The baptism of lightning continued unabated. Across the ravaged grounds, any Charlotte Family officer with any strength left used their abilities to protect nearby siblings, ushering them towards Brulee's mirror portal to safety. Leo watched the scrambling figures below with an impassive face, making no move to specifically stop the evacuation. His earlier thought stood: those who survived today did so by his final grace.
"Leo, stop this! Do you want to destroy all of Totto Land?!"
"We'll go with you, just please make it stop!"
Galette and Flampe shouted helplessly, stamping their feet in distress. In just these few moments, over a third of the people present were already on the ground, lifeless. Even the guests had suffered for simply being there. Most of these people were business contacts and partners of the Big Mom Pirates. Their deaths would cripple countless underworld operations, severely hampering the crew's reach and influence.
"Bastard!!" snarled Charlotte Snack, one of the former Sweet Commanders, gripping his massive nodachi tightly. "Everyone, attack together! We have to stop him now!"
With a roar, Snack's (corpulent) body launched into the air. His enormous blade came down towards Leo with mountain-splitting force. "DIE, LEO!!"
He wasn't alone. Several other high-ranking officers joined the assault.
A brawny man with a handlebar mustache, dressed in a blue quilted coat with slender limbs, rubbed his hands over his torso. From his belt, a towering, muscular genie made of smoke was summoned—the Lamp-Summoned Djinn.
The Minister of Beans.
Charlotte Daifuku, the third son, user of the Paramecia Puff-Puff Fruit, struck.
"Djinn Slash!" Daifuku bellowed. The smoke genie's gaze fixed on Leo, its arm and blade elongating rapidly to slash across the distance.
"Leo, Totto Land is no place for you to run wild!!" another voice thundered. The speaker was a massively built man, bare-chested, with orange hair styled into three distinct fan-like sections.
Charlotte Oven, the fourth son, Minister of Baking.
User of the Paramecia Heat-Heat Fruit, and full brother to Katakuri and Daifuku.
"Heat Searing!!" Activating his power, his body visibly began to glow red, the temperature around him skyrocketing. Oven threw a punch, a tsunami of blistering, superheated air rushing towards Leo.
"Juice Giant!!!" A sharp cry followed.
The sole female among the Commanders, Charlotte Smoothie, used her powers as the user of the Paramecia Squeeze-Squeeze Fruit to drain several nearby subordinates dry, swelling her body to giant-like proportions. She swung her great sword, sending a flying slash dozens of meters long screaming through the air towards its target.
Four of the Charlotte Family's most powerful officers unleashed their killing moves simultaneously upon Leo.
Facing the converging attacks, Leo's lips curled into a cold smirk.
"Admirable courage. But an ant trying to shake a tree is simply overestimating itself."
Snap.
He snapped his fingers. The Demon Splitter shattered into thousands of shimmering blade fragments. Spinning at high velocity, sheathed in the advanced, penetrating flow of Armament Haki—Ryou—they shot towards the four Charlottes like a lethal storm.
Crackling lightning tore through the air around the fragments. They pierced through Snack's slash, dispersed Daifuku's smoke, cut through Oven's heat wave, and shattered Smoothie's flying slash with contemptuous ease. The blade fragments, wreathed in lightning and Ryou, then found their true targets.
"AGHH!!"
"BASTARD!!"
"LEO, YOU #$%@...!!"
Like a thousand silver needles threading through cloth, countless gleaming lines crisscrossed the bodies of the four officers. Their Haki defenses in that moment were as fragile as rice paper. Every scream was punctuated by the blossoming of a gruesome crimson flower. In mere seconds, their bodies were riddled like sieves, blood fountaining from countless wounds.
"Die."
Leo's gaze sharpened. The blade fragments converged, then shot forward one final time, piercing straight through the skulls of all four.
Splat.
A mess of red and white exploded into the air. Charlotte Smoothie, Charlotte Daifuku, Charlotte Oven, and Charlotte Snack… their eyes widened in unison, faces frozen in indescribable terror. The next second, their eyes rolled back, and they toppled one after another into the growing pools of their own blood. Utterly, irrevocably dead.
"NO!!!"
Katakuri's eyes nearly bulged from their sockets, his molars grinding audibly. These four were not just his siblings; they were pillars of the Big Mom Pirates. Their deaths would cripple the crew for years.
The onlookers in the relatively safe zones had long lost control of their expressions. The Big Mom Pirates, an entity they had looked up to in awe, were now screaming, dying, one after another right before their eyes. Who could remain unmoved?
