At a United Nations video conference, political leaders from around the world had gathered to discuss how to respond to the mysterious supernatural beings. Then, without warning, disaster struck the entire world.
Faced with the sudden calamities sweeping the globe, the leaders had no time to continue discussing how to deal with the supernatural. They left the meeting one after another, summoning their countries' forces to fight the giant beasts and conduct rescue operations.
At that moment, anyone who turned on the TV would find one piece of bad news after another:
"A giant bird capable of controlling hurricanes has been spotted in the Gulf of Mexico, at 80 degrees west longitude and 26.1 degrees north latitude. It's approaching the United States at 70–75 meters per second and is expected to make landfall on Florida's east coast in three hours!"
"An unusually sharp drop in temperature in Norway! A giant ice beast has landed!"
"A massive sandstorm has appeared in the Middle East. A Desert Giant Python is suspected to be nearby!"
"Hanba has appeared in Africa! Several countries in central Africa are suffering an unprecedented drought!"
"Mount Vesuvius has erupted! Prehistoric dinosaurs are wreaking havoc!"
"Signs of a major earthquake? The legendary Earthquake Catfish has appeared in Japan!"
It seemed that in just a few hours, the world had suddenly plunged into an abyss, teetering on the brink of destruction.
But before long, the bewildered and helpless people would discover that not all the news was bad.
After all, humanity's will to survive in the face of disaster was astonishingly strong!
More importantly, as people organized their forces to fight and evacuate, they discovered that some humans possessed supernatural powers!
That's right: the Reincarnators were the very beings people had mistaken for supernatural visitors from another world. Humanity assumed that the Reincarnators who had arrived in this world were elite units secretly trained by the governments of various countries!
After all, movies and TV shows were full of speculation that every country had its own mysterious supernatural forces—secret families, werewolves and vampires, biological weapons divisions, and so on.
Now, fantasy had become reality. We humans had supernatural powers too! We weren't completely helpless against the monsters!
Although the leaders of the human governments knew nothing about where the Reincarnators had come from, they tacitly refrained from confirming or denying the rumors, letting them spread instead. In times like these, humanity desperately needed hope!
On the outskirts of Yokohama, in the Kanto region of Japan.
Doflamingo stood atop a tall building, watching the Japanese ground forces take up defensive positions.
In the distant woods ahead, a colossal catfish-like beast swam through the earth. Half its back protruded above the surface, while the rest of its body was mysteriously hidden underground.
It moved through the soil as effortlessly as if it were swimming through water. Wherever it passed, the land became a wasteland, as though an earthquake had struck. Its two whiskers waved wildly in the air. From a distance, it looked like a moving mountain.
"Open fire!"
Only highly mobile infantry from Japan's Self-Defense Forces were on site, and they were equipped with nothing more than light weapons. Armored units and other main combat forces obviously couldn't arrive in time.
Dozens of helicopters fired from the sky while thousands of infantrymen coordinated their attacks on the ground. Crossfire from the air and land blanketed the Earthquake Catfish's path with a dense barrage of shells.
Yet humanity's modern weapons seemed utterly powerless against a third-tier supernatural behemoth.
Every shell that struck the Earthquake Catfish vanished into it like a stone sinking into the sea!
Large-caliber shells could explode against its body, but the Earthquake Catfish was a Calamity Behemoth, an embodiment of natural disaster and a special life-form made of energy, not flesh and blood.
If it were made of flesh and blood, then no matter how enormous it was, it might still have been unable to survive the full force of humanity's firepower.
But it was a Calamity Behemoth with a special form, making humanity's overwhelming physical attacks futile.
Watching the humans' firepower, Doflamingo pursed his lips in surprise.
"Pretty impressive firepower! Too bad pure physical attacks are meaningless against this kind of monster until they reach a whole new level!"
Doflamingo glanced at the helicopters overhead, his eyes showing interest. But he didn't act right away. Only after the Japanese forces had tried every available weapon and failed did he leisurely use his Devil Fruit power to walk through the air and move in front of the giant catfish's path.
"Look, there's someone over there!"
The military naturally spotted Doflamingo. Seeing that he seemed intent on stopping the beast, and noticing that he was three meters tall and capable of flying, they recognized him as a supernatural being and carefully kept their fire away from him.
