In that flash of a mont, Jinbei made the most rational move.
With a sudden explosion of power, his right fist surged forward, blasting toward the thread on Doflamingo's left claw. At the sa ti, using the recoil from the blow, his elbow shot upward to intercept the incoming right claw aid at his head.
This way, no matter how Doflamingo's twin attacks changed, Jinbei could deflect them both as best as possible, minimizing any potential injury.
Simultaneously, riding the montