Doflamingo, having narrowly avoided the fatal blow, pressed forward instead of retreating.
A fierce, almost manic light burned in his eyes behind his red shades.
He wasn't running this time.
Not again.
He stretched both arms forcefully backward, palms ejecting dozens of near-transparent threads that tightly wound together into a single, glowing whip of energy.
His gaze toward Bryndy World turned icy cold.
No matter what, he was determined to make this pirate understand that the Donquixote Family was not to be trifled with.
"Overheat String!"
Whoosh!
A sharp, condensed pillar of superheated threads instantly appeared before Bryndy World, crackling with thermal energy.
The sound of the threads tearing through the air was so menacing that even World dared not take it lightly this time.
"Armament Haki — Hardening!" Bryndy World crossed his massive arms in front of his chest, protecting vital areas like his heart.
The gleaming, jet-black Armament Haki filled World with immense confidence.
As he blocked, he grinned, his teeth stained with dust.
"Brat," he taunted, "in the North Blue, no technique can break through my defense!"
Ssss—CRACKLE!
Sparks erupted in showers where the thread pillar met his hardened arms.
Doflamingo's veins bulged on his forehead as he pushed forward with all his might, screaming in effort.
"Raaaaaah! Break, damn you!!"
Doflamingo, like a man possessed, drove the thread pillar relentlessly toward Bryndy World.
Boom!
A cloud of dust billowed up from the ground, obscuring them both.
Drip—drip— The sound of dripping liquid came from within the haze.
It was quiet.
Raleigh, watching from the sidelines, took a deep breath and casually blew away the floating dust with a puff of wind.
The scene revealed Doflamingo panting heavily, his whip extended.
And opposite him... The thread pillar had pierced straight through Bryndy World's defense.
A thin, searing line of blood ran down World's forearm, dripping onto the rubble.
It wasn't deep, but it was there.
"Damn brat... I am Byrnndi World!"
Bryndy World roared with both fury and madness.
His injuries weren't serious—in fact, compared to wounds he'd suffered before from Whitebeard or Garp, they were paper cuts.
But World had lost face.
He was the man who had successfully seized resources from the World Government, a legendary pirate who had returned from the New World.
Yet now, on this small, backwater island in the North Blue, his defense had been breached by a teenager in feather coat.
"Now," World snarled, his eyes glowing red, "you shall die!"
"More-More — Hundredfold Speed!"
Zzzzip!
Bryndy World suddenly accelerated to such velocity that even Raleigh's sharp eyes couldn't clearly track his movement.
He became a blur of motion.
World tore through Doflamingo's remaining strings, ignoring the cuts that appeared on his arms.
A livid fist, stained with his own blood, smashed heavily into Doflamingo's chest before the younger man could even blink.
CRACK!
"Gah—!" Doflamingo, his chest brutally hammered, opened his mouth wide and vomited a large amount of blood.
From the dark color, there seemed to be fragments of internal organs.
His body was launched backward like a ragdoll.
However, even as he flew through the air, Doflamingo's hand gestures shifted mid-flight.
He was hurt, but he wasn't done.
"Overthrow — Rogue Thread!"
Several transparent threads shot from his fingertips toward Bryndy World's exposed throat in nearly invisible trajectories.
"Not bad reflexes for a brat," World spoke with genuine appreciation.
He had originally thought Doflamingo was merely a puppet, a spoiled noble playing pirate.
But now it appeared this youngster truly possessed the instincts of a killer.
However, if this was all, it wouldn't be enough to harm the World Destroyer.
Crimson light flashed in World's eyes as he clearly saw the transparent threads.
Almost by combat instinct alone, after detecting the threads' trajectories, he merely tilted his head slightly back and to the left.
Swish.
The threads, capable of slicing steel, passed harmlessly by his neck, severing a few strands of his green beard.
"Too slow, brat," World mocked. "If your attacks were just a bit faster, you might have actually injured me."
