"Future Sight?!"
The Gorosei's pupils constricted at the same instant, the same jolting realization flashing through their minds.
They finally understood what had happened.
Saint Nusjuro, who had launched the strike himself, had seen it clearly—the crimson gleam flickering in Darren's dark eyes.
Without Observation Haki refined to the level of Future Sight, there was no way he could have slipped past that attack.
But how?
How was this even possible?!
It hadn't even been half a year since their last confrontation with this brat Rogers Darren.
In that brief span, he had awakened his Devil Fruit… mastered an ability that pushed his body into terrifying bursts of power… and now awakened Observation Haki to Future Sight?
If they hadn't witnessed it with their own eyes, not one of the Gorosei would have believed it.
"Don't look so shocked," Darren laughed. "The Member State representatives are watching, and the Visual Den Den Mushi is streaming live."
The ice shattered under his boot, glittering fragments scattering across his cheek like falling stars.
Wind whipped his black hair, crimson blazing through his eyes like blood-lit stars.
He lifted his head, smiling.
"You're the Gorosei—the so-called men of four millennia of wisdom. Surely you've seen Future Sight before. It's hardly rare."
Saint Nusjuro stiffened, crimson veins streaking through his eyes.
"You little—"
Rage burst in his chest, but before he could finish, a fist wrapped in black-crimson lightning had already appeared before him.
It grew larger in his pupils—massive, unstoppable.
So fast!
When did he—
That speed…!!
Nusjuro's heart hammered. A suffocating pressure engulfed him, one he had never felt—not in centuries of battle.
Crimson-black lightning crackled around the fist. Blue-violet arcs surged along Darren's arm. That single punch launched forward like a rail-gun blast, pushed to its absolute limit.
Nusjuro watched the air itself rip apart before the impact.
"Unlike you fossils who've been dragging your bodies around for centuries," Darren said softly, "this punch only has half a year of training behind it."
The punch connected.
Boom.
Doflamingo's eyes burned with exhilaration, his lips twisting in a manic grin.
Stussy froze, her red lips parting in disbelief.
The representatives and guests stared in shock, breath stolen from their lungs.
Lightning-crackling knuckles smashed into Saint Nusjuro's face.
Boom.
The world erupted.
Compressed lightning.
Shockwaves.
A hurricane of force tearing outward.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
Bones shattered under the impact. Nusjuro's face caved in beneath the blow, flesh pulverizing. The force surged down his body, fracturing the skeletal form of his Bakotsu lower half.
"Magnetic Field Rotation: Fist Bone!"
BANG.
A white shockwave burst outward as Darren lunged, teeth clenched, grin sharpened, delivering the killing drive.
Bakotsu Nusjuro—man and horse—was blasted backward, carving a ravine into the Stairway to Heaven. He slammed into the plaza with the weight of a falling meteor.
The impact shook Mary Geoise to its foundations, the ground erupting into a massive crater.
Representatives who had been fleeing with the guards turned, stunned, staring into the smoking pit.
"T-the Gorosei… got knocked away like that?"
"One punch. He couldn't block one punch?"
"This is horrifying…"
"So Morgans wasn't exaggerating at all… Darren really can tear apart a Gorosei with his bare hands!"
"No—if anything, Morgans downplayed it!"
The kings shuddered as they stared at Saint Nusjuro's broken form—shredded face, fractured frame.
"He's too strong…" King Riku whispered, dazed. "That punch… it rivals the King's Punch of Prodence's King Elizabello II."
Elizabello II, famed for his natural strength, possessed the legendary "King's Punch"—a blow strong enough to breach fortresses instantly, rumored capable of killing even Whitebeard or Big Mom. But it required an hour of buildup, making it a single-use trump card.
King Riku—raised in a culture that idolized strength—had long admired it.
Cobra snapped out of his shock and barked, "Stop gaping! We need to get out of here now!"
He glanced at the figure on the ruined Stairway—Darren, twisting his neck, cracking his knuckles.
That bastard… he's about to unleash hell.
With strength like that… even the Gorosei might not get to decide how this war ends.
Panic surged through the delegates. They ran like cornered animals.
"Wait! Saint Nusjuro—his body is healing!"
"What… what kind of power is that?!"
"How can wounds like that fully heal?!"
"Is he actually immortal?!"
Gasps tore through the crowd.
Before their stunned eyes, black flames devoured Nusjuro's ruined body. Moments later, the massive Bakotsu—horse and man, fully restored—strode out of the crater unscathed.
"This brat's strength… something's not right," Nusjuro muttered, adjusting his glasses, unease flickering across his gaze.
The other Gorosei stood still, faces darkening, dread pooling like ink behind their eyes.
To be continued...