Chapter 56: Clash of the Titans

The Colosseum had devolved from a billionaires’ playground into an apocalyptic warzone in a matter of seconds.

The impenetrable golden dome that Gild Tesoro had erected over the arena was fully sealed, trapping the screaming elite, the gladiators, and the invading pirates in a massive, suffocating, glittering cage.

And trapped inside with us was a walking natural disaster.

Jack the Drought was a monster in every sense of the word.

Having reverted from his massive Mammoth form to his towering human state, the Lead Performer of the Beast Pirates stood over twenty feet tall.

His braided blond hair whipped wildly as he swung his twin, sickle-like shotel blades, completely carving through the arena’s architecture, the fleeing crowd, and the heavily armed golden security forces without a single ounce of hesitation or mercy.

I stood on the edge of the VIP balcony, looking down at the absolute carnage.

I couldn’t just sit back and watch anymore.

If Jack continued his rampage, the structural integrity of the entire city-ship would fail.

If the Colosseum collapsed into the subterranean levels, Robin, Brook, Perona, and the Revolutionary asset would be crushed under thousands of tons of solid gold and seawater.

“Time to clock in,” I muttered.

I uncrossed my arms and channeled a dense surge of Fa-Jin directly into the soles of my boots.

I stepped off the balcony, plummeting toward the golden sands.

I didn’t aim for the empty space; I aimed directly for the center of the chaos.

I landed precisely between Jack the Drought and the prize podium with a deafening BOOM.

The kinetic shockwave from my landing shattered the golden floorboards, sending a massive crater rippling outward that knocked dozens of Beast Pirates off their feet.

Jack paused, slowly turning his massive, steel-jawed head to look down at me.

His eyes were entirely bloodshot, filled with an uncompromising, unthinking bloodlust.

“Beastmaster,” Jack growled, his voice vibrating like grinding tectonic plates.

“You are in my way.”

“You’re making a mess of my vacation, Jack,” I said smoothly, rolling my shoulders to loosen up the muscles.

“And you happen to be standing next to a very expensive, solid gold Sabertooth tiger that officially belongs to me.

I’m going to need you to step back.”

“Die,” Jack roared.

He didn’t posture.

He didn’t boast.

Jack was infamous for simply attacking.

He swung his massive right shotel blade directly at my neck, the heavy steel coated entirely in dense, black Armament Haki.

The sheer wind pressure from the swing threatened to blow me off my feet.

I didn’t dodge.

I raised my left arm, coating it in my own Advanced Armament Haki (Emission).

The blade struck the invisible barrier radiating an inch above my forearm with the force of a falling meteor.

The collision of our Haki created a massive, concussive shockwave that blew away the surrounding gold dust and shattered the glass of the VIP boxes above us.

Black and red lightning violently sparked from the point of impact.

The ground beneath my boots spider-webbed and sank three feet deep, but my arm didn’t yield a single inch.

Jack’s eyes widened in brief, genuine shock.

He wasn’t used to anyone simply stopping his brute strength dead in its tracks.

“My turn,” I whispered.

I pulled my right fist back.

I didn’t need to match his towering size; I needed to bypass his absurd Ancient Zoan durability.

I channeled my Fa-Jin, layering the vibrating kinetic energy perfectly with internal-destruction Haki (Ryuo).

I drove my fist forward, burying it directly into Jack’s massive, heavily muscled chest.

To the untrained eye, it looked like a simple punch.

But the kinetic vibration didn’t just hit his skin; it phased completely through his thick hide and ribs, detonating directly inside his chest cavity.

Jack’s eyes rolled back in his head.

He coughed up a massive, thick spray of blood, his massive frame staggering backward.

The internal shockwave ruptured his organs, momentarily scrambling his senses.

He dropped to one knee, clutching his chest as he gasped for air.

Before I could follow up, the golden floor beneath my feet violently warped.

“You think you can play games in my city?!” a voice shrieked from the heavens.

I leaped backward just as six massive, razor-sharp spikes of solid gold erupted from the exact spot I had been standing.

Up on his hovering golden pillar, Gild Tesoro was losing his mind.

His pristine suit was ruffled, his rings glowing blindingly bright.

Tesoro thrust his hands forward.

The melted gold from the destroyed arena walls surged like a tidal wave, forming into dozens of massive, floating golden fists.

“I am the Golden Emperor!

I decide who lives and who dies!” Tesoro bellowed.

The golden fists rained down on us like artillery fire.

Jack, recovering from my internal strike with the terrifying, accelerated healing of an Awakened Zoan, let out a furious roar.

He swung his shotels, releasing massive flying slashes that cleaved the descending golden fists into pieces.

I didn’t bother cutting them.

I coated my hands in Fa-Jin and rapidly punched the air, sending concentrated shockwaves that shattered the golden constructs into harmless, glittering shrapnel before they could even reach me.

Suddenly, the battle fractured into a chaotic, three-way war of attrition.

Tesoro manipulated the entire environment, turning the floor into quicksand, raising walls of gold to separate us, and firing high-density gold beams that pierced through stone and steel alike.

Jack the Drought acted as a relentless, unstoppable force, tearing through the gold and charging at both me and Tesoro with reckless, suicidal abandon.

I found myself caught in the middle, using my high-speed Rokushiki and kinetic deflection to bounce between the Yonko Commander and the Casino King.

Jack swung both of his blades in a massive cross-slash aimed at my torso.

I ducked under the lethal arc, planted my hands on the golden floor, and executed a spinning Rankyaku kick.

The compressed air-blade slammed into Jack’s chin, knocking his head back.

