Hearing Chopper's report, the tension in Luffy's body eased slightly—but his fists still clenched so hard they crackled.
Sensing that their captain was on the verge of exploding, Hughes hurriedly stepped in front of Luffy, panic written all over his face.
"Don't be reckless, Luffy! These people aren't someone we can mess with! They're under a Yonko!"
Hughes stared fixedly at the group before them. Just moments ago, he had noticed two extremely conspicuous lettered insignias on several of their outfits.
That emblem belonged to one of the Four Emperors of the New World—a colossal power both legendary and dreamlike.
The Sky Kingdom.
"Oh? Looks like there's at least one person with a brain in this backwater crew."
Page One, also wearing a mask, nodded approvingly. As a newly promoted reserve combatant, the prestige of the Sky Kingdom filled him with pride.
"Yonko?!"
Instead of backing down, Luffy's eyes burned even brighter as he looked at Ulti. His resolve hardened.
"If that's the case, then I can't retreat even more! I'm the man who's going to become the Pirate King!"
Luffy wasn't completely ignorant of what the Yonko meant. When they were kids, Ace had explained it to him.
They were the four towering mountains standing at the end of the Grand Line.
Only by crossing all four could one claim the throne of Pirate King.
He didn't care who the Yonko were.
He only knew this—
If he wanted to be Pirate King, then every single one of them had to be knocked down!
"—Gomu Gomu no… Pistol!"
With a shout, Luffy's arm stretched backward to its absolute limit. Using the terrifying rebound force of rubber, his fist blasted forward like a cannonball, screaming toward Ulti's face.
But an attack already locked onto by Observation Haki looked slow as a snail to Ulti.
She merely tilted her head slightly, easily dodging it—then casually reached out and grabbed Luffy's elongated arm.
A despair-inducing monstrous strength erupted from that slender hand.
Before Luffy could even retract his attack, he was yanked violently off his feet, his entire body dragged straight toward Ulti and delivered right into her grasp.
"What Pirate King?! What damn King?! In this world, only Lord Tenma is worthy of the title of king! And you—a brainless idiot like you—think you're qualified?!"
Her fist wrapped in advanced Haki—the kind that could strike without contact—let out a piercing shriek as it cut through the air.
Amid furious curses, Ulti drove that punch straight into the straw-hat brat's skull.
—BOOOOM!!!
The explosion was deafening, like a thunderclap detonating at ground level.
The earth beneath them shook violently, as if an earthquake had struck.
In an instant, a crater more than ten meters wide was smashed into the ground.
Even the surrounding buildings of Franky House had their roofs ripped clean off by the terrifying shockwave.
Dust and smoke billowed everywhere, rubble and debris flying in all directions.
Ulti shook the dust from her hand with a look of pure disdain and withdrew her stance.
She glanced down at the crater, where the straw-hat boy lay with his eyes rolled back, completely unconscious, and snorted.
"With skills this pathetic, you still dare to spout nonsense about becoming some kind of king? What a joke."
To be honest, she hadn't even used her Devil Fruit.
If she had activated the freezing properties of her Makami form, the fight would've ended even faster.
But compared to freezing him solid, she'd felt more satisfied personally disciplining the brat with her own fists.
And besides—she knew it.
This straw-hat kid had some connection, however indirect, to Lord Tenma's plans.
Otherwise, that punch just now wouldn't have ended with mere unconsciousness.
The fight ended so quickly it left everyone reeling.
"Luffy!"
Enel's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets when he saw this.
Without hesitation, he grabbed his golden staff and transformed into a bolt of lightning, charging straight at Ulti.
—CLANG!
A crisp metallic ring echoed out.
His strike was effortlessly blocked by Page One, who stepped in from the side and caught it as if it were nothing.
"How is that possible?!"
Enel's pupils shrank to pinpoints as he cried out in disbelief.
He knew exactly how powerful that blow was—enough to bend steel with a single strike.
Yet the other man had stopped it with nothing more than a casual lift of his hand, completely unscathed.
"Huh?! You bastard—how dare you hit my precious little brother?!"
Ulti, who had already stopped fighting, instantly flared up again when she saw this.
Violent power and Haki surged around her once more. With a howling gust of wind, she slammed a punch straight into Enel's abdomen.
The speed was absurd.
Even though Enel had sensed it in advance with Observation Haki, his body simply couldn't react in time.
—BOOM!
A dull, heavy thud echoed through the air, as if the explosion had gone off inside his stomach.
This punch didn't send him flying—but the force detonated completely within his body.
—CLATTER.
The golden staff slipped from Enel's hand and hit the ground with a sharp clang.
His eyes rolled back, consciousness fading instantly as his body collapsed like a sack of mud, crumpling limply to the floor.
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