"So this… is the legendary Leo?" Judge mumbled, his face slack with disbelief. The mighty Big Mom Pirates, the power he had desperately sought to attach himself to, a dominant force on the seas… in front of Leo, they were like chickens and dogs before a wolf. Watching the powerful officers fall one by one, Judge felt a profound, soul-crushing sense of his own insignificance.
Yonji, Niji, and Ichiji, the emotionless cyborgs, watched the spectacle without a flicker on their faces. It seemed nothing could stir them.
Reiju leaned on a table, chin propped in her hands, staring dazedly at Leo as he battled the Charlotte officers. She had no idea what she was feeling anymore.
"I've struck gold! Absolute gold!" Morgans, from his safe perch, had never stopped filming, his lens permanently fixed on Leo. "Leo just entered the New World and is about to take down an Emperor crew! Is there any news more explosive than this?!" To defeat four powerful officers in one move… Sweet Commanders, Ministers… in front of Leo, it was a massacre. He snapped picture after picture, capturing every moment. His peripheral vision caught the bodies nearby—the Underworld Emperors of Shipping, Assassination, and Finance. "Heh. You should have had better foresight," he sneered coldly. If they'd been as prudent as him, they wouldn't have died so ignominiously.
Elsewhere, Stussy, using Geppo (Moon Walk), had landed on the roof of a still-intact high cake tower, surveying the battlefield.
"That damned man. He really is set on having me." She stared at Leo in the distance, her eyes filled with a complex mix of annoyance and resignation. Earlier, she'd tried to slip away. Whatever Leo's goal, she couldn't just wait to be caught. The moment she'd neared an exit, a bolt of lightning struck the ground precisely one meter in front of her. With no other choice, she'd retreated. She had a vital mission; she absolutely could not fall into Leo's hands. Her mind raced, scheming for another way out.
Leo glanced briefly at Stussy on the tower, a mocking smirk touching his lips. His Observation Haki blanketed the entire island. Did she really think she could escape under his nose? Once she was in his hands, he'd have to… properly educate her. See what this cunning vixen was really made of.
He turned his attention back to the main event. Big Mom, pupils still swirling in circles, staggered around like a drunkard. A horrifying pressure was coalescing within her. Sensing their master's state, the three supreme homies—Zeus, Prometheus, and Napoleon—transformed, becoming vicious-looking weapons that hovered around her, guarding the Queen of Souls.
"Big Mom," Leo called out, his tone laced with mocking amusement. "Do you like the gift I've prepared for you?"
Getting no coherent response, Leo shook his head, losing interest. In her youth, this woman had been a renowned beauty on the seas, comparable even to Hancock or Nami. But in her obsessive drive to build her utopia, she'd engaged in constant, indiscriminate reproduction. Every day was either bearing a child or preparing to bear one. Year after year, it had warped her into the monstrous figure she was today. Yet, from another angle, to have maintained her position as an Emperor under such mental strain was a testament to her freakish, innate durability—the "Iron Balloon." Truly, there was no one else on the seas quite like her.
A flicker of pity vanished as quickly as it came. Leo disappeared from his spot.
He reappeared in a flash of lightning directly above the staggering Big Mom. His face was cold. The thousands of blade fragments shot back, coalescing instantly in his hand, reforming the Demon Splitter. He raised the blade, aiming for Big Mom's thick neck, and swung down!
"STOP!!"
At the critical moment, Katakuri arrived, having pushed his speed to the limit.
"Mochi Thrust: Mochi-Cutter!"
His left arm morphed into a giant, spike-covered club, instantly sheathed in refined Armament Haki. Spinning at high speed, it intercepted Leo's fatal strike with a thunderous clang.
"Leo! I won't let you harm Mama!" Katakuri declared, his aura erupting, showing no fear in the face of the man who had just killed four of his siblings. In the future he had seen just moments ago, he had witnessed Leo's blade cleanly severing Big Mom's head. He would not allow that future to become reality. Even if the Big Mom Pirates suffered catastrophic losses, as long as Big Mom lived, the crew could rise again. They could all die, but Mama must not.
"Mama! Wake up!" Katakuri shouted desperately at the unresponsive giant behind him. Once her food rage took hold, nothing but the specific sweets she craved could break her from it.
Leo's expression darkened completely. "Katakuri, since you've chosen to—"
His words were cut off. A sudden change.
The dizzily spinning Big Mom… her mental world finally reached its breaking point and shattered.
"AAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHH!!!"
She threw her head back and let out an ear-piercing, soul-rending shriek. Leo flashed away several dozen meters, his brow furrowed. It was, without contest, the most grating, piercing sound he had ever heard. A visible, concussive wave of sound, saturated with Conqueror's Haki, erupted from her and swept outwards in all directions like a tangible tsunami.
