Susanoo

"Hiss!"

Doflamingo sucked in a sharp breath and hurriedly retreated at high speed. The pain of having flesh forcibly torn from his body was quite intense!

"Doffy!" Diamante cried out in shock. Again—he had been injured after only a brief exchange. Those strange eyes were even more terrifying than before; just one look made it feel as though his mind would be sucked in.

"Fufufu... What a bizarre ability. Could I be caught the moment our gazes met?" Doflamingo said with an excited grin. Strands of thread continuously emerged from his left hand, quickly wrapping around his bloodied arm.

"Yes. So how will you deal with it?" Carlos asked with a faint smile, his eyes fixed on Doflamingo's.

"Then I just won't look!" Doflamingo shut his eyes just as their gazes were about to meet and spoke coldly.

"You've already awakened Observation Haki?" Carlos asked curiously.

"You know about Observation Haki... You're quite knowledgeable. I only awakened it recently. I didn't expect it to come in handy so quickly."

"That's fine. This way, you won't be affected by my Mangekyo Sharingan, and we can have a proper fight," Carlos said indifferently. He did not need to rely solely on Illusion Techniques to fight.

At that moment, several Donquixote Family officers who had come to Loguetown also arrived. There were three of them: Trebol, Gladius, and Buffalo. Including Diamante, the Donquixote Family had sent five officers this time. Trebol and the other two surrounded Carlos.

"Hehehe... Aren't you going to rein in your subordinates?"

"They might get instantly killed by me, you know." Carlos shrugged and chuckled, not taking Trebol and the others seriously at all. If he got serious, he could kill any one of them in a single exchange!

"Stand down. This man isn't someone you can handle!"

"Go keep watch around the area. Watch for any movement from the Marines and Pirates!"

"Diamante, you too," Doflamingo ordered with his eyes closed and a solemn expression.

Although Trebol and the others were somewhat confused and unwilling, they had always obeyed Doflamingo's orders. They immediately withdrew and scattered in all directions to stand guard.

As for the ordinary civilians, they had long since fled. This was the outskirts of Loguetown, where there had not been many people to begin with.

With the irrelevant people gone, the two began fighting. Carlos made the first move. This time, he did not use Shave, instead charging straight at Doflamingo on foot.

Doflamingo stood where he was and used Bullet String again. The trajectory of the strings was crystal clear in Carlos's Mangekyo Sharingan. In a sense, Carlos with his Sharingan activated also possessed Observation Haki. If he activated the Byakugan as well, his version of Observation Haki would become even more complete.

Carlos's figure flickered unpredictably as he effortlessly dodged the Bullet Strings, then sent a flying kick at Doflamingo.

Tamashito!

Doflamingo took half a step back, eight transparent threads coiling around the pointed tip of his right shoe. He craftily kicked from the side. His Observation Haki had predicted Carlos's attack path, and he wanted to replicate Carlos's feat of injuring him in a single clash.

But Carlos was not so easy to calculate. To put it simply, he had predicted Doflamingo's prediction.

Carlos had only used seventy percent of his strength in that move to begin with. He changed his technique at the last instant, altered the trajectory of his leg, and brought his heel down through the air, crashing into Doflamingo's toe.

Boom... A thunderous blast rang out as shockwaves scattered, kicking up a cloud of dust. After one strike, the two swiftly changed moves and began a close-quarters battle.

Carlos was accustomed to fighting with claws and kicks. Due to his Devil Fruit ability, Doflamingo also liked using claws and kicks. Their methods of close combat were very similar.

Claw shadows and leg shadows flew everywhere. The surrounding walls and ground rapidly shattered, and the two were like human bulldozers, flattening everything in their path...

The longer Doflamingo fought, the more alarmed he became. The man before him was incredibly skilled with both claws and legs. Even after awakening Observation Haki, Doflamingo could not gain the slightest advantage. Instead, he was faintly beginning to fall into a disadvantage.

Carlos's leg techniques were balanced between offense and defense, simple and unadorned. His claw techniques were even more formidable—sharp, vicious, and endlessly variable. Once caught, it was difficult to break free. Those unpredictable, sinister grappling techniques put enormous pressure on Doflamingo; one careless mistake could leave his tendons snapped and bones broken...

Though the pressure was considerable, Doflamingo delightedly discovered that he could learn quite a lot from these claw and leg techniques.

Carlos was also quite pleased. Doflamingo truly deserved to become one of the Shichibukai in the future.

Though the man's claw and leg techniques lacked a systematic foundation, the skills he had honed through life-and-death battles since childhood were still excellent. Absorbing and incorporating them into his own claw and leg techniques would benefit the progress of his martial arts, so Carlos was patient enough to slowly copy them with his Mangekyo Sharingan.

Just as the two were fighting with great enthusiasm, the enormous commotion finally alerted the Marine branch. The Donquixote Family members hurriedly warned their Boss that the Marines had arrived.

"You go first and wait for me at the ship!"

Doflamingo was in the middle of the fight and spoke without opening his eyes. Pride still burned in his heart—how could he be willing to leave so easily?

All the Donquixote Family members nodded, then decisively departed without any hesitation. They believed in the strength of the king they had chosen.

The Marines could never hold their king back. At least, the Marines of mere Loguetown could not. Besides, Loguetown could not possibly dispatch all its forces here. The sea had already begun to descend into chaos.

Overheat!

Doflamingo pulled on two nearly transparent threads and rapidly retreated onto a ruined house. His right hand shot out a massive bundle of twisted, intertwined threads, which slashed downward at Carlos from above. The thread bundle extended over twenty meters, like a great blade chopping down!

Eagle Shatters the Sky!

Screech!

Carlos bent his legs slightly. The internal energy within him surged like a rushing river, flowing into his right hand. His eagle claw shone with golden light as though cast from gold itself. A piercing eagle cry rang out as he combined it with the Tempest Kick techniques of Rokushiki.

He had learned this from Garp during Garp, Sengoku, and Golden Lion's battle. Garp's Tempest Kick was terrifying, no weaker than the Sword Qi unleashed by Golden Lion.

A pale golden claw aura tore through the air with incomparable sharpness, colliding with the descending white threads and slicing them into several segments!

Tap, tap, tap...

Faintly, orderly footsteps could be heard approaching. However, neither Carlos nor Doflamingo paid them any attention, continuing their fight.

Previously, it had been close combat. Now, it became a mid-to-long-range battle. White threads leaped like pythons and dragons while claw auras flew everywhere with unrivaled sharpness. Fighting this way caused even greater destruction to the surroundings; destroying a house was simply effortless.

"Fire!"

Marines gathered from all directions, more than four hundred in total. Seeing the two fighting fiercely and having destroyed two or three streets, the Marine commander gave the order to attack without another word.

Bang, bang, bang...

More than four hundred guns fired at once, with roughly two hundred aimed at each man. Dense bullets shot through the air like rain, hurtling toward them.

Their battle temporarily stopped. Doflamingo moved both hands at once, leaving behind afterimages as countless threads formed a wall—a wall covered in spikes. Every incoming bullet was sliced cleanly in half.

Susanoo!

Carlos's thoughts stirred as he increased the release of his Pupil Power and used the signature technique of the Mangekyo Sharingan. Red energy erupted and rapidly condensed into a red skeleton that enveloped Carlos's entire body. All the bullets that struck the red skeleton were blocked.