"What?!" Doflamingo's expression shifted drastically, yet he found himself entirely unable to move a single muscle. He clearly sensed that something was deeply wrong with the surrounding space.
It felt as though he had been cast entirely alone into a desolate dimension—an expanse of pure nothingness drenched in blinding white light.
Drake mobilized the surrounding spatial fabric, exerting an all-encompassing, crushing compression.
BOOM!
The ground abruptly fractured open.
A surging, ferocious power erupted from Doflamingo's frame—the simultaneous discharge of advanced Armament Haki and Conqueror's Haki.
Fissures spiderwebbed across the surrounding space. Drake raised an eyebrow in mild surprise; to fracture his spatial compression proved that Doflamingo's current strength was far from ordinary.
He was notably stronger than Drake had anticipated.
CRACK!
The spatial barrier encasing Doflamingo shattered into splinters. Coiling thick, obsidian Armament Haki around his lower leg, Doflamingo raised his heel.
An unyielding, all-conquering wave of Conqueror's Haki poured forth, sending shattered stone rolling and blasting shockwaves outward in all directions.
"Out of my way!" Doflamingo snarled, unleashing a devastating kick.
Yet before the strike could land, an earth-shattering weight descended upon his shoulder. In an instant, his lower body was driven straight into the bedrock, and the rising kick was forced back down before him, pinned into the shattered ground in a split.
The rampaging shockwaves instantly froze in place as a smirk touched the corner of Drake's lips.
Conqueror's Haki Domain—fully unleashed!
As Drake's aura surged with chilling precision, the turbulent Conqueror's Haki radiating from Doflamingo withered away in an instant, purging the entire chamber of opposing pressure.
That single hand resting upon Doflamingo's shoulder felt like the palm of a deity; merely resting there, it locked him down so thoroughly that he could not budge a fraction of an inch.
Pressure!
An absolute, insurmountable pressure that surpassed all reason!
Doflamingo felt a mouthful of blood surge up his throat, but he forcibly swallowed it down.
He knew that if he coughed up that blood, he would collapse on the spot, stripped of any remaining power to turn the tables.
Before this, he had weighed Drake's current strength, assuming he was at least above the level of an Admiral. Against such a titan, he had known victory was impossible, but he had believed he could at least hold his own in a prolonged clash.
He now realized how catastrophically wrong he had been. Drake was simply standing there without moving an inch, while he himself... was already pushed to his absolute breaking point!
Between them lay an unbridgeable chasm!
"Don't push yourself, brother," Drake said calmly. The force in his hand abruptly increased, and the reinforced bedrock beneath them cratered into a deep depression.
Doflamingo sprayed a mouthful of blood, his vitality withering as he was driven violently into the ground.
At that exact moment, Drake pivoted in a fluid motion, sweeping his arm to loose two invisible spatial lances.
BOOM!
Dellinger and Viola, who had been desperately holding their ground, were blasted backward. Spattering arcs of crimson across the air, they crashed heavily against the distant floor, their fates unknown.
Drake's form drifted gracefully upward, landing lightly atop the massive boulder from earlier. Clasping his hands behind his back, he tilted his gaze upward at a forty-five-degree angle toward the cavern ceiling.
A posture of contemplation, of melancholy, of effortless transcendence...
The System stared blankly for a long moment before finally spitting out:
[That is some world-class posing right there.]
[Truly magnificent!]
Bernice's eyes sparkled with brilliant luminescence. The sheer might Drake had just displayed was utterly staggering.
When Doflamingo had unleashed his Conqueror's Haki earlier, she had worried that their clash might reduce the entire underground treasury to rubble.
Had that happened, rebuilding and reorganizing the facility would have required immense time and financial resources.
She had never imagined Drake could completely suppress Doflamingo with a single hand.
Just how massive was the gulf in their power to make such a feat possible?
Just what tier of strength... did Drake possess now?
"Spatial Binding," Drake smiled faintly. Reaching into the reinforced walls once more, he drew out several jagged chunks of Sea-Prism Stone and affixed them directly onto Doflamingo's body.
Simultaneously, he used his spatial authority to construct a specialized containment casing, locking Doflamingo's limbs into total immobility.
This was far more secure than the crude chains of Impel Down, wrapping around him with zero blind spots.
To make it even more suffocating, he lined the interior with a layer of crushed Sea-Prism Stone.
The binding force of space alone was nearly impossible for ordinary combatants to break, to say nothing of a Devil Fruit user encased in Sea-Prism Stone.
Without outside intervention, escaping this construct in this lifetime was an impossibility.
This was a dirty trick Drake had just improvised, but against Devil Fruit users, it required virtually zero effort.
The remaining officers of the Donquixote Family were neutralized in the exact same fashion, stripped of any capacity to resist.
"Bernice, I'll have to leave the Dark Clan in your hands," Drake said, turning to her with a warm smile. "Bell is doing great, so don't worry about him. I need to take off now—the crew is still waiting for me."
He had already lingered at headquarters for too long. His sole objective here had been securing the energy reserves to replenish the Demon Warder.
The longer he stayed, the more perilous the situation became for Kenshin and the others. Im had fled previously only because she had yet to regain her full vitality.
He couldn't be certain how long her recovery would take. The situation was far from optimistic, and he had to return as quickly as possible.
"Leave the Dark Clan to me," Bernice smiled with absolute confidence. "As for Bell... I leave him in your care."
"Right," Drake nodded. "I've immobilized all of them. The Sea-Prism Stone will keep them completely sealed, so I'll leave the rest of the cleanup to you."
"Consider it done."
"Alright, I'm heading out." Drake turned to leave, but Bernice called out behind him:
"Wait!"
"What is it?"
"The Dark Clan is close to completing its final stage of expansion. Once that's done... we might need you, our true master, to help resolve a few lingering headaches."
Drake paused for a moment before nodding. "Handle it as you see fit. Whenever you need me, just give the word."
"See you later."
With that, Drake vanished in a blur of motion.
Out over the open ocean, Drake's silhouette flickered into existence for a split second before vanishing once more.
Chaining rapid, long-range spatial warps across the sea, he hurtled back toward the East Blue at blinding speed.
[System, when is that quest regarding the Dark Clan going to be marked as complete?] With the Dark Clan having developed to such an immense scale, that faction-building quest from long ago still hadn't registered as finished.
In the past, Drake hadn't pressed the issue.
Now, whether it was his imagination or not, he felt that ever since the System had manifested its physical form, it had become considerably easier to talk to.
[The time is not yet ripe,] the System replied.
Drake: "..."
[Mind telling me when the time will be ripe? You're not expecting the Dark Clan to expand to the scale of the World Government, are you?] Drake voiced the deepest concern on his mind.
If that was the requirement, the quest wasn't even worth pursuing.
The New World Government had only just been established; the world could not withstand another colossal, planet-wide upheaval.
[Tch, you're overthinking it. Even if the Dark Clan became the World Government, you're hardly leadership material,] the System cast him a disdainful sideways glance.
Entrusting the future of humanity to his hands would be practically pushing the entire world into a fiery abyss.
After a brief pause, the System added in a calmer tone:
[There's no need to rush. It will be completed soon.]
A faint glint flickered in Drake's eyes. This System truly was different from before.
In the past, it would never have offered words like that.