Doflamingo's string puppet was defeated by Rowan's sand soldiers.
For the three remaining executives of the Donquixote Family, this was more than just a loss of skills.
In a way, that string clone made of shadow threads had the same power as Doflamingo himself.
If that standard-bearer with the black sword and shield could kill the string puppet, it meant that Doflamingo himself would also lose to that big black sword in the same situation.
This fact was unacceptable to the three Donquixote Family executives.
Gladius, with his afro, took a small step back.
Among the Donquixote Family executives, Gladius was a smart, brainy type who liked to think and plan before acting.
But no matter how Gladius thought at this moment, he could only come up with one plan.
And it had a very low chance of success!
But since it concerned the survival of the Donquixote Family, Gladius had to try his best.
He whispered to Machvise beside him:
"Hey, you and Pica work together to hold that guy down for a moment, and I'll take him out!"
"I understand, oink..."
Machvise, the Ton-Ton Fruit user, nodded.
Of the remaining three, Gladius, the Pop-Pop Fruit user, was the strongest in terms of destructive power and killing ability.
But that alone was not enough.
Ordinary explosions can't hurt Logia Devil Fruit users.
But Gladius had a last resort given to him by Doflamingo.
Just now, when the string puppet appeared, several strings secretly gave Gladius a seastone bullet.
Among the executives present, only Gladius had the ability to fire a bullet without using a gun!
This was the last resort, and their only chance.
Shoot this seastone bullet into Rowan's body, and then take advantage of the moment he loses his power to kill him with Gladius's explosion!
To achieve this goal, they must first force Rowan's real body to gather together.
This task naturally fell to Pica, the Stone-Stone Fruit user.
The Paramecia Stone-Stone Fruit is indeed a "terrible" ability.
The user can merge with the stone they touch and take on all the stone's appearance, hardness, and other properties. So, after receiving the stone's power, the user can transform into a huge stone giant to attack.
Combined with his own full-body Armament Haki, Pica's overall combat ability can be called the Donquixote Family's trump card.
If he wanted, he could easily destroy an island!
Pica's body gradually disappeared into the rock on the ground.
His naturally high-pitched voice made Pica reluctant to speak, and there was no need to say much when fighting alongside family members.
After only a moment of thought, Pica understood the entire plan.
The moment Pica's huge body disappeared into the ground, a giant rock hand suddenly rose from under Rowan's feet, closing its five fingers to try and grab Rowan.
Rowan jumped away, out of the giant hand's reach, but that was exactly what Pica was waiting for!
A rock giant hundreds of meters tall suddenly rose from the ground, swinging its huge fist and smashing it towards Rowan.
It was a terrifying fist that could flatten a mountain!
According to Pica's plan, Rowan, as a Logia user, would definitely choose to turn his whole body into his element to dodge, and he could take the opportunity to control the rocks and trap Rowan in his elemental form temporarily.
Gladius had been waiting for a long time.
As long as Rowan showed the slightest weakness, he would fire the deadly seastone bullet!
But Pica's fist suddenly stopped in mid-air.
He saw something unbelievable.
It was a huge sand soldier rising from the ground, its height and size similar to his own rock giant.
It roared out of the surging sandstorm, opened its bloody mouth, and swung its heavy sand fists, smashing down on Pica's rock giant.
Pica quickly manipulated the rock giant to assume a defensive posture, but the sand soldier's power was like a sandbag, smashing everything in its path!
The giant sand fist swung out, breaking the rock giant's arm, and finally destroying half of the rock giant's body.
All of this happened so fast that Pica's real body, hidden inside the rock giant, didn't have time to move.
He flew out of the broken rocks and was immediately surrounded by the endless sandstorm before he could react.
At that moment, Pica understood why Trebol had screamed like that.
Countless grains of sand cut across his body like knives, instantly covering him with wounds!
In contrast, Rowan still stood in the same place, the sand scattered from the palm of his left hand connecting with the giant sand soldier, controlling its actions.
