Chapter 40: Conqueror’s Haki and Swiftness
Chapter 40: Conqueror’s Haki and Swiftness
_________ POV Doflamingo_________
There I was... Rushing back to the palace at the greatest speed I can muster, the earlier hit had dealt a few internal injuries, but nothing I can't fix with a few stitches using my Devil Fruit.
At least I was able to tell my cadres to all head to the palace, Enel won't be an easy opponent, and I am unsure if I could take him on by myself. Jack the Drought was a lot more resilient than me, and there's not even a hair of him left...
This Enel person must be hiding a lot of his strength, otherwise, I don't see how he'd be able to kill Jack without leaving a single trace. No one would believe me if I said that Enel killed Jack, but I know what happened.
No one else on this side of the New World, not even an admiral, would be able to quietly snuff out someone like Jack... Yet Enel managed to do it somehow.
I also have a few hidden cards, from here on out I'll try to not let him get close to me.
At this point, that blasted Rear Admiral must've already called the Headquarters, and Viola, that stupid wench, is also there to testify against me.
I don't understand where she suddenly gained this confidence from, but after I kill Enel I will also kill her, as she's already outlived her usefulness long ago.
I've never felt this angry before. Not even when my brother tried to betray me... But how can I not feel this much rage?! When the empire I painstakingly built is about to collapse right in front of me?
And all of it, all of it is because of that stupid Rear Admiral!
Rising star of the marines my ass! I don't care if I get in trouble for this anymore, as long as I get to at least kill him, then everything will be fine.
The marines wouldn't dare to touch me anyway!
The World Government will cover for me since I used to be a Celestial Dragon. I might lose some things, but I'm sure the rest of my cadres can escape if the worst happens...
I'll stop thinking about that... For now, I'll concentrate on Enel, the one at fault for this whole mess.
_________ POV Narration _________
Enel disappeared from the hallway, and Viola was left there, clutching his coat as it was still wrapped around her tightly.
She closed her eyes as she told a silent prayer, hoping that everything would end well for her family...
Then she heard a large boom, and every window in the palace was broken instantly.
She quickly started running to find the rest of her family hoping to be able to get to them and form some type of force to fight Doflamingo's pirates.
She knew Enel was strong, but she didn't know if he would be able to deal with every soldier under Doflamingo all at once, so she was rushing to assist him as best she could.
Meanwhile, Doflamingo had been rushing to the castle, finally calming down his mind and spreading his observation haki as far as he could.
In that same instant, Enel had appeared in front of him, the Rear Admiral's gauntleted fist had already almost made contact with his face.
A sickening crunch was heard as the punch connected, Enel sending Doflamingo flying in a downward spiral.
But, even though he heard a crunch, Enel knew that he had barely done any damage.
Doflamigo was sent hurtling towards the ground, but he had managed to protect himself with Armament just in time, having used Observation at the right moment to sense Enel approaching.
Doflamingo didn't have future sight, so even though he could feel Enel's approach, he still couldn't react in time to that attack.
But spiritual energy moved much faster than Doflamingo's body, so armament was thankfully still useful to block Enel's attacks.
Enel had still managed to bend Doflamingo's nose in an odd shape with that punch, but Enel knew that such an injury didn't mean anything to someone like Doflamingo.
The warlord was quick to spin a few webs and broke his fall completely as he landed on his strings.
"Enel! Don't think you're going to make it out of this alive!" Doflamingo's threads quickly rushed at Enel, trying to entangle him and cut him to pieces.
Enel used Geppo, getting out of the way and arriving on a random building. The people below were panicking, but Enel didn't have the time to worry about them.
He would still avoid hitting anyone in the streets, he would also make sure that Doflamingo's attacks didn't bother anyone either.
There was also another annoying member of Doflamingo's crew.
"Young Master! Allow me to assist you!" An annoyingly high-pitched voice sounded from the side, Enel turned around to see Pica, one of Doflamingo's Elite Officers, about to dive into the earth.
Enel knew that Pica could control earth and stone, he also knew that Pica was annoying to fight and that he could cause a lot of collateral damage and endanger a lot of the people in Dressrosa.
So the Rear Admiral decided to act quickly in order to stop him.
Doflamingo's threads couldn't even catch his afterimage, as Enel appeared in front of Pica, much to the shock and horror of Doflamingo.
"PICA RUN!" The Warlord shouted as his threads did their best to catch up to Enel, but he wasn't close enough to reach Pica in time.
Pica wasn't exactly a pushover, he coated his entire body in Haki, preparing to receive a strike from Enel.
The cadre tried to continue getting into the ground, but it was already too late.
Enel simply pointed his finger at Pica's chest. "Heart Stopper..." He said as he tapped the Cadre's chest and sent an electric pulse into his body.
The electricity ignored Pica's haki, as it reached his heart directly and paralyzed it instantly. The giant cadre tried to clutch at his chest, but he couldn't.
He felt his muscles become numb in that split second, they weren't listening to him, and then his vision started becoming blurry.
"W-what...?" His voice became weaker with each syllable that came out of his mouth. The cadre collapsed to the ground in the very next second.
Although Enel had called the move 'Heart Stopper' it also fried the victim's brain, as Enel knew that some monsters in the world of One Piece could still survive with their hearts stopped for a few minutes.
"PICA!" Doflamingo shouted, finally he started using his awakened devil fruit. Threads arose from the streets as Doflamingo's anger got the better of him.
He had only been caught off guard for a few seconds, and one of his cadres was already on the ground.
Worst of all, he had no idea yet how Enel had managed to do it.
