"Boring."
Ritter lounged lazily in midair, looking down at the panting Quinn beneath him with a hint of contempt in his golden eyes.
Quinn was about to explode. His face flushed red as steam hissed from his cybernetic joints.
"You damn lightning freak!" he roared, and in the next instant, his thick neck elongated like a mechanical serpent.
Boom!
Yes, it was really a boom.
His head detached completely from his shoulders and shot forward like a missile, jaws wide open to bite Enel's head clean off!
(To be honest, even the author's brain short-circuited for a moment when writing that.)
"Serpent-Neck Guillotine!"
But Enel didn't even bother to raise an eyebrow.
Crack!
A blinding flash of lightning erupted Enel's form vanished into thin air. Quinn's bite struck empty air.
"Too slow."
Enel's voice echoed from behind him. He sat cross-legged in midair, tapping his finger rhythmically against one of his thunder drums.
"Twenty Million Volts: Thunderbird."
"Chiiirp!"
A giant bird made of lightning spread its wings and screamed through the air, piercing straight through Quinn's body. Electric current danced wildly across his metal armor, spraying sparks in all directions.
"AAAAARGH!!!" Quinn convulsed violently, his frame spasming under the voltage. Yet within moments, the cybernetic warlord's body snapped back into place his severed neck locking back on with a loud clack.
"I'm a cyborg, dammit! That little jolt won't do squat "
"Oh?" Enel tilted his head, a playful grin curling his lips.
"Then how about this?"
He snapped his fingers.
"Divine Punishment."
Quinn braced himself, metal arms crossing before his chest as energy surged through his body.
He waited… one second, two, three
Nothing happened.
"What the hell?!" He cautiously lowered one arm and peeked through the gap
Only to see Enel leisurely surveying the entire battlefield through his "Mantra," effortlessly zapping stray Beast Pirates with bolts of precision lightning whenever they tried to sneak up on the samurai.
"Oi! You bastard! Pay attention when I'm fighting you!" Quinn bellowed, veins popping on his forehead.
But before he could finish cursing, a calm voice whispered right beside his ear
"Hey. Who said you could look away?"
"Wha ?!"
"One Hundred Million Volts: Thunder Dragon."
BOOOOOOOM!!!
The world became pure light.
The massive blast engulfed Quinn completely, the thunderous roar tearing through the clouds. Electric fire ravaged his mechanical body wires melted, circuits screamed in protest, and black smoke poured from his armor.
"Zzzzzzt… Warning! System overload…!"
Quinn's mechanical voice screeched as sparks burst from every joint. With a snarl, he detached his head again and lunged wildly at Enel like a berserk snake.
"Don't think you can win with some cheap parlor tricks!"
But Enel only smirked, dissolving into lightning once more. His form flickered into the crimson fog that Ritter had spread across the battlefield. Thunder flickered within the mist, crackling with divine ferocity.
"Pathetic," his voice murmured from everywhere and nowhere, echoing like the voice of a god.
"Did you really think I was taking this seriously?"
Quinn's cybernetic eyes spun wildly, scanning the haze but Enel's presence had vanished completely.
Far above, Enel now hovered in the clouds, chin resting lazily on one hand, the other idly flicking bolts of lightning that struck down enemies across the island.
Within Ritter's Blood Mist Domain, Enel's "Mantra" perception spread across the battlefield. He wasn't just mocking Quinn he was coordinating the fight like a conductor leading an orchestra of chaos.
"Damn it… damn it all!" Quinn roared, smoke rising from his armor. His neck twisted and recoiled, metal joints grinding furiously.
"You coward! If you've got guts, fight me head-on!"
At that, Enel sighed, irritation flickering in his eyes.
"How noisy."
He stood, the air trembling as the thunder drums behind him hummed with divine resonance. Lightning wove around his form like living serpents.
"If you want to die that badly…"
"God's Judgment Heaven's Wrath."
KR-BOOOOOOM!!!
A colossal thunder pillar crashed down from the heavens, swallowing Quinn whole. The impact split the battlefield apart, vaporizing the ground beneath.
Days of accumulated damage finally erupted all at once his body overloaded beyond recovery.
(The author believes Quinn's cybernetic design rivals or even surpasses post-timeskip Franky. After all, launching your own head as a weapon? That's next-level engineering. But sadly for him, lightning is the ultimate natural predator of machines.)
The explosion's shockwave rippled outward, clearing the mist for an instant.
When it faded, Quinn lay in a smoking crater, his armor charred black, his head hanging limply to one side.
Enel exhaled, brushing dust from his shoulder. Though he pretended indifference, there was a faint tension in his posture.
"Finally. Tough bastard."
With a flash of light, his body turned into lightning once again, darting off toward another part of the battlefield to continue his "crowd control."
Meanwhile, the fallen Quinn twitched helplessly in the wreckage. His defeat marked more than just another victory it was the moment the tide of war tipped irrevocably.
Well… perhaps not just now. The balance had already begun to crumble the instant Ritter's blade had cut through Big Mom.
Across the battlefield, Marco and Katakuri's duel reached its boiling point.
"Blue Flame Phoenix Dance!"
Illusory wings of azure fire flared around Marco, his afterimages weaving in unpredictable patterns. Even Katakuri's "future sight" couldn't keep up. A split-second lag was all it took Marco's kick, wreathed in the power of Conqueror's Haki, slammed Katakuri into the earth.
"Kh !" Katakuri spat blood, his mochi body reforming almost instantly.
"Don't count me out yet!" he roared, thrusting his trident forward. Marco twisted aside, though the weapon's edge still sliced his shoulder open.
The phoenix only grinned, blue flames sealing the wound instantly. "Round two?"
At the center of the chaos, Kaido himself was losing ground.
Whitebeard's Gura Gura no Mi, Big Mom's Napoleon, and Ritter's blood mist combined into a storm he could barely endure.
"Damn it… if this keeps up…"
With a guttural roar, Kaido unleashed a burst of Conqueror's Haki, tearing the air apart and forcing Big Mom back but Whitebeard was already prepared. His blade, Murakumogiri, pulsed with earth-shattering energy.
"Seaquake Heaven Splitter!"
BOOOOOOOOM!!!
The tremor-force hammered Kaido's dragon form into the ground, cracking the island itself wide open. Blood spewed from his maw, his consciousness flickering.
"It's not over!" Big Mom shrieked with manic laughter, raising her sword high.
"Zeus! Prometheus!"
The thundercloud and sun merged, birthing a cataclysmic inferno of lightning and fire that crashed down upon the dragon below.
Kaido fought back with his own dragonfire, roaring defiantly
But then…
"Fog God Style Blood Dragon's Maw."
Ritter's black greatsword plunged into the earth, and the surrounding mist came alive. Dozens of blood-red dragons erupted from the haze, fangs gnashing as they tore into Kaido's scales.
"AAAAAARGH!!!"
His screams split the sky, flesh searing as the blood dragons devoured his vitality.
"Poor Kaido," Ritter said softly, amusement curling his lips.
Leaning back on his throne, he watched Big Mom dive toward her wounded rival exactly as he'd planned.
His fingers twitched lightly, like a puppeteer pulling invisible strings.
Whenever Kaido tried to shout a plea or explanation, Ritter twisted the mist, distorting his voice into mocking insults.
Whenever Big Mom hesitated, an illusion of Ritter appeared before her, smirking provocatively.
"Truly… absurd," Ritter murmured with a smile.
In his crimson eyes, the reflection of two Yonko tearing each other apart gleamed like a scene from a mad god's theatre.
Within this chaos he had orchestrated, Big Mom's mind and her soul were already dancing in the palm of his hand.
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