Chapter 89: The Phantom Gala and the Sabotage

The Royal Ballroom was a masterpiece of Donquixote decadence.

Chandeliers dripping with diamonds cast a warm, golden light over the velvet-lined walls.

But beneath the veneer of high-society elegance, the room felt like a locked cage filled with starving predators.

Robin and I sat on a plush loveseat near the back of the room.

I held a crystal glass of red wine, gently swirling the liquid.

I didn’t need to look around to know exactly where everyone was.

My Observation Haki mapped the room with pinpoint accuracy.

Queen the Plague sat near the front, his massive cybernetic bulk taking up three chairs, his mechanical fingers impatiently drumming against the mahogany table.

Directly across from him was Charlotte Katakuri, standing perfectly still, his arms crossed, radiating an aura of lethal, untouchable calm.

Marco the Phoenix sat near the aisle, his eyes fixated on the stage, completely ignoring the glares of the rival pirates around him.

The lesser captains and underworld dons filled the rest of the seats, sweating profusely through their expensive suits, terrified of the Emperors’ envoys but too greedy to leave.

On the elevated stage at the front of the room, Donquixote Doflamingo stepped up to a golden podium.

“Fufufufu…

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen!” Doflamingo’s voice boomed through the ballroom, amplified by a Den-Den Mushi microphone.

“I must say, I am flattered.

It isn’t every day that Dressrosa hosts the true rulers of the New World under one roof.”

“Cut the pleasantries, Joker!” Queen barked, slamming a massive fist onto his table, rattling the crystal glasses.

“We didn’t sail across the Grand Line to listen to you gloat.

Bring out the merchandise!”

A murmur of agreement rippled through the bloodthirsty crowd.

Doflamingo’s smile twitched, but he maintained his arrogant composure.

“Patience, Queen.

We are dealing with a miracle of science.

A treasure salvaged from the greatest mind in history, Dr.

Vegapunk.

An Elixir that defies the very laws of nature.”

As Doflamingo continued his grand speech, I subtly flared my Conqueror’s Haki, just a razor-thin, highly concentrated fraction of it, directed entirely at the podium.

Doflamingo paused mid-sentence, his muscles stiffening.

His red sunglasses tilted slightly toward the back of the room, locking onto me.

I raised my wine glass to him in a silent, mocking toast.

His jaw clenched.

I could feel his Observation Haki fully envelop me, paranoid and hyper-focused.

He was entirely convinced that if a betrayal was going to happen, it was going to come from the Warlord who had carved an X into Kaido’s chest.

By staring so intensely at me, he was completely blinding himself to the ghosts moving beneath his feet.

Directly below the palace, the underground trading port was a sprawling, nightmarish labyrinth of artificial lights and automated machinery.

Thousands of living toys and captive Tontatta dwarves marched in endless, exhausted lines, hauling massive crates of munitions and agricultural supplies toward the towering, cylindrical structure in the center of the cavern: the SMILE Factory.

High above the factory floor, perched on a thick steel crossbeam in the shadows of the ceiling, Law looked down at the operation.

“Sickening,” Gwen whispered from the darkness beside him, her symbiote masking her completely from the heavily armed Donquixote guards patrolling the walkways.

“Keep your focus,” Law replied, his voice barely a breath.

“We aren’t here to just fight the guards.

We will be permanently breaking this machine.

Move.”

The Verdant Abyss stealth team dropped from the rafters in perfect synchronization.

Laura utilized her Nega-Ring, teleporting ten meters at a time to bypass a guards.

Gammamon bounded silently over a stack of crates, his small white claws making no sound against the metal grates.

As they reached the heavy, reinforced steel doors of the factory’s core pumping station, Perona floated upward, her parasol resting on her shoulder.

“This is where I get off,” Perona giggled softly, three translucent Negative Hollows swirling around her.

“I’m going hunting for a little girl with a grape obsession.

I’ll see you guys when the fireworks start.”

Perona phased directly through the solid stone ceiling, ascending into the Executive Tower to find Sugar.

Law, Brook, Gwen, Laura, and Gammamon slipped into the SMILE factory core.

The room was deafeningly loud, dominated by massive vats of glowing, toxic-looking SAD fluid.

Thick, reinforced pipes carried highly pressurized chemical coolants throughout the facility to keep the volatile synthetic fruit mixture from overheating.