To him, and all of the people observing, Enel had just approached Pica, tapped him on the chest once, and then Pica seemed to try to clutch at his heart and collapsed.
Enel used Geppo, breaking away from the ground as threads arose from all around him, trying to entangle him and break him apart.
"Are you finally taking this seriously?" Enel said as he turned into a blur, appearing by Doflamnigo's side, this time, the warlord was expecting him though.
A cloak of thick and blackened threads blocked Enel's staff, creating sparks as the shockwave broke a few nearby buildings.
"Don't play with me!" Doflamingo said as he finally started releasing his Conquerer's haki towards his enemy.
Enel simply retreated for a bit and let the sensation wash over him.
'So this is it, huh? The willpower of the strongest people in this world...' Enel basked in that feeling as he then noticed something else.
'This doesn't feel like anything special...' His eyes flashed with light as he looked at Doflamingo's angered face.
"Conquerors Haki... If someone like you can do it, then so can I!" With a burst of willpower, Enel's aura spread out everywhere around him.
The second Enel's aura came into contact with Doflamingo's, lightning seemed to flicker into existence as the skies darkened and the world around them seemed to come to a stop.
Doflamingo's eyes were wide open, sweat was filling his brow as he took a step back. Startled or not, his will faltered for a second, and his concentration waned. And Enel took advantage of that split second.
Appearing in front of Doflamingo with a white spear already formed in his hand, turning black as Armament covered it. And a forward thrust was all that he needed.
Doflamingo didn't have any time to react, the only thing that had saved him was his instinct, and the fact that he already had his strings gathered around him.
Enel's spear came into contact with Doflamingo's blackened threads, as the Warlord shouted in desperation.
The exchange caused even more lightning to occur, it was as if space was breaking around them.
Doflamingo couldn't understand, he simply couldn't wrap his mind around it... Why did the marine in front of him suddenly have Conquerer's Haki?!
Doflamingo had never felt it from him before, he had no idea such a thing could even be possible.
Even worse than that... Why was it just as strong as his?
Enel noticed that he couldn't break through the threads. His newly acquired Conquerors Haki was also somewhat calming down, and he didn't quite have any mastery with it yet.
His Armament, although a lot stronger than a few weeks back, was still weaker than Doflamingos'. So, Enel was technically supposed to retreat at this point...
But he didn't want to do that.
He ignored the threads that were trying to pierce him in his back, he ignored the ones that were threatening to impale him.
Instead, his staff seemed to deform, completely warping around Doflamingo's string armour, as they sought to touch the warlord only once.
And Doflamingo didn't know that, by the time his mind calmed down and he could use Observation again, he was already almost entrapped in a blackened metallic sphere.
Doflamingo quickly sent as many threads through the gap that still existed in the sphere, hoping to break out of whatever Enel was planning to trap him into.
He was quick to follow them, jumping out through that gap without any hesitation, but as he was exiting, a tendril extended and grabbed his legs. He was about to break away from it...
But he then felt something else, His powers, the ones he placed so much trust into, faltered. A part of Enel's staff had finally come into contact with one of Doflamingo's legs.
Enel smiled, as the fight had ended in his mind.
And Doflamingo was slammed into the ground by that tendril, as his control over the environment disappeared completely, and all of the attacks coming towards Enel stopped completely.
Enel then formed something akin to a medieval man catcher, as he caught Doflamingo's neck in it.
The man catcher was a staff, fitted on one end with what seemed to be a wide collar with spikes pointing inward.
Currently, Enel forced Doflamingo to the ground using that staff, and the spikes were all puncturing into the warlord's neck as he screamed in pain.
Enel's staff had put Doflaminog out of commission, as Enel then stepped on the warlord's head with enough force to fragment the street underneath him.
Enel smiled for a good day's work, as he then caught the unconscious Doflamingo in a large sphere made out of his staff, leaving him there as he went on to hunt down the other cadres.
The rear admiral didn't even bother to look back at the man he had so swiftly dispatched. Even if he was to try and escape, Enel's observation was covering the entire island, Doflamingo had no chance.
Doflamingo's defeat was so sudden that he didn't even get to try using his strongest moves, he had just gotten serious when Enel had unlocked his Conquerers haki.
And the fight was over seconds afterwards.
But this was the exact reason why Enel had created his staff. To be able to end battles instantly without much issue.
All he needed was to catch his opponent off guard, a split second was more than enough. And then it's over.
And it worked like a charm, Enel had walked away from the battle uninjured, and Doflamingo was caught in a Seastone-laced ball.
The next thing Enel did was to arrive behind Sugar, who he knew was the key to getting everyone to hate Doflamingo. She was somewhere in the castle, hiding after hearing the commotion.
The 'little girl' didn't even get to react as Enel's staff left a dent in her head, taking her out of commission instantly.
Enel didn't feel Trebol anywhere nearby, so he assumed that the Elite Officer was likely away on a mission and continued on with his day while whistling in the palace corridors.
Enel then stopped for a bit and smiled, sensing something rather interesting with his haki.
'To think he'd get involved as well...'
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Hope you liked the chapter!
Didn't want to extend the fight too much without any reason, it could've been over in the palace halls if Enel just wrapped him in a seastone ball back then.
Sea stone is op af, expect Enel to use it in the future :))
Feeling a bit better today, forgot to thank everyone for getting me power stoned this week too.
very nice, big pp to everyone reading this right now
If u want to support me look up VeganMaster on Patre_on, you'd also get 10 chapters in advance (or 5 depending on tier)