"A third-tier, mid-level Calamity Behemoth. An incarnation of earthquakes?"
Doflamingo grinned. "Now I'm getting excited. A giant beast like this has to be worth at least two B-rank bonus missions and ten thousand points."
"Devil Fruit Awakening!"
Facing a Calamity Behemoth of equal rank, Doflamingo held nothing back. He immediately activated his Devil Fruit Awakening.
The entire area around the Calamity Behemoth transformed into a world of white strings.
For the first time, the Earthquake Catfish, which had been moving by controlling the earth, stopped. It realized that it could no longer move forward by manipulating the ground! Ahead lay a vast, boundless white landscape made entirely of fine strings, like an endless expanse of snow.
"Roar!"
The giant catfish let out an enormous roar. Invisible sound waves spread from its mouth.
Like a typhoon sweeping through, the deafening noise and powerful gusts battered the ground and buildings made of white strings, making them shake violently. But they held firm.
The soldiers in the distance weren't so lucky. As the sound waves hit, everyone clutched their ears and collapsed in pain. Quite a few had blood streaming from their ears.
[Too many civilian deaths will affect mission evaluation.]
A cold prompt rang out in Doflamingo's mind.
"What a pain. Is this what they call the gods' compassion for humanity?"
Doflamingo didn't think much of it, but he didn't stand by and do nothing either.
He raised his left index finger slightly. Countless white strings infused with Haki gathered together, forming a hemispherical shield in front of the ground forces.
"The weak really can't control their own deaths."
Doflamingo sighed. But before he could say anything more, the giant catfish in the distance made another move.
The half-exposed beast let out a strange cry. Its enormous body slowly sank, disappearing underground!
Doflamingo's expression didn't change. His Observation Haki sensed the beast speeding toward them from thousands of meters below.
"It's underground! Scatter! Anyone who doesn't want to die, get the hell away from the battlefield!"
Doflamingo shouted down at the soldiers.
Fortunately, the Reincarnator Assistant had thoughtfully exchanged for fluency in all languages automatically, so the soldiers on the ground understood his message clearly.
After a brief discussion, they quickly regrouped and began an orderly retreat.
But the beast was moving too fast to give them time to retreat calmly.
The Japanese Self-Defense Forces had only made it halfway when the beast reached them and burst straight out of the ground!
"Damn it!"
Doflamingo soared above the troops and threw his arms wide. Countless white strings surged out like a giant net, binding all several thousand soldiers and yanking them into the air.
At the same time, a huge, plump fish head smashed through the white strings making up the ground. The Earthquake Catfish's gaping jaws snapped toward the people being hauled into the air, like a crocodile pouncing on its prey!
"Ah!"
"Help!"
Even soldiers could do little but scream for help when confronted by a terrifying, unnatural beast!
Doflamingo looked down on the weak, but he wouldn't let these people die for nothing and hurt his mission score.
He unleashed his Devil Fruit power. The white strings binding the soldiers tightened and rapidly hauled them toward the city several kilometers away. When they landed, he thoughtfully formed a safety net to cushion their fall, keeping the ordinary soldiers from being killed by the impact.
Meanwhile, countless white strings surged from the ground, forming a vast white wave that rushed toward the enormous catfish.
The giant catfish casually swung its tail. Countless rocks and clods of earth surged up, forming huge, bullet-shaped projectiles that counterattacked the white wave!
"This beast can learn, too!"
The Earthquake Catfish had evidently learned from the humans' artillery attack. Doflamingo didn't dare let his guard down. He used his Devil Fruit power to wear down the catfish's rocky projectiles.
But the catfish seemed tireless. It kept controlling the rocks, forming endless missiles and a vast, exaggerated barrier that steadily wore down the white strings.
Doflamingo's expression turned grim. He knew that he was clearly losing this battle of attrition.
The monster seemed to control rocks and soil by instinct. He might be using his own power instinctively, too, but it still cost him stamina! And judging by their sizes, he wasn't arrogant enough to think he could outlast the beast.
So Doflamingo descended to the ground. His Devil Fruit power activated, and white strings spread from beneath his feet toward the Earthquake Catfish. But within a hundred meters of the beast, they couldn't advance or transform the ground. It was as if the catfish had a domain that let it control the surrounding earth.