Even as he spoke, the movements of his hands never ceased.
He lunged forward, closing the distance instantly.
His right knee, coated in Haki, slammed viciously toward Doflamingo's abdomen to finish him off.
BOOM!!!
A fist, like a meteor from the starry sky, carrying unparalleled power and speed, collided straightforwardly with Bryndy World's knee.
The impact produced a deafening roar that could make bystanders' ears ring and shatter glass for miles.
Bryndy World roared, doubling the power in his knee.
"Rrrragh!"
Kaboom!
With another burst of Armament Haki, the already shattered council hall could withstand no more.
The giant stone pillars collapsed, the roof disintegrated, and the floor exploded downward.
Following the second earth-shaking explosion, all that remained where the council hall once stood was a circular crater nearly two hundred meters in diameter.
Amid the billowing smoke and settling dust, two figures stood in the center of the crater.
Raleigh and Bryndy World stood facing each other across a distance of over ten meters.
Doflamingo lay gasping for air near the edge, alive but battered.
"You're not a member of the Donquixote Family," World said, spitting a glob of blood. "You're a Marine, aren't you?"
Though Raleigh wore no Marine uniform—just casual civilian clothes—and carried no badge, World had guessed immediately.
"I'd like to know," Raleigh said, tilting his head curiously, "how did you figure it out? I thought my disguise was quite dashing."
"First," World pointed a finger, "you're wearing standard-issue Marine military boots. Sloppy."
"Second," he grinned, "you used the Soru technique just now to intercept me. I've seen that move too many times to count. Only Marine dogs move like that."
BOOM!
A tremendous explosion suddenly erupted from the distant sea, shaking the ground beneath their feet.
Thick black smoke billowed from the burning ocean horizon.
"Boss! Bad news!" Sebastian shouted from the rubble above. "Our ship! The rearguard ship! It's been destroyed!"
Bryndy World's face instantly darkened.
When it was just Raleigh alone, he had been thinking of playing around, testing this new opponent.
But now his ship had been destroyed.
And from the direction of the smoke, it was the pirate vessel that hadn't entered port yet—the one maintaining vigilance.
The escape route.
"I'll kill both of you!" World roared, realizing the situation.
He knew now that all the planning, the rumors of iron, the trap... it was all aimed at his head.
And the beginning of this scheme was these two people before him.
One was the young master of the Donquixote Family.
The other, a Marine officer in disguise.
"If you want to exchange my head for bounty money," World growled, his Haki flaring, "then let's see if you have what it takes!"
"More-More — 100 Times Gun!"
Bryndy World drew a massive flintlock pistol from his side, aimed directly at Raleigh's head, and fired.
BANG!
The bullet left the barrel.
Instantly, it grew to the size of a cannonball and accelerated to impossible speeds, tearing a vacuum tunnel through the air.
"Kami-e."
Raleigh didn't dodge.
His body seemed to lose all tension.
He transformed into a thin, lightweight piece of paper, fluttering in the wind generated by the bullet's passage.
After eating the Storm Devil Fruit, Raleigh's ability integrated perfectly with Kami-e.
He became wind itself.
It could be said that as long as it wasn't a specific counter-ability, ordinary physical attacks fundamentally couldn't harm Raleigh anymore.
With the enhancement of Observation Haki, the Hurricane Devil Fruit's fluid nature, and the Navy's ultimate evasion technique, even Bryndy World's bullet—which could shatter a warship in one hit—whistled harmlessly past him, missing by millimeters.
"How is this possible?" World shouted, his eyes wide with incredulity. "I clearly increased the bullet's speed and power by a hundred times! How did you dodge it?!"
Raleigh reformed, standing casually amidst the dust.
A sinister, knowing smile appeared at the corner of his mouth as he looked at the confused legend.
"Do you know," Raleigh asked softly, "what a true powerhouse should do? Should i teach you how to fight perhaps ?"
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