On the arena floor, a deathly silence fell.
In that silence, Shanks's pupils suddenly contracted.
Blackbeard's expression turned grave at the same instant.
What shocked them was not Doflamingo's fall.
In fact, from the moment Doflamingo had aimed those sixteen towering white waves at the highest viewing box,
they had known he was as good as dead.
To attack that man
was to sign one's own death warrant.
What shocked them was how casually Scarlet had acted, both times.
The first time,
she had merely raised her slender, fair hand.
The sixteen waves, each powerful enough to lay waste to everything in its path, had struck an invisible barrier before her hand and collapsed.
They had not even stirred a breeze.
Shanks's breath caught.
Leaning on the hilt of his sword, he fixed his blurred eyes on the slender figure in the viewing box.
He could have blocked that attack.
But never with Scarlet's effortless ease.
The second time,
she had simply swept that hand down.
And so a pirate who had once ruled a stretch of sea, the current head of the Donquixote Family, a longtime subordinate who had followed Ross for twenty years,
was split in two from head to toe.
She had not even looked down when she delivered the blow.
Her gaze had remained forward, her expression composed, her voice steady.
She had been announcing the names of those advancing to the quarterfinals. Then she had flicked her hand.
As though brushing a speck of dust from a page in the middle of reading it aloud.
Then she had gone on reading.
That indifference was more chilling than her strength.
A chill crept up Shanks's spine.
Doflamingo had followed Ross for twenty years.
For twenty years, he had carried out Ross's orders, killed for Ross, played