That was exactly what was happening. As the embodiment of earthquakes, the Earthquake Catfish could control vast quantities of soil and rock—and create earthquakes with ease!
The barely sapient creature was just playing around for now. If it got serious, it would be far more terrifying!
Doflamingo could no longer make progress with his Devil Fruit power, so he stopped trying to transform the terrain and launched a wide-area attack instead.
"Sea of White Waves!"
All the ground surrounding the catfish, except for the hundred-meter radius immediately around it, turned into an ocean of white strings. The catfish stood alone like an island in the white sea, facing the raging waves.
But even as the white strings surged over its body, the beast remained unmoved.
As the strings piled up and tightened around it, the Earthquake Catfish simply let out a mighty cry. There seemed to be a hint of excitement in it.
Then its whole body gave a strange, gentle shudder. Every string covering it shuddered in unison, and then shook more and more violently until all the white strings crumbled to dust!
"What is that?!"
Doflamingo's pupils contracted sharply behind his heart-shaped sunglasses.
"That vibration... It's just like that man's Tremor-Tremor Fruit!"
That wasn't all. The invisible shockwave broke free of the strings and rushed straight toward Doflamingo.
"Shield White!"
Countless white strings surged from the ground and formed a huge shield to protect Doflamingo.
Under the strange seismic attack, the white shield shook violently. Even the ground beneath Doflamingo trembled as though an earthquake had struck.
At that moment, the earthquake hit!
Under the Earthquake Catfish's seismic attack, all the surrounding buildings and woods fell within the wave's range of destruction.
In an instant, the earth shook and the mountains trembled. The entire area within several kilometers was left in ruins!
Yet after unleashing the attack, the Earthquake Catfish grew even more excited. It danced gleefully across the ground, and with every movement, the earth shook more violently.
The earth groaned. The ground split open. Several enormous fissures stretched for kilometers, nearly reaching Yokohama in the distance.
As another earthquake wave spread from the catfish's movements, destroying every building in its path, Doflamingo could do nothing to stop it. That was when the other Reincarnators arrived!
Along the path of the seismic wave, the ground suddenly bulged upward. A broad swath of flat earth rose dozens of meters into the air, forming a small mountain!
"Rumble!"
The earth shook and the mountains trembled. The sheer force of the invisible seismic wave soon left the sheer cliff face tottering. Just then, a pair of hands gently braced against the mountaintop!
"Earth Release: Earth Moving Core!"
Soil and rocks from several kilometers around surged toward the spot without end, forming a mountain that continued to grow. At the same time, enormous amounts of Chakra plunged deep into the earth, forcibly dissipating the terrifying seismic wave right there!
A big-nosed man in a red shinobi outfit, with an Iwagakure Forehead Protector on his head, stood up, panting heavily.
It was Kitsuchi, an elite jōnin of Iwagakure!
"Fufufufu, I wondered who it was. So it's you, the guy who uses earth techniques!"
Doflamingo suppressed his anger. If the Reincarnation mission didn't forbid Reincarnators from killing one another, he would have attacked Kitsuchi already!
After all, the man standing before him was one of the culprits who had ruined his Nation-Stealing Plan and gotten him stripped of his Shichibukai title!
Kitsuchi folded his arms and took the opportunity to recover his Chakra. Then he spoke softly.
"Doflamingo, you're a Reincarnator now, too. You should know how important these missions are."
"Fufufufu, then why do you think you're still standing in front of me?"
Kitsuchi was about to say more when he suddenly formed Hand Seals. He pressed both palms down against the ground and, using the tool on his wrist—the Earth-Walking Bracers—quickly unleashed a powerful earth-style ninjutsu.
"Earth Release: Earth Mountain Technique!"
The ground beside the Earthquake Catfish surged upward, sending countless rocks into the air. They formed two hemispheres hundreds of meters across, which clamped together around the nearly hundred-meter-long beast like a sandwich.
The moment the Earthquake Catfish was restrained, a figure surrounded by blue lightning appeared above it.
Dazzling blue energy surrounded him as he descended like the God of Thunder, wielding the power of life and death and bringing thunder with every movement! His right fist, carrying the force of Thunderous Might, slammed into the Earthquake Catfish's head.
In that instant, his fist shot out and thunder roared!
Before you continue