"What do we do under these parameters!?" Jinbe asked, his expression incredibly grave. By now, every member of the Straw Hat crew had woken up... well, except for one.
The snot bubble expanding from Luffy's nose was still rising and falling, fluctuating in sync with some bizarre rhythmic cadence.
The timeline for their deployment was rapidly approaching, yet Big Mom had still failed to materialize in the sector. It was only logical that anxiety was beginning to mount. Without a primary target, their offensive plan possessed zero structural utility.
"It doesn't matter, we proceed with the deployment," Nami spoke up at that moment. "Our baseline operational objective is to wreck the wedding and rescue Sanji's family. Since Big Mom is absent from the grid, it actually optimizes our deployment vectors." Having said that, Nami leaned over and called out softly to the deeply sleeping captain.
"Luffy, time for dinner."
"Food! Meat! I want meat! Where is the meat!?" The previously comatose Luffy sat bolt upright in an instant, scrambling toward the pile of provisions nearby.
Jinbe: "!!!"
Luffy, whom he had spent the last several minutes frantically trying to rouse to no avail, had literally leapt to his feet over a single sentence.
This...
The sea was truly a vast expanse of anomalies.
Even a veteran with Jinbe's psychological fortitude couldn't help but marvel at the sheer absurdity of the variable.
"Luffy, your phase of the deployment is up. Let's move." Without wasting another second, Jinbe grabbed the continuously struggling captain and sprinted toward the egress point of Bege's castle-body, where a mirror had been positioned.
Luffy, meanwhile, was still twisting and flailing in a desperate bid to secure the meat in his peripheral vision.
Rumble...
Right at that microsecond, a catastrophic concussive roar rent the upper atmosphere.
"Mama... Mamamama!!"
As that distinct, blood-chilling screech resonated through the sky, every faction felt their hearts stop.
BOOM!
A colossal silhouette crashed violently onto the altar of the wedding venue.
"Huh!?"
Every single member of the Straw Hat crew caught the shockwave of the sound, the hair on their arms standing on end.
"BIG MOM!?"
"Bege, what just happened in the physical sector?" Brook urgently pressed through the communication channel.
This defied all statistical probabilities. They had calculated that Big Mom was safely locked out of the equation, yet she had materialized at the worst possible microsecond. Or rather, she had forced her way back into the grid...
"This..." On the outside, Bege's composure fractured completely as his cigar tumbled to the ground. His eyes looked ready to pop out of their sockets in sheer disbelief.
"Is... is that... Big Mom?"
It wasn't just Bege; every single individual present at the venue was paralyzed with shock—especially the children of the Charlotte family.
"Mama!"
"Mama, how did your physical parameters alter to this extent!?"
The entity that had just plummeted from the sky was indeed Big Mom, whom Drake had marooned within the Class-1 Dimension!
Meanwhile, back inside the Class-1 Dimension, Vale D. Drake stood staring at his surroundings, his jaw dropping in absolute astonishment.
The once-stable foundations of his Class-1 Dimension were currently fractured past the point of structural integrity. Shattered debris and pulverized stone monoliths drifted aimlessly through the void. Even the spatial matrix itself had begun to fluctuate violently, displaying clear indicators of an imminent dimensional collapse.
He had no data on what exact methodology Big Mom had deployed within this void, but for the environment to be systematically decimated to this degree...
Drake had truly failed to anticipate this variable.
For an entity completely devoid of spatial manipulation techniques to nearly shatter an independent dimension through sheer, unadulterated force... Even though this was merely a baseline Class-1 Dimension, it entirely violated standard physical principles.
At this moment, Drake fully comprehended why the Emperors of the Sea were classified as pure monsters. They simply could not be measured by conventional metrics.
"I need to locate her signature immediately, or she's going to permanently compromise the integrity of this sub-space." Drake quickly activated his spatial movement, teleporting across the grid to scan for her coordinates.
But his calculations were too late; Big Mom had already forced a spatial breach moments before his arrival...
Back at the summit of the Whole Cake Chateau, at the wedding altar.
Big Mom's eyes were blood-red, and the catastrophic aura radiating from her body was so dense that not a single soul dared to step within her immediate perimeter.
