Chapter 179

And Diamante, let alone counterattack, had barely raised his rapier when it seemed as if he were several beats too slow.

This was utterly inconceivable!

When Diamante fell, Luo En softly uttered the name of a sword technique.

"Cloud Breathing, Seventh Form: Murky."

The sword art flowed like mist and fog, real yet illusory, unstable and shifting.

Under the artistic conception of this strike, the boundary between fast and slow became blurred.

The slash was undeniably swift, yet to the one struck, it appeared excruciatingly slow.

Luo En, expression calm, casually swung his blood-dripping black blade; the blood flew off, the black blade gleaming coldly, impossibly sharp.

"Tempest Kick!"

Ayn, seeing Zefu and Luo En had already moved, no longer waited—she kicked out a Tempest Kick toward Trebol.

"Not a chance!"

Senior Pico, noticing the strike, stomped his foot forward, meeting it with a fist hardened by Armament Haki, shattering the blue wind blade of the Tempest Kick.

Ayn flickered forward, using Shave to appear before him, slashing down with a blade wrapped in Armament Haki!

Senior Pico hardened both arms, crossing them before him to block the blow—but was slammed backward by its force, and just before crashing into a building, he activated his ability, merging into the liquid-like structure.

Ayn's eyes narrowed as she activated Kenbunshoku Haki.

On the other side.

Trebol, Secka, and the other combat-capable officers launched a coordinated assault on the black-haired boy in the street's center; abilities erupted endlessly, yet none could touch him—not even the corner of Luo En's robe.

Luo En's second slash of the day directly killed the Bomb-Bomb Fruit user, Gladius.

A black sword aura, crescent-shaped, sliced his body diagonally in two like cutting tofu.

Third slash.

Gravity Fruit user, Mahabais and Delinger.

Fourth slash.

Trebol was decapitated by a ferocious flying slash.

"C-Cursed!!"

Secka, driven by fury and terror as his comrades died one after another, forcibly activated his fruit ability, forming a colossal rock giant over nine hundred meters tall, a single palm the size of a town, blotting out the sky.

Rebecca, who had been training swordsmanship and combat with the one-legged toy soldier in the flower field, stared blankly at the rock giant standing within the town.

"T-That's…?!"

"That's one of the top executives of the Donquixote Family, Secka. What on earth is happening today? First the King's Platform was destroyed, now Secka's been driven to this."

Nearby, the toy soldier formed by Cyrus spoke gravely: "What has happened to Dressrosa?!"

In the town, facing Secka's downward-swinging giant hand.

Luo En, standing midair with his black blade in hand and eyes closed, chuckled: "Big, sure—but useless. If you're going to smash people, it's still too small."

He swung his black blade, Shusui, wrapped in Armament Haki.

Not a technique—just a simple slash, yet a great swordsman's strike infused with Armament Haki.

A black sword aura, thousands of meters long, cleaved it cleanly in two.

"Eh?!!"

Rebecca and the toy soldiers stared, eyes bulging, jaws nearly dropping to the ground.

Then Luo En slashed horizontally again.

A black slash cut across the sky, flying over the flower field.

Secka's massive rock body split from two into four.

Cut again—four into eight.

Cut again—a black slash in midair split into eight, crisscrossing to turn the eight chunks into sixteen.

Luo En swung his blade again and again, cleaving the giant rocks without end.

One after another, black slashes thousands of meters long shot outward from the town's center into the sky.

Rebecca and the toy soldiers were utterly dumbfounded.

"T-This… this is swordsmanship?!"

Rebecca, dazed, gazed at the black slashes splitting the sky, mesmerized.

The toy soldier, however, cared more about who had unleashed these terrifying slashes—who was fighting Secka and the Donquixote Family.

As Luo En continued slashing, Secka was utterly terrified, trembling, his will to fight completely shattered.

They weren't even on the same level!

Whether Haki or attack, that monster surpassed him by too much!

If this continued, he would meet the same fate as the others—split cleanly in two.

"I-I just need to reach the ground, just need to reach the ground, just need to get to that place…"

Secka, consumed by terror, huddled inside a single rock fragment.

He only wanted to return to the safety of the ground as quickly as possible, then flee as far away as he could from that monstrous man!

But what filled him with utter despair was:

All the rocks Luo En had shattered floated in midair—none showed any sign of falling.

Except the one he was on.

"Found you."

Luo En brought his blade down.

Secka, crouched within the small rock fragment, watched the slash hurtling toward him—he could no longer evade using his fruit ability; he could only harden his entire body with Armament Haki to brace for the blow.

Then… he was cut clean in two at the waist by a single sword strike.

Sugar, who had only just slowly come to from her faint, opened her eyes and was met with enormous stone blocks drifting across the sky, along with the blood-soaked corpse of Trecul, sliced in two and plummeting downward.

"Eek!!!!"

Sugar's eyes bulged so wide they nearly popped out of their sockets.

After letting out a scream of absolute terror, the whites of her eyes showed, she toppled backward, and was scared straight into passing out again.

To undo the Hobby-Hobby Fruit's power, the user's emotions must surge violently; mere sleep or unconsciousness cannot release it.

And Sugar being scared into a faint this time completely undid the Hobby-Hobby Fruit's power.

Countless toys across Dressrosa turned back into humans in that instant.

The one-legged toy soldier by Rebecca's side likewise returned to her father, Kyros, and a flood of memories instantly surfaced in Rebecca's mind.

"Fa…ther…"

Rebecca gazed at him, her eyes instantly welling with tears, weeping from overwhelming joy.

"Rebecca!"

Kyros, restored to human form, was equally thrilled and overjoyed.

Dressrosa, long trapped in a dark and endless night, on this ordinary day welcomed a sudden dawn because of three people's arrival!

Ain cleaved Senior Pink's arms off with one sword strike, then drove an utterly merciless Rankyaku straight through his neck as his eyes went wide.

With his headless corpse hitting the ground, the Donquixote Family officers were nearly wiped out!

Under Luo En's control, the enormous floating rubble drifted toward one spot, quickly piling up into a small hill.

After finishing this, he drifted down in front of Ain.

"Let's go. Zephyr's side should be wrapping up soon too."

Ain nodded, and the two headed toward the outskirts outside the city.

…………

The outskirts outside Dressrosa.

Below the hill where the flower fields lay.

A figure, like a cannonball, slammed into the cliff face at tremendous speed.

Bang!

Countless dense cracks instantly spidered across the cliff wall, which then collapsed with a roar!

The entire hill—the flower fields above and the artificial Devil Fruit factory below—all shuddered violently.

"Even this place has been caught up in it? What on earth is happening?!"

Kyros and Rebecca, unable to linger on the joy of their father-daughter reunion, hurriedly looked down toward the base of the flower fields.

At that moment, below the flower-field hill.