Sky Battlefield.
The dense shadows were cut into four parts by the flowing flames and lightning, as precisely as if measured with a ruler.
"Shihahahaha! Why are you dodging, Kaido? What happened to your vaunted defense?" Shiki sneered.
With his feet already being blades, and holding a fine-grade sword in each hand, his entire appearance was like a golden spider. Every time his spider legs moved, a massive number of slashes were scattered.
"Wororororo! You've become quite talkative after being cured, haven't you, Shiki!" The giant dragon turned his head, his tone cold as he retorted.
His streamlined body, coordinating with the prevision of his Observation Haki, weaved through the ocean of slashes like a dance.
A master swordsman himself, he would not be stupid enough to use his body to block the slashes. Instead, he looked for opportunities to get close to Shiki and give these high-offense, low-defense swordsmen a good lesson.
Shattering the obstruction of clouds, the blazing flames accumulated in Kaido's dragon maw collapsed for an instant, then spewed out.
—Bolo Breath!
The giant pillar of fire shot straight forward. Water vapor boiled under the high temperature, forming rings of air encircling the flame light.
Shiki's pupils flashed with rainbow light. A thin line of white light clearly appeared in his eyes. Then he raised his blade, stepped forward, and slashed with force.
—Slash Wave!
The brutal and surging blade light easily tore through the flames. Shiki's swordsmanship had always been only the Slash Wave technique, but this single technique had allowed him to thrive, roaming the seas for over forty years, defeating countless powerful enemies.
Now, this pure flying slash again cut Kaido's Bolo Breath in two. The remaining force went upstream and struck Kaido's dragon body.
Pfft!
Blood sprayed in the air. Even Kaido's hard dragon scales and oni body could not resist the Ryuo coiled around Shiki's slash, and were cut, creating a wound.
"Ugh!" Kaido felt the pain.
His giant dragon body struggled, dancing wildly in the air. He realized that maintaining his dragon form against a Swordmaster was a very foolish thing to do.
Kaido's body emitted a white light. His giant dragon head and body continuously shrank, finally taking on the appearance of a dragon-man, carrying his kanabo as he stood on the clouds.
"Oh, the Zoan-type's hybrid form?" Shiki raised an eyebrow. "Adopting this posture to conserve stamina? Could it be that you're about to fail?"
With his Observation Haki firmly locked onto his opponent, he noticed that the wounds on the other party's body had stopped bleeding. Even the scales he had cut were squeezed out and replaced by new, fine green scales.
'Sigh, Zoan types.'
"Old man, you've only got a sharp tongue. If you're so capable, how come you got a ship's wheel stuck in your head back then?" The usually serious and proper Kaido was in no way inferior to Shiki when it came to digging up old dirt and talking trash.
These two sentences instantly made Shiki see red.
Dark thunder fell from the fierce winds and turbulent clouds, from the sky.
Covering everything. Enveloping all.
Heavy, cold, and cruel.
"If you want to know so badly, I'll personally break off a piece today and stuff it into your head!" Shiki roared as he charged forward.
His two Haki coiled and covered the blades on his hands and feet, intertwining and rubbing against each other, slashing out dense sword light like raindrops.
Seeing his trash talk had worked, Kaido laughed, raised his kanabo, and charged forward for close-quarters combat with Shiki. "If you can do it, then come!"
Thus, countless, innumerable afterimages of kanabos and swords rose and spread, disappearing into the increasingly heavy dark clouds around them, instantly dyeing the thunder-ravaged dark clouds pure white.
Then, a dark cloud cut across the thunder-heavy clouds, violently crashing into the girl with long pink hair.
"Damn brat! If you lose today, this old woman will catch you and your daughter and take you back for breeding. Then my Totto Land will no longer lack giants!" Linlin's face was ferocious. Her crimson tongue even stuck out and licked her lips.
"Zeus!"
She called out.
"I'm here, Mama!"
Behind her, Zeus, who had crossed the battlefield and accumulated a large amount of lightning, responded loudly.
Linlin reached out her hand and plunged it into the thundercloud.
The thundercloud's size instantly expanded, directly becoming a huge thundercloud.
"Mighty Drum!"
Accompanied by Linlin's angry shout, it was soon completely covered by the rolling thunder beside her. Lightning like dragons galloped across the sky, raising dozens-of-meters-tall purple lightning pillars that crashed toward Sakura.
'Tsk tsk tsk. This level of electrical manipulation.'
'The Goro Goro no Mi is so useless that not even a dog would eat it.'
Sakura raised her cloud rope greatsword. The high-energy particles excited by the heat cycle also released a large amount of lightning. Her voice overlapped with the deafening, high-pitched thunder, transforming into a solemn admonition like the rumbling of the sea and sky.
"Linlin, we are both mothers. To talk about me and my child like that is far too rude!"
Under the coating of two Haki, the power running on the cloud rope was transformed into lightning capable of tearing everything apart.
Now, that dazzling dark thunder tore apart Charlotte Linlin's purple lightning, crossed the insignificant distance between them, scattered the last dark clouds, and pierced through the powerful enemy blocking the way, just like a god descending a thunder hammer of judgment upon the irreverent.
Boom!
The thunder was like an endless, angry dragon, under the escort of stars, echoing across the sky.
Causing the hearts of all the battling pirates to skip a beat. They couldn't help but raise their greedy and ambitious gazes, spying on the domain above the sky that belonged to the Emperors.
And in the midst of the thunder that galloped directly above the battlefield, a huge object suddenly separated from it, sweeping past countless pirates locked in battle, heavily crashing toward the center of the battlefield, emitting smoke.
Katakuri, who was leading his brothers and sisters in attacking Leviathan, had a flash of rainbow light in his pupils. His future-seeing Observation Haki had already glimpsed the entirety of the falling object ahead of time.
His face immediately turned livid. He lost his voice, "Mama?"
Without a moment's hesitation, Katakuri was about to withdraw and return. But now that the offensive and defensive positions had been reversed, Leviathan was not about to let him leave easily. The thorny spikes condensed from the darkness on the ground became more numerous and denser, spiraling and strangling the Charlotte Family's officers.
"Hahahaha! The fight up there is really intense. We can't lose to them, don't you think, Katakuri!"
"Bastard!" Katakuri roared.
The mochi ball wrapped around his trident, Mogura, spun at high speed, stabbing toward Leviathan's dark thorns, twisting and breaking them all.
Caught between a rock and a hard place, he chose to stay and fight Leviathan. The Haki of Oven, Daifuku, and others was simply no match for Leviathan's darkness.
If she unexpectedly sealed their abilities, then with the balance tipped, the Beasts and Big Mom Pirates would be eliminated from the contest for Wano.
As for their mother, he could only hope she would be lucky.
In the huge crater at the center of the battlefield, Linlin, her mouth emitting black smoke and her eyes rolling back, focused her pupils. She moved her body, covered in lingering traces of lightning, and slowly stood up from the smoke and dust.
Tearing through the smoke screen, her body overflowed with a cold, dark curtain. She recited the incantation of souls to everyone around her, whether they were members of the Beasts, the Flying Pirates, or her own Homies.
"Life or Give?"
"Em... Emperor Big Mom?" The people around didn't have time to react before feeling a deep fear rise from the bottom of their hearts.
Then that massive figure reached out her hand, forcibly pulling out large amounts of souls from their bodies, opening her mouth wide to chew them down.
Then, Linlin's body expanded several times over, and she let out a strange roar toward the sky.
"Haruno Sakura—!"