However, her imperial robes had been reduced to literal rags, shredded so severely that she appeared thoroughly disheveled. Most striking of all was the drastic alteration in her physical mass; her frame had leaned out to an unprecedented degree, completely stripping her of her signature "Iron Balloon" profile. She had effectively dropped down to a moderately plump tier.
It was no mystery why her children were paralyzed with shock. In their entire recorded history, their mother had never manifested a physique this lean.
Just what kind of catastrophic ordeal did she endure!?
"Mama, are your vital signs stable?" Perospero ventured forward, taking a cautious step toward her.
Yet, Big Mom acted as though his acoustic signature hadn't even processed in her mind. A low, guttural snarl tore from her throat. "The wedding cake..."
Hiss! At that sound, the expressions of every Charlotte sibling morphed into absolute terror.
They recognized those behavioral indicators with absolute certainty. This was a textbook manifestation of her Craving Sickness!
When Big Mom entered the parameters of her Craving Sickness, her cognitive functions degraded until she could no longer distinguish between ally and enemy. Until the target of her culinary obsession was introduced to her system, her destructive output would continue to scale indefinitely. This sickness was the ultimate, recurring nightmare of Whole Cake Island—or rather, every citizen inhabiting Totto Land.
"Mama, the wedding cake is positioned directly adjacent to your coordinates," Katakuri said, moving smoothly to intercept her perimeter.
If they could satisfy the parameters of the Craving Sickness immediately, they could mitigate any further structural damage to the chateau.
But in the next microsecond, his pupils shrank to pinpricks. The frantic crimson light within Big Mom's eyes was beginning to recede, her consciousness rapidly stabilizing back into a state of absolute focus.
This was an anomaly that had never occurred in the historical data of her sickness.
"Understood," Katakuri muttered after a brief pause, stepping back to return to his original position.
The surrounding crowd hadn't observed any physical movement from Big Mom, but it was clear a high-level exchange had just occurred. Katakuri had processed the future through his Observation Haki!
"Resume the ceremony!"
By now, Sanji and Pudding had already taken their places on the raised altar. Sanji's hands had previously been extended to peel back the bridal veil covering Pudding's face, but the sudden, violent descent of Big Mom had forced him to retract his movement.
"Mamamama... Mamamama! It appears my arrival aligns perfectly with the schedule," Big Mom chuckled, her lips curling into a sharp, vicious smirk as she lowered herself into her imperial seat.
"Mama, perhaps it would be strategically sound to update your attire first," Perospero murmured in a hushed tone.
"Unnecessary. We execute the deployment first; transitions can wait until after the objective is achieved." Big Mom shot a highly calculated glance toward her eldest and second sons.
Perospero and Katakuri offered a synchronized nod, slipping back to their designated coordinates to prepare for the strike. Whichever variables had shifted in the background, as long as the Emperor had returned safely to the sector, their operational baseline remained completely secure.
The seating arrangement for the Vinsmoke Family happened to be entirely enveloped by the positioning of Big Mom's highest-tier children.
To call an architecture like that a coincidence would be a statistical joke.
Heh.
Reiju kept her eyes locked on Sanji's silhouette atop the high altar. She knew with absolute mathematical certainty that once the sun set on this date, the Vinsmoke lineage would be erased from the world. Her solitary hope was that Sanji possessed the leverage to break through the dragnet and survive.
I can place my currency on your resolve, correct... Straw Hat kid, Monkey D. Luffy!
I leave the survival of my younger brother in your hands!
The three Germa princes maintained completely indifferent expressions as they stared up at Sanji.
Judge, meanwhile, focused his gaze on the Emperor. "You arrived late, Big Mom."
"Mamamama... Although a minor anomaly disrupted my transit, it carries zero weight against the validity of our political alliance. Rest easy, Judge!" Big Mom offered a smooth, reassuring smile to the patriarch.
Studying Big Mom's ragged appearance for a long moment, Judge let out a hearty laugh. "Splendid. If your forces require any technological leverage from our end, do not hesitate to command it. From this day forth, we operate as 'family'..."
"Indeed..."
The surrounding underworld titans were internally reeling, their minds frantically calculating why Big Mom had descended in such a thoroughly battered state. However, on the surface, they maintained absolute, pristine composure.
Every individual who had secured an invitation to this table was a master of political survival. They knew exactly which questions yielded data, and which questions yielded an early grave.