With the defeat of the most reliable Pica, the original plan naturally could not be carried out.
Helplessly, Gladius and Machvise had no choice but to go in head-on.
After all, if they missed this opportunity, they would surely lose!
Machvise jumped up and into the sky.
Ton-Ton Fruit ability activated - Hell's 10,000-Ton Vice!
In an instant, Machvise's own weight changed to tens of thousands of tons, falling at an amazing speed, heading straight for Rowan.
At the same time, Gladius raised his hand cannon, aiming at Rowan.
Victory or defeat, in a moment...
Before this thought was finished, a scene that Gladius could never have imagined appeared.
Rowan raised one hand high, supporting the tens of thousands of tons of Machvise!
"This..."
Gladius was stunned, but he immediately fired the bullet in his hand cannon.
Logia Devil Fruit users have a common problem, which is that they often ignore bullets and artillery fire, relying on their abilities.
This was Gladius's only chance now!
Bang!
The black bullet shot out, heading straight for Rowan's chest.
But what Gladius didn't expect was that Rowan had raised his other hand before him.
His index finger and thumb overlapped, and a sand pellet appeared on it.
Bang!
Also a gunshot, the pellet then shot out towards Gladius.
The seastone bullet and the sand bullet collided, changing the direction of force, and each shot into the ground diagonally below.
Seeing that the situation was not good, Gladius wanted to retreat and regroup, but he only felt a sharp pain in his chest.
Looking down, his chest had already been hit by the "bullet."
Rowan's "shot" fired two "bullets"!
A sense of powerlessness gradually surged into Gladius's body.
He watched as Rowan threw Machvise away casually, and then completely lost consciousness and fell to the ground.
"Damn it..."
...
After about ten minutes.
The only person standing on the square was Ryan Rowan.
There was no one to stop him anymore...
No, there seemed to be one more person.
Was it Doflamingo?
No.
It was Caesar Clown.
Caesar: "?"
He was thrown out of the palace by Doflamingo with a surprised look on his face, and landed in front of Rowan.
Caesar was instantly terrified and shouted towards the palace: "[Joker], I still have the source of the Crystal Demon virus in my hand, you can't just abandon me like this!"
Doflamingo did not respond.
Caesar's scalp tingled immediately. He had personally watched Rowan solve the Donquixote Family executives one by one.
He didn't want to die here!
He immediately changed his expression, turned his head, and said to Rowan with tears in his eyes:
"You, you can't kill me!"
Rowan walked up, without saying a word, and pointed to the Crystal Demon virus source held in Caesar's hand.
Caesar immediately understood Rowan's meaning, but he also felt that he seemed to have grasped a lifeline.
"You can't just destroy this thing!"
Caesar took out the black crystal and explained loudly, "Destroying this now will prevent the virus from spreading, but the guys who were originally infected with the virus can only maintain that inhuman appearance!"
At this point, Rowan finally stopped slightly.
Seeing this, Caesar quickly continued to explain:
"Imagine, all the infected people in the Aden Kingdom will continue to stay in the Crystal Demon state, they can't survive in this world at all!"
"Give me some time, and I, this genius scientist, will definitely find a way to make them completely recover. You don't really want the Aden Kingdom to become a 'Plague Country' forever, do you!"
Caesar's expression relaxed a little at this point.
He felt that in order to completely cure the obvious symptoms of the Crystal Demon virus, Rowan would definitely be patient and spare his life.
But what was the truth?
Caesar himself had no way to solve the Crystal Demon virus, this was just his delaying tactic.
But Rowan's spear rested on the source of infection in Caesar's hand.
He looked down at Caesar and said slowly:
"Don't underestimate the tenacity of life, it's something that experiments can't explain."
Then, with force in his right hand, the spear fell.
Crack!
The black crystal shattered!
Rowan's voice sounded in Caesar's ear:
"And don't underestimate - 'people.'"
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