The Dragon Claw screamed through the air, its shriek like something dragged straight out of a nightmare.
Darren moved so fast the eye could barely follow. By the time the pitch-black three-fingered talons were inches from Figarland Garling's heart, the Haki-laced gale had already ripped through the solemn, ornate uniform of the newly crowned Commander of the Knights of God. A brutal sonic boom detonated in the plaza like thunder splitting stone.
Time seemed to slow.
Garling—bathed in ceremony, raised up in glory—felt a chill crawl up his spine as he stared at death hanging at his chest. For the first time in his life, dread gripped him so hard it stole his breath.
At the edge of his vision, he thought he caught the Gorosei's expressions twisting—shock, just for a heartbeat.
Then—
Clang!
A silver blade flashed like moonlight. Sparks burst outward in a blinding spray.
Behind Garling, the looming silhouette of a colossal griffin tore through the air, whipping up a violent surge of wind. Crimson-black lightning snapped and crackled as his Griffin Blade met Darren's Dragon Claw in a desperate clash.
The stone-shattering talons still kissed flesh.
A shallow gash opened across Garling's chest.
Drip… drip… drip…
Blood ran down in a thin stream, pattering onto the broken stone beneath his feet and speckling the statue's summit.
Garling's body trembled. His eyes flared with an eerie crimson glow.
The rush of surviving—of clawing his way back from the edge—hit his mind and nerves like a tidal wave.
I blocked it!
"Is that so?"
Darren's voice slid in, low and almost amused, as if he'd read the flicker of triumph on Garling's face.
Garling froze.
Darren shifted without warning. Five fingers clenched.
In an instant, the Dragon Claw closed into an iron fist.
Electric arcs crawled over his arm. Muscle and force surged with a brutal, rocket-like snap—like a magnetic accelerator firing at point-blank range. He twisted that coiled power and drove it forward.
Garling's pupils shrank to pinpricks.
His Griffin Blade—hardened with formidable Haki, a weapon so resilient it felt like nothing in the world should be able to bend it—bowed visibly under Darren's fist.
This man's strength… what kind of monster—
"Those old fogeys can't kill me," Darren said, wind tearing through his hair as he grinned, the edge of it cruel. "But what about you?"
Before Garling could even react, the force in Darren's punch erupted.
"Seabed Drop!"
His fist, locked against the blade, surged forward with absolute inevitability—driving Garling and sword straight down.
BOOM!
It was as if the sea itself had slammed into the earth.
The towering statue—dozens of meters high—shattered instantly beneath Saint Garling's impact. Stone exploded. Dust billowed skyward in a choking plume.
The ground convulsed. Shockwaves and rings of debris tore outward, carving a colossal, nightmarish crater into the heart of the plaza.
From a distance, Doflamingo and Stussy watched, their eyes twitching.
The Commander of the Knights of God—praised as the "Strongest Celestial Dragon"—could he really be this… fragile?
But they both understood the truth, even if they didn't want to.
It wasn't Garling who looked weak.
It was Darren who looked insane.
Magnetic Field Rotation… In this state, Rogers Darren had climbed to the absolute summit of the sea's combat power.
Garling could rival an Admiral, but his foundation still fell short of the legends—Roger, Whitebeard—monsters who had defined an era.
"Stop him." Saint Saturn's voice cut through the air—hoarse, cold, and hard.
Maybe it was only imagination, but the urgency in that command carried something else with it: panic.
Today was meant to be Figarland Garling's inauguration. The representatives of the Member States and the ceremonial guests had already been evacuated; the Visual Den Den Mushi broadcasts had been completely cut off. Even so—if Garling died here, by Darren's hand, this day would be etched into history as the World Government's greatest humiliation.
As Saturn's words fell, a sinister crimson light flared in his Gyuki eyes.
Evil Eye!
Boom!
Darren jerked in midair as an explosion of flame and smoke swallowed him, as if a massive cannonball had struck point-blank.
It wasn't enough to truly threaten him—not now—but the shockwave stole a fraction of movement.
A fraction was all they needed.
In that heartbeat, the lurking CP0 agents surged into action. Like black-and-white phantoms, they launched upward, stepping on air with Moonwalk as they swarmed Darren from every angle.
Darren's power was terrifying—yet these were assassins raised and sharpened by the World Government since childhood. Not one of them hesitated. They attacked with the calm certainty of people who had trained themselves to die on command.
They didn't reach him.
Black streaks knifed through the air, piercing bodies mid-flight. Crimson sprayed like rain.
Enma. Ame no Habakiri. Oto. Kogarashi.
The four Meito, driven by a ferocious magnetic field, became executioners in the sky. Against CP agents who could only briefly suspend themselves with Moonwalk—unable to truly dodge at speed—those blades were a silent scythe, reaping lives before anyone could even scream.
Darren didn't spare them a glance.
He fell like a cannonball, plunging toward the unsteady figure amid the ruins where the statue had stood.
Savage intent burned in his eyes—pure, murderous focus.
The Gorosei might be unkillable.
But Figarland Garling?
He bled. He broke.
He could die.
"You won't get away with this!"
BOOM!
The earth roared. A colossal Sandworm burst from beneath the plaza, its maw yawning wide, acid-slick and hungry, lunging to swallow Darren whole.
Darren sneered. He didn't dodge. He didn't retreat.
He accelerated.
He plunged straight into its throat.
A split second later—
SHHH!
A gaping hole blasted through the Sandworm's tail in a shower of blood and gore. From the crimson spray, a black-haired youth tore free, wreathed in thunder and lightning, ripping through flesh like a madman as he closed the distance on the staggering Saint Garling.
"No!"
Garling's face drained pale. He bared his teeth and forced his Haki out in a violent eruption, swinging his sword in a desperate, thunderous slash.
The blade's arc howled like a griffin, wings spreading wide across the night.
Darren's hand reshaped into a Dragon Claw. Crimson-black lightning streamed behind it like the blazing tail of a meteor.
He met Garling's strike with a savage grin.
To be continued...