A heavy lead column slammed into Trafalgar Law, tossing his body aside like a tattered sack. He gouged a deep trench through the hard rock of the desert island, skidding to a halt only after colliding with a massive boulder in the distance.
"Cough... cough..."
Blood spattered from Law's lips. He leaned heavily on his nodachi, Kikoku, his knuckles white and his hands trembling violently. The iconic spotted hat was nowhere in sight.
"What is the matter, supernova of the North Blue?" Urouge approached step by step, hoisting the heavy lead pillar over his massive shoulder.
The Mad Monk had not even activated the muscular expansion of his karmic ability. Basic physical techniques and a dense coating of Armament Haki were enough to completely dismantle Law's proud swordsmanship and Devil Fruit abilities.
Law ground his teeth together, squeezing out the last dregs of his stamina.
"ROOM..."
A pale blue spherical space flickered to life in his palm. Before it could expand, a mountainous shadow swallowed him.
"Too slow," Urouge rumbled.
A fist coated in pitch-black Armament Haki shattered the forming surgical sphere and buried itself firmly into Law's chest.
Law launched backward, his grip failing. Kikoku clattered onto the rocky ground.
"Captain!" Bepo cried out, scrambling forward.
A heavy hand slammed the mink into the dirt. Shark pinned him in place, rendering him entirely immobile.
"Watch," the Fish-Man stated, his tone devoid of pity. "If he cannot survive this level of combat, how does he plan to execute Doflamingo?"
A short distance away, Ace rested on a flat boulder, casually tossing a small glass vial in his palm. The dark blue liquid inside caught the harsh sunlight.
"Your Devil Fruit is highly versatile," Ace noted, watching Law struggle for breath in the dirt. "But the Ope-Ope no Mi drains immense amounts of stamina. Without a monstrous physique and advanced Haki to anchor you, the size of your Room means nothing. Against true apex combatants, you are just a buzzing insect."
He gestured toward Urouge with his chin.
"You cannot even bypass Urouge's basic Armament defense. What exactly will you use to kill Doflamingo?"
Law stared at the drifting white clouds. His fingers clawed into the dry soil. He had no words to offer. Ace spoke the absolute truth. In the North Blue, he reigned as a terrifying prospect. Here, in this proving ground of monsters, his endurance, Haki, and physical baseline were severely lacking.
Slowly, Law forced himself into a sitting position. His gaze locked onto the vial in Ace's hand.
"I need power," Law rasped, his throat raw. "Give it to me."
Ace smiled, flicking the Limit Breaker serum through the air. Law caught it.
"You saw Wyper's condition earlier," Ace said. "If you lose consciousness from the pain, the serum goes to waste."
Law ripped the stopper out with his teeth.
"To butcher that bastard... I would sell my soul to the devil without a second thought."
He threw his head back and drained the dark blue compound.
Seconds passed. Law violently arched his spine, both hands clawing at his skull. The veins pulsing along his forehead bulged outward, threatening to burst. The agony of cellular reconstruction mirrored thousands of scalpels flaying him down to the marrow.
"Bepo!" Leona called out, shoving a heavy steel cart loaded with steaming Sea King meat toward them. "Bring the food to him!"
Bepo scrambled to his feet. Law's eyes burned with a feral, bloodshot intensity. He lunged for the scorching slabs of meat, tearing into them.
He chewed.
Swallowed.
Grabbed the next slab.
Guttural, suppressed growls ripped from his throat as he forced the massive caloric intake down. The agony clawed at the edges of his sanity, but he refused to stop eating. Unconsciousness meant the evolution would halt. Stopping meant he would never close the gap with the man haunting his nightmares.
"Doflamingo..." Law mumbled through a mouthful of blood and rich meat juices, the name grinding like gravel in his throat. "I will tear you apart with my own hands."
Watching the surgeon wage war against his own breaking biology, the Eclipse executives dropped their usual mocking smiles.
Urouge brought his hands together in a brief prayer, nodding. "The boy harbors a true demon inside him."
Shark watched the display with crossed arms. "He has a spine, at least."
Ace remained seated on the rock, a quiet, knowing smile resting on his face.
Meanwhile, in the freezing waters of the North Blue, the massive snail-ships of the Germa Kingdom churned through the waves.
