Did Shiki see Roger sailing away?
The answer is of course yes. But what could Shiki do about it!
Shiki was helpless. He had always focused on building up his crew and expanding his forces at high speed, and he never paid much attention to special talents like navigators. That was exactly why he was now in this situation where he could not take care of everything at once.
Shiki really regretted not having a top-class navigator on board. If heaven would give him one more chance to do it over, Shiki would rather trade away most of his men in exchange for a single top-tier navigator.
He tried to use the Float-Float Fruit to lift the fleet into the air, but the storm and the massive waves kept passing straight through the ships. It made Shiki feel both pressured and powerless. The sea's natural restraint on Devil Fruit users, plus unstable ships… It really was like that saying: a beauty right in front of him, but his manhood just would not rise; having the tool in hand but unable to pierce the grain. Shiki was so frustrated he wanted to kill someone.
Up in the sky, Doflamingo was watching everything. He knew the hulls of Shiki's pirate ships were about to reach their limit. Even though Shiki had personally taken the helm, navigation was not something you solved with brute strength, much less in such extreme conditions.
As expected, what was "not unexpected" soon happened. Another huge tsunami slammed in. The force tore Shiki's tightly gripping hands from the helm; the wheel snapped with a crack, and at the same time the ship's hull lost its balance. A colossal wave was like a giant hand reaching to seize the ship and deal a finishing blow to the sailboat.
Doflamingo knew that if he did not act now, then in the future the "Rooster Golden Lion" might be born on the spot.
But what are pirates? A group steeped in evil and betrayal. And an ambitious man like Shiki even more so. If you did not make Shiki walk at the edge between life and death, how could you make him truly feel how rare it was to survive by a hair?
So, when seawater poured over Shiki's entire body and, under the pressure of the water, the helm locked down over Shiki's head, he suddenly found himself unable to exert any strength. He felt his life hanging by a thread, as if the very next second, when the helm came down, he would die.
It was at the instant the helm just broke through Shiki's scalp that Doflamingo made his move. Lightning so fast it defied belief blasted out and shattered the helm in an instant. Shiki let out a breath of relief, but at the same time he could not help wondering who had acted. Haki that strong would never belong to some no-name nobody on the sea. But why was that power this close to him, and yet he had not sensed the person at all?
The crisis being briefly resolved did not mean the tsunami and storm vanished. The wind and waves continued for a long time, long enough for Doflamingo to send Julian's son to the nearest Sky Island and then return to the battlefield. Only then did the tsunami and storm finally subside.
How tragic was the battlefield after being baptized by tsunami and storm? Within dozens of nautical miles, the sea was littered with the wrecks of the Flying Pirates' ships. Splintered planks and torn flags drifted on the surface with the waves. At the very center, the sea was stained red with blood. Of the tens of thousands of Flying Pirates, fewer than one in ten survived. Only the Golden Lion's flagship—built with lavish materials and at astronomical cost—remained basically intact. A small number of pirates had survived on board, plus a few who had jumped into the sea to escape and then climbed back onto the flagship. Apart from those, it was total annihilation. "Tragic" was hardly sufficient.
When the storm finally died down, the Golden Lion slumped weakly against the rail on deck. The efforts of decades had been wiped out in a single day. What did that feel like? Shiki was tasting it now.
Pain. Pain that made him want to die.
Hatred. Hatred that made him want to die.
Do not talk to him about starting from scratch. How many sets of "decades" does a person have to start over with? Even if Shiki's personal strength was now at its peak, the comrades who had grown up with him all the way here, the strong partners he could truly trust, were not something he could just gather again.
"Sigh… Is even heaven itself on Roger's side? Even a hopeless deathtrap can somehow let him escape. Was I wrong?!" Shiki stared blankly up at the sky. Though he had not suffered much physical injury, the wound in his heart hurt far more than any injury to his body.
"This little setback is enough to make you despair, Golden Lion?"
A sudden voice cut into Golden Lion's ears out of nowhere.
Hearing that, Golden Lion Shiki jolted and came back to himself. He lifted his eyes and saw a young man with golden short hair, nearly three meters tall, suddenly standing in front of him. Just like before, he felt nothing of this young man's presence—no aura at all—yet the man was undeniably real.
Since he had been saved once, Shiki spoke quite frankly to Doflamingo.
"You've got a pretty unfamiliar face, kid. You were the one who took action just now, right? Saving me in a situation like this, you must be after something big! But I'd advise you to drop it. If you're thinking of making me work for you, that's impossible. I swore I would never live under anyone again, kid!"
Hearing Shiki's words, Doflamingo involuntarily let out a cold laugh. Golden Lion was overestimating himself far too much. Did he really think he was that amazing? Doflamingo swaggered forward with his characteristic pigeon-toed strut, closing in on Golden Lion Shiki step by step as he mocked him.
"Heh… Shiki, you're really overthinking this. I saved you purely because I don't want to see a powerful enemy of the World Government slowly wither away into uselessness. As for having you swear loyalty to me? Don't be ridiculous. You're not qualified."
"Kid, you're way too arrogant!"
Golden Lion Shiki was, after all, one of the very top powerhouses in the current New World. In his eyes, aside from Whitebeard and Roger's crew, no one's pirates could compare to his own. For some punk kid to show off in front of him like this… Even if that kid had saved him, even if he had just gone through a disastrous battle against a natural calamity, Shiki still intended to teach Doflamingo a lesson.
Only, before Shiki could make a move, Doflamingo's fist, coated in Busoshoku (Armament Haki), had already slammed into him first.
Shiki was shocked. It was that strange sensation again. The man was right in front of him, yet Shiki could not sense the moment Doflamingo attacked at all.
As a veteran powerhouse who had made his name known across the world for many years, Golden Lion had his own pride. Taking Doflamingo's punch head-on, Shiki immediately activated his ability: "Shishi no Mizu Goku (Lion's Might: Water Confinement)."
Shiki controlled the seawater, forming a colossal watery hill that instantly wrapped around Doflamingo.
For an ability user, a technique like that was undeniably painful. But Doflamingo was different. His physical body was so powerful that, as long as he did not run out of stamina, he could simply ignore the sea's suppression.
Looking at the trapped Doflamingo, Shiki was full of confidence. From the way Doflamingo had attacked, he could tell that this man was almost certainly a Devil Fruit user. In that case, in a situation like this, would he not have to obediently do whatever Shiki wanted?
However, to Shiki's disappointment, in just the instant after he was trapped, Doflamingo thrust his right fist forward.
"Nisenman Volt: Kurojū (Twenty Million Volts, Black Beast)!"
A massive black-and-blue beast manifested, jaws gaping wide, and charged straight through the watery hill Shiki had created, lunging to devour him.
"Not good!"
Seawater conducted electricity extremely well. Even though Shiki reacted quickly, he still could not avoid his arm being briefly paralyzed. But the black-and-blue beast was not going to give him a chance to recover. In the instant Shiki stalled, it had already crashed into his body.
"Cough, cough!"
The powerful Busoshoku (Armament Haki) combined with the lightning strike smashed Shiki straight through the deck, embedding him deep in the hull. His skin had been scorched pitch-black, and even his internal organs felt as if they were tearing apart under a numb, needling shock.
(End of Chapter)
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