuri. In a sense, their battle was a collision of Observation Haki! The winner would be whoever could see further and peer deeper into the enemy's heart.
Don't be fooled by the fact that they appeared to be standing still. In reality, they had already clashed several times.
Every time Katakuri intended to move, he saw his technique blocked by his opponent. Even if he abruptly changed the direction of his attack, Enel could still react in time.
The same was true in reverse, and that was precisely why neither of them had made a move until now.
But a prolonged stalemate was no solution. Crocodile's concern was not without reason. When war machines multiplied in number, they became quite troublesome.
With that thought, Enel burst into motion!
A sharp whoosh cut through the air, and Enel's figure vanished from where he had been standing. He spread his palm, and the force of detonation settled in the center of his hand. In the blink of an eye, it had been compressed to a tremendous threshold.
His palm shot straight toward Katakuri's face.
Red light flashed in Katakuri's eyes. In his field of vision, Enel's palm was rapidly expanding.
A frontal attack?
No, from the left?
Katakuri dropped low into a side lunge, dodging Enel's strike. His right foot was planted like a compass nail on the ground while his left leg kicked fiercely toward the empty air on his left side.
The air was torn apart instantly!
There, where nothing had been a moment ago, Enel's figure appeared, as though he had lunged straight into the path of Katakuri's kick.
"As expected of big brother Katakuri. He must have foreseen that long-eared guy would be at that spot." Cracker, watching from a safe distance, observed Katakuri with admiration even while the battle raged on.
He had been hiding among the powerful biscuit soldiers, which afforded him a certain leisurely ease.
But the Katakuri being praised looked rather grim. He had indeed foreseen Enel's landing spot, and that kick had been aimed directly at him.
However, only after he had launched the kick at full force did he see an even more distant future.
Enel had deliberately taken the blow. His abdomen was pierced by Katakuri's powerful kick, and blood flowed freely from the wound. Yet a smile spread across his face.
He had intentionally absorbed that kick to deceive Katakuri.
Enduring the pain, he seized Katakuri's ankle, and the power contained in both his palms surged outward in an instant!
Katakuri's expression changed drastically. He saw a devastating explosion, but his feet were locked in place by Enel's Armament Haki, preventing him from morphing into mochi.
BOOM!
A deafening roar!
The shockwave was released instantly, powerful enough to level a mountain.
For this single strike, Enel had been compressing energy, pushing it right to the limit of what he could contain.
It was like holding back at every critical threshold, restraining the force each time it approached the breaking point. The moment the valve was released, all that pent-up energy erupted at once!
The destructive force was beyond imagination. Even the battlefield where Crocodile and Cracker fought was affected!
The intense shockwave threw up clouds of dust, and rocks shattered by the blast scattered in every direction like meteors.
Cracker was staggered with shock. He could not believe his brother had taken such a hit.
"That guy's attack actually connected? Big brother Katakuri… can't he see the future?"
Honestly, his confidence had been shaken. After all, in the eyes of his younger siblings, Katakuri had always been synonymous with invincibility. And now, that myth had been broken.
THUD.
A dark figure stumbled out of the black smoke, looking somewhat disheveled.
Who else could it be but Katakuri?
Katakuri was covered in dust, his clothing torn in several places. He was panting heavily, his gaze fixed on the smoke at the center of the blast. For a man who prided himself on being untouchable, this was a humbling sight.
Enel walked out of the smoke with a smirk on his lips, utterly ignoring the wound in his abdomen. Blood still trickled from the gash, but he moved as though it were nothing more than a scratch.
"You. Could it be that you've seen through exactly how far into the future I can look?" Katakuri asked, his face dark.
The reason he had made that error was because he had foreseen his own attack succeeding. He had not expected Enel to figure out the precise limit of his future sight. By exploiting that exact window, Enel had forced him into a disadvantageous position.
After he had launched the kick, he realized something was wrong, but by then it was too late to pull back.
Still, Enel knew that this trick would likely not work a second time. After this lesson, Katakuri would think far more carefully before attacking again.
Katakuri adjusted his breathing. He had not actually suffered severe injuries. Although the explosion had been enormous, he had foreseen its outcome and reinforced himself with Armament Haki in advance. He only looked somewhat disheveled.
Now he had raised his guard to the highest level, ready to face Enel. In his hand, he gripped a long, elegant trident.
"Buzz Cut Mochi!" Rather than closing the distance to attack, he created space, morphed both arms into mochi, and unleashed a dense, chaotic barrage of projectiles!
The Armament Haki-infused mochi missiles were even more powerful than real bullets!
Katakuri's arms had become twin Gatling guns blazing with fire, hammering Enel with a relentless offensive!
Even with the strongest Observation Haki, there was no room to dodge against such impenetrable coverage.
But Enel was not powerless to fight back. He cupped both hands together, condensing explosive energy between them, and then blasted it outward!
"Shooting Star Flash!"
Countless energy orbs scattered across the sky like a field of stars!
"Buzz Cut Mochi!"
Seeing his barrage intercepted, Katakuri flung both arms outward. His arms stretched mid-air, transforming into elongated mochi strips that shot toward Enel like a chameleon's tongue, sticky and inescapable.
Enel was caught off guard and actually got stuck. Katakuri bound him tight and then hurled him violently toward the ground!
[
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