Inside the central castle laboratory, Ichiji, Niji, and Yonji floated suspended within transparent medical cylinders, their broken bodies laced with life-support tubes. Their cybernetic exoskeletons and modified genetics had barely dragged them back from the abyss of death. It would be a long time before they saw high-tier combat again.
Vinsmoke Judge stood before the medical pods, his face a stormy mask.
"Worthless!" Judge roared, driving his fist into the metal console and buckling the steel. "My ultimate creations... the pride of Germa 66, reduced to scrap in a North Blue black market?!"
"Calm yourself, Father."
Reiju stepped into the laboratory, her pink raid suit clicking against the floorboards. She held a freshly printed intelligence dossier.
"I have secured the reports. It was not a local North Blue faction." She dropped two bounty posters onto the ruined console. "A Fish-Man and a dual-blade swordswoman. 'Ghost Shark', and the 'Anatomical Butcher', Leona."
Her voice carried a chilling neutrality. "They are vanguards of the Eclipse Pirates. The crew recently classified as the Fifth Emperor by the World Government."
At the mention of the Eclipse Pirates, the color drained from Judge's face. The explosive rage vanished, replaced by a cold, creeping dread.
"The Eclipse Pirates..." Judge hissed, grinding his teeth. "The lunatics waging open war against the Admirals and the absolute rulers of the world?"
Reiju nodded. "Yes. The recovered data suggests their target was the unidentified Devil Fruit."
Judge stared at his ruined sons for a long time. Slowly, he sank into his throne, the fight leaving his towering frame. His greatest works, humiliated. Germa's legendary reputation, ground into the frozen mud of the North Blue.
Yet, retaliation was impossible.
If it were a standard pirate armada, the Germa War Snails would have reduced their territory to ash within three days. But this was the Eclipse. The black dreadnought terrorizing the global powers.
"Issue the command," Judge finally said, shutting his eyes and swallowing his pride. "The Germa fleet will steer completely clear of the Grand Line routes. All North Blue intelligence cells are to classify the Eclipse Pirates as an absolute, terminal threat. Until those monsters and the World Government finish tearing each other apart..."
His armored fingers dug into the armrests.
"...we will not step into their storm."
High above the New World, within the royal palace of Dressrosa.
"Young Master..." Trebol sniveled, his viscous body shifting nervously.
Doflamingo sat by the open balcony, his back to the room. The wind pulled at his pink feather coat. In his palm lay the charred, crumbling remnants of three Life Cards.
Diamante.
Buffalo.
Baby-5.
He had dispatched the three executives to the North Blue on a simple retrieval mission. Their life signatures had extinguished simultaneously.
"Dead..." Doflamingo's voice dropped to a terrifying, hollow register. "They are all dead."
He slowly closed his fist, grinding the paper remnants into fine ash. The gray dust drifted between his fingers.
Trebol swallowed hard. "Doffy, could it... could it be that brat, Law? An ambush?"
Doflamingo's head snapped around. The veins mapping his forehead pulsed with absolute fury. Through his crimson sunglasses, his eyes burned with the predatory rage of a starving wolf.
"I know the exact limits of Law's power! Even burning his own life force, he could never execute Diamante and the others simultaneously!"
Trebol shrank back, sealing his mouth shut.
A suffocating silence filled the royal chamber. Then, Doflamingo began to laugh.
"Fufufufufufufu..."
The sound was low, distorted, and entirely devoid of humor. It was the sound of boiling magma trapped beneath a crust of ice.
"Something completely outside my sight has occurred in the North Blue. How fascinating. To reach out and slaughter my family."
He launched a sudden, vicious kick, obliterating the heavy glass coffee table. Red wine, strategic documents, and a golden Den Den Mushi scattered across the marble floor in a shower of shards.
"Trebol!" Doflamingo barked. "Activate every sleeper cell and broker in the Donquixote Family's underworld network! Tear the North Blue apart from the inside out until you find the corpses of the fools who touched my people!"
He paused, his jaw setting into a rigid line. "And Law. I need the exact coordinates of that brat."
Trebol scrambled backward. "Yes, Doffy. Immediately."
Doflamingo stood tall, stepping over the ruined glass toward the balcony edge. The brilliant Dressrosa sun washed over his flamboyant coat, yet his face remained locked in a shadow of pure malice. He stared out at the churning waters of the New World, a twisted smile stretching across his face.
"Law... you had better pray I do not find you. Because when I do, you will learn a fundamental truth. What belongs to the Family, no matter how far it runs, always belongs to the Family."