Simultaneously, a massive golden tentacle whipped toward my blind spot.

I didn’t even look.

I snapped my fingers, releasing a micro-burst of Fa-Jin that violently deflected the gold away.

While the three of us tore the center of the arena to shreds, the perimeter of the Colosseum was facing a completely different nightmare.

Jack hadn’t come alone.

The massive breach in the golden dome allowed dozens of Beast Pirates to pour into the arena.

These weren’t normal men; they were Gifters.

Pirates who had consumed Doflamingo’s artificial SMILE Devil Fruits.

Men with gorilla arms growing out of their stomachs, wolves for hands, and horns protruding from their skulls.

They howled, preparing to slaughter the trapped civilians and secure the prize podium.

But they had to get through the Vanguard first.

BetelGammamon stood between the invading pirate army and the fleeing crowd.

The crimson Digimon was thriving in the chaos.

A Gifter with a massive rhino horn charged at him.

BetelGammamon stepped into the charge, grabbed the man by the horn, flipped him entirely over his head, and slammed him into the golden floor.

“Get the weird lizard!” a pirate captain shouted, pointing a flintlock.

BetelGammamon opened his jaws.

“Sol Shot!” A rapid-fire barrage of condensed fireballs erupted from his mouth, detonating among the Beast Pirates and sending them flying into the stands.

He was a one-mon army, acting as an impenetrable wall of digital fire that kept the heavy hitters’ crossfire from completely wiping out the innocent bystanders.

While the entire Colosseum was fixated on the explosions, the blood, and the towering monsters destroying the city, the true objective of our mission was being handled in absolute, total silence.

At the far end of the arena, opposite the breach, stood the prize podium.

The rare, unknown Devil Fruit sat inside a shattered glass case, glowing faintly in the dim light.

Tesoro’s elite executives, Baccarat and Dice, stood defensively in front of the podium, their eyes glued to the titanic three-way clash happening in the center of the arena.

Baccarat held a coin, ready to use her Luck-Luck Fruit on anyone who approached.

Dice gripped his massive axe, trembling with masochistic anticipation for a fight.

Neither of them noticed the shadow stretching across the golden floor behind them.

The Night-Terror Ferret was entirely invisible, an entity composed of pure absence of light.

It slithered out from beneath a piece of golden debris, sliding up the back of the podium like a drop of spilled ink moving in reverse.

Baccarat felt a sudden, inexplicable chill.

She glanced over her shoulder.

“Dice, keep your eyes open.

That Warlord is crafty.”

“I hope he hits me,” Dice groaned, flexing his massive muscles.

“I hope it hurts.”

Behind them, the Ferret’s shadow silently expanded over the glass case.

It didn’t break anything.

It simply opened a localized, extra-dimensional void.

The rare Devil Fruit dropped seamlessly into my shadow-inventory, vanishing from the physical world without making a single sound.

Objective secured.

The Ferret slid back down the podium, dissolving into the chaos of the shadows cast by BetelGammamon’s fire and Tesoro’s golden beams.

It darted across the battlefield, perfectly dodging the falling debris and shockwaves.

It reached my location just as I parried another heavy strike from Jack the Drought.

I felt the familiar, icy sensation as the Ferret reconnected with my personal shadow.

Immediately, the shadow-link transmitted a sequence of information directly into my mind.

I didn’t just feel the weight of the new Devil Fruit entering my inventory; I felt the Ferret’s memories of the last twenty minutes.

I saw Robin, Brook, and Perona bypassing the final vault doors.

I saw them freeing the heavily injured Revolutionary asset.

I saw a small, terrified girl clinging to Robin’s hand.

And most importantly, I saw them bypassing the chaotic arena entirely.

The Ferret had guided them through the subterranean maintenance shafts, completely circumventing the Colosseum and leading them straight to the VIP harbor.

I felt the final pulse of confirmation: Robin’s team is safely aboard the Titan’s Glory.

The ship’s engines are primed.

Ready for immediate extraction.

A slow, terrifying grin spread across my face.

I caught Jack’s incoming shotel blade with my bare, Haki-coated hand, stopping the massive Yonko Commander in his tracks.

Jack glared at me, his veins popping.

“What are you smiling at, Government dog?”

“I’ve been holding back, Jack,” I said, my voice eerily calm amidst the roaring explosions of the arena.

High above us, Tesoro hurled a massive, solid gold spear the size of a ship’s mast directly at my back.

“I was trying not to hit the floor too hard,” I continued, ignoring the incoming spear.

“I needed to make sure the basement didn’t collapse while my people were working.

But now?”

I flexed my grip on Jack’s blade.

My Conqueror’s Haki flared, a suffocating, invisible pressure that dropped the surrounding Beast Pirates to their knees.

“Now, I don’t care if this entire city sinks to the bottom of the ocean.”

I released Jack’s blade and spun around.

I met Tesoro’s falling golden spear with a high-speed, Fa-Jin infused punch.

The kinetic vibration traveled up the shaft of the massive weapon, instantly shattering it into thousands of pieces of golden dust before it could even touch me.

I turned my attention fully back to Jack and the Golden Emperor.

The extraction was secure.

The bounties were in my sights.

It was time to bring the house down.

Word Count: 1899

———————————————————————————————————

For more chapters

This month’s adventures wouldn’t be possible without the generous support of my patrons:

Greylocke33, Jordan D’souza, Big_Bro_Byakko, Doglore63, Curtis Branscum, Rudell Vincent Samson, Kevins Green, Eric, Diem Delgado, Byung Kang

thank you for believing in the story!