Nika defied all reason

"Doom! Da! Da! Dong!!"

"Doom! Da! Da! Dong!!"

The Drums of Liberation resounded throughout the ruined heart of Future Science Island, their rhythm growing ever more joyous, ever more exuberant. This hardly seemed like a brutal battle on the brink of death. It felt more like a grand farce directed by an absurd god.

Straw Hat Luffy, transformed into his pure-white "Nika" form, hung in midair with his body twisted into a pose that utterly defied human anatomy. His hands rested on his hips, his enormous eyes nearly popped from their sockets with the force of his laughter, and his blazing-white, sacred hair tossed wildly like immaculate clouds in the smoke-filled sea breeze.

"Hahahaha! This is so much fun! So much fun!!"

Luffy laughed almost hysterically as his feet stepped through empty air. Yet, bizarrely, every patch of air beneath his feet—and even the collapsing alloy buildings and reinforced concrete around him—was instantly endowed with the "absolute rubberization" of Devil Fruit Awakening!

In an instant, the entire ruined battlefield became a gigantic, springy white trampoline!

But facing him was one of the deadliest lineups on these seas.

"Roooar—!"

With a terrifying roar that sounded capable of biting through the earth's crust, the towering sandworm, Agriculture Warrior God Saint Pitt, burst out of the ruins a thousand meters underground. His immense body dwarfed even the largest Sea Kings.

His enormous, abyssal maw opened wide, lined with tens of thousands of sharp teeth. Foul-smelling, highly corrosive black slime streamed within it.

The sandworm's mountain-sized body twisted violently through the air, whipping up a sandstorm that tore through space. With the relentless force of something bent on swallowing the entire planet, he savagely plunged his jaws toward Luffy's white rubber domain!

Above them, the refraction of light had reached its utmost limit.

Forced