Fortunately, Katakuri managed to endure it in the end.
As someone who possessed the ability of Healing Seal, as long as he wasn't killed instantly and still had strength left in him, his injuries never truly mattered—they would always heal quickly.
But Katakuri knew—he couldn't keep letting his mother land attacks at will. If this went on, it wouldn't be long before his body simply gave out.
He could already feel the creeping signs of exhaustion—his stamina was being rapidly drained.
Seeing Katakuri charge toward her again, Big Mom raised her right hand, Napoleon's sword gleaming in her grip, while her left hand hurled a massive Prometheus fireball toward him.
Each swing of the giant sword sent enormous shockwaves slicing through the air. Though not as destructive as Ikoku Sovereignty, every swing still carried terrifying power.
And Prometheus wasn't idle either—the giant ball of flame spun wildly, blazing so fiercely it seemed to burn the very air itself. Within the flames, even her Haki-infused strikes were radiating outward like a raging inferno.
Katakuri concentrated with everything he had. His Observation Haki flared to its limit, helping him narrowly avoid one lethal strike after another.
But Big Mom, in her fury, unleashed a storm of attacks that blanketed the entire area. Even with Katakuri's ability to glimpse the future, he was forced to tank several blows just to avoid the worst of them.
One strike after another slammed into him—his injuries piled up. Though Wound Seal muted the pain again and again, the toll on his stamina was overwhelming. He was beginning to gasp for breath.
"Don't think just because you've gotten stronger, you're suddenly untouchable! You're still far from being my equal!"
With a massive sweep of Napoleon, a shockwave blasted Katakuri across the ground.
Boom!
He slammed into the floor, blood pouring from multiple wounds. He tried to rise again, but his strength had truly reached its limits.
Is it over...?
His body was covered in deep cuts, and it seemed his stamina had finally run dry. The Wound Seal no longer activated—a clear sign he had nothing left to give, Perospero silently thought.
Over the past two years, he had learned a fair bit about the Wound Seal ability.
He knew that healing consumed stamina. The more severe the injury, the greater the drain. And now, with Katakuri's body bloodied and bruised and his wounds no longer mending—there was no doubt. He had run out of strength.
"Time to take your final bow, Katakuri. Elbaf Spear..." Big Mom raised Napoleon high.
"Is this... where I fall?" Katakuri muttered quietly to himself, eyes blurred from exhaustion. As he watched Big Mom summon the might of the giants, preparing to unleash Ikoku Sovereignty, he felt a chill of resignation.
Just as she was about to swing her sword—
Big Mom's expression suddenly shifted.
Her blade veered away—not at Katakuri, but up—toward the sky.
"IKOKU SOVEREIGNTY!" she roared, her colossal slash aimed into the heavens.
At the same time, from the sky, a figure plummeted like a meteor.
The figure descended so fast it looked like a streak of light—colliding directly with Big Mom's devastating attack.
"HEAVEN-CRUSHING DESCENT!"
A foot, infused with staggering momentum from its fall, struck downward—colliding with the full might of Ikoku Sovereignty.
In an instant, a terrifying shockwave exploded outward from the clash.
There was no need to guess—it was Rosinante.
He had come straight from Sky Island using Bins' wormhole, arriving high above Totto Land, on a drifting sky island thousands of meters in the air. Finding a stream cloud above Cake Island, he leapt—without hesitation—into freefall.
Mid-descent, he used his Silent Gravity to stabilize his body, then pulled out Katakuri's Vivre Card.
Guided by its pull, he shot like a missile toward Katakuri's location.
But the closer he got, the smaller the Vivre Card became—a clear sign that Katakuri's life was hanging by a thread. Rosinante's heart raced.
When he reached the sky above Cake Island, he released all restraint on his gravity. One kick off the air, and he rocketed downward—straight toward the towering castle.
The top of the Cake Castle was an open-air hall—no roof, just a vast platform.
And at that very moment, Rosinante saw Big Mom raise her blade, poised to unleash Ikoku Sovereignty on the utterly spent Katakuri. With Katakuri in that state, one blow would surely kill him.
At that moment of crisis, Rosinante unleashed his ultimate kick—Heaven-Crushing Descent.
Big Mom's slash was fearsome, unmatched in its raw power. Under normal circumstances, not even Rosinante's strongest kick could have stopped it.
But this wasn't normal.
This was a strike amplified by gravity, fueled by a freefall from thousands of meters above, backed by every ounce of Rosinante's power.
It collided with Ikoku Sovereignty, shattered through it—and continued downward.
BOOM!
His kick tore through Big Mom's attack and smashed directly into her.
The ground beneath her cracked violently.
The immense impact sent Big Mom hurtling into the Cake Castle itself.
This was the uppermost hall of Cake Island. Below it was the main living area. Even though the platform was reinforced and incredibly durable, it stood no chance against Rosinante's momentum-laden blow.
Layer by layer, Big Mom was driven downward.
This kick didn't just contain Rosinante's raw strength—it carried the force of a long, uninterrupted fall, as well as the full might of Heaven-Crushing Descent.
Even a monstrous powerhouse like Big Mom couldn't brush this off.
Before she could even react, she was sent crashing through seven or eight layers of the castle.
"W-What the hell was that?!"
The Charlotte siblings stood frozen in shock, staring at the sudden explosion of force.
"Rosinante?!" Perospero was the first to recognize him, eyes wide with disbelief.
"That's Rosinante?" Daifuku gasped, stunned.
He looked far too young. How could this be the man who had recently stirred up a storm across the New World?
"He really is Rosinante... and he's terrifying. Even if that kick was boosted by a fall from the sky, the fact that he could break through Mom's Ikoku Sovereignty and land a direct hit—his strength is beyond anything I imagined..." said Cracker, the Tenth Son, his voice filled with awe.
"Go check on Mama—quickly!" another sibling shouted.
"Yo! Isn't that Perospero I see? Long time no see! By the way, where's your dear Mama? I don't see her anywhere."
Landing lightly on the now-ruined rooftop, Rosinante scanned the shocked Charlotte children, then smiled wickedly at Perospero.
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