“Brook.

The cooling regulators,” Law pointed toward a massive array of dials and spinning fans at the back of the room.

“Right away, Law-san,” Brook nodded.

The skeletal musician drew his cane-sword, Soul Solid.

He stepped up to the massive cooling vents.

A chilling, otherworldly frost began to radiate from his blade.

“Soul Solid: Blizzard Slash.”

Brook didn’t cut the pipes.

He simply touched the blade to the exposed metal.

The chilling aura of the underworld violently dropped the temperature of the regulators.

Within seconds, the fans froze solid, encased in thick, unbreakable spectral ice.

The cooling system was completely jammed.

“Coolants disabled,” Brook reported softly, sheathing his sword.

“My turn,” Law said.

He drew his Nodachi, holding it vertically in front of him.

“Room.”

A pale blue sphere expanded silently, perfectly enveloping the massive, pressurized vats of boiling SAD fluid.

Law’s eyes scanned the complex machinery, identifying the heavy, brass pressure-release valves designed to vent the gas if the vats overheated.

Law focused his power.

“Shambles.”

With a subtle flick of his fingers, the brass pressure valves silently vanished, swapping places with solid, unvented steel bolts Law had brought from the ship.

It was a masterclass in sabotage.

It required no explosives.

No timed detonators.

No alarms were triggered.

Law and Brook had simply removed the factory’s ability to cool down and its ability to vent pressure.

The massive industrial complex was now a ticking time bomb, and it was entirely going to overload on its own.

“The rig is set,” Law whispered, dismissing the Room.

“The core temperature is already spiking.

In about ten minutes, this entire factory is going to detonate with enough force to vaporize the underground port.”

“Then let’s get out of the blast radius,” Laura grinned, her feral eyes glowing in the dim light.

The shadows swallowed the crew once more, leaving the ticking catastrophe behind them.

Back in the Royal Ballroom, the tension had reached its absolute boiling point.

“Enough talk!” Marco the Phoenix said, his voice cutting through the murmurs of the crowd with commanding authority.

“Show us the panacea, Doflamingo.

We are done waiting.”

Doflamingo smirked, snapping his fingers.

The heavy doors behind the podium opened.

Trebol and Diamante walked out, flanking a heavily reinforced, clear glass pedestal.

Resting perfectly in the center of the glass was a velvet-lined case.

Doflamingo stepped up to the pedestal.

He unlocked the case and slowly opened the lid.

A collective gasp echoed through the ballroom.

Even Katakuri’s stoic expression slipped slightly, and Queen’s eyes practically bulged out of his cybernetic skull.

Resting on the velvet were three thick glass vials, filled with a violently glowing, mystical yellow liquid that seemed to hum with inherent, otherworldly energy.

Capping the vials was a pristine, unbroken seal of deep red wax, perfectly stamped with the intricate crest of a dragon and a wing.

They looked exactly like a miracle.

“Behold,” Doflamingo declared, his voice ringing with absolute, supreme arrogance.

“The Celestial Elixir.

The cure to all ailments.

The key to immortality.

Three vials.

Three chances to change the world.”

The greed in the room was a physical weight.

I watched pirate captains grip the armrests of their chairs so tightly their knuckles bled.

Doflamingo leaned forward, his red sunglasses gleaming under the chandeliers.

“We will be auctioning these off one at a time.

The starting bid for the first vial…

is exactly one billion Berries.”

“THREE BILLION!” Queen roared instantly, slamming his hands on the table and shattering the wood.

“The Beast Pirates bid three billion Berries, right now!

Hand it over!”

“Four billion!” a massive underworld don from the West Blue screamed, standing up from his chair.

“Five billion!” Marco countered smoothly, not even blinking at the astronomical sum.

The room erupted into an absolute frenzy of screaming numbers, insults, and barely restrained violence.

Doflamingo laughed, a sickening sound of pure joy as he watched the Emperors throw their fortunes at his feet.

I leaned back into my loveseat, crossing my legs.

I picked up my glass of wine, gently clinking it against Robin’s glass.

“To Joker,” I murmured, a cold, dangerous smile touching my lips.

Robin smiled back, her eyes dancing with dark amusement.

“May his kingdom burn brightly.”

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