"Mama, stop!!"
"Agh! My head!"
"Dammit, why now of all times?!"
The Charlotte officers who had just dodged the lightning had no time to celebrate before this new, brutal assault of Conqueror's Haki hammered into them. Stunned and disoriented, many were then swallowed by the still-raging sea of lightning. Their screams were cut short. Under the overwhelming force of the Haki blast, several more officers slumped to the ground, unconscious.
In this state, everyone present had become a target of Big Mom's indiscriminate rage. Morgans, caught off-guard, was knocked out cold. Stussy and the Vinsmokes retreated to an even more distant, safer position.
Katakuri, being the closest, bore the brunt of it. The powerful Conqueror's wave washed over him, making his vision swim and his mind blank for a critical split-second.
The only person entirely unaffected was Leo. His own Conqueror's Haki was, if anything, superior to Big Mom's.
"An opening."
Crackle.
Leo flashed back to a position above Big Mom. She was now actively commanding her three homies, who had begun rampaging and destroying everything in sight.
"Leo, what are you doing?!"
"We warn you, don't get any ideas about Mama!"
"Attack! Don't let him hurt Mama!"
The three malevolent homies—Napoleon the hat-sword, Prometheus the sun, and Zeus the storm cloud—glared at Leo with naked hostility and vigilance.
"Blaze of Theft!"
"Ten Thousand Bolts!"
At Napoleon's prompt, Prometheus and Zeus launched their attacks.
"A bunch of annoying accessories." Leo snorted coldly. A single, sweeping slash of the Demon Splitter shattered all three homies into dissipating fragments of flame, cloud, and metal.
In the brief moment it took for them to begin reforming, Leo struck his true blow.
Swish.
The blade flashed once more across Big Mom's neck.
Her legendary, iron-balloon durability—under a slash empowered by the erosive force of lightning, the penetrating flow of advanced Armament Haki, and the crushing pressure of Conqueror's Haki infusion—failed instantly.
Under the horrified gazes of everyone present, the giant head with its swirling, vacant eyes lifted from its mountainous shoulders.
A geyser of blood shot skyward.
"MAMA!!!"
"NO!!!"
"Mama's dead! Leo killed Mama!!"
Galette and Flampe screamed in utter breakdown, scrambling towards Big Mom's collapsing form. Other family members wore expressions of profound grief, wailing openly. Even Katakuri stood frozen in place, his mind completely blank, systems utterlycrashed.
"He actually did it… Leo actually killed Big Mom?" On her high tower, Stussy's brow furrowed slightly. Big Mom, as one of the Four Emperors, was a linchpin in a complex web of power. Her death would trigger a chain reaction; the entire balance of the seas would shudder. "I have to get out of here. Now." For the first time, genuine panic flickered across Stussy's face. With Big Mom gone, the remaining officers were mere fodder before Leo. Once he dealt with them, she was next. She could not, under any circumstance, fall into his hands. Without further hesitation, she leaped from the tower, aiming to vanish into the chaotic landscape.
Just as she thought he hadn't noticed, as her high-heeled foot crossed the threshold of a broken gateway—
BOOM! CRACKLE!
A warning. Two bolts of lightning thicker than any before struck the ground precisely, carving a circle of scorched earth around her, leaving her standing untouched but perfectly trapped in the center.
Stussy swallowed hard, a gesture of pure defeat. She sank to her knees on the charred ground, all fight leaving her. She could only await the fate that was inevitably coming.
Back near the chapel ruins…
"She's dead… Big Mom is really dead!" Judge blurted out, his composure shattered. He felt on the verge of total collapse. No words could express the turmoil inside him. Death itself wasn't the scary part; it was the agonizing wait for it. If even the lofty Big Mom could be killed by Leo, what hope did they have? Once Leo had Germa's technology… would their fate be any different? Judge trembled, trapped in a vortex of panic and dread, awaiting Leo's judgment.
In contrast, Reiju was remarkably calm. Her only regret was that Leo's gaze had never once lingered on her.
Amidst the crowd's collective panic, disbelief, and grief, Big Mom's colossal body hit the ground with a final, earth-shaking THUD.
Thus, at the age of 68, the captain of the Big Mom Pirates, the Empress who built Totto Land with her own hands, the former Emperor of the Sea, Charlotte Linlin, met her end.
The moment life left her body, Leo's senses, sharpened by his connection to the Conquest System, instantly located and secured the newly reincarnated Soul-Soul Fruit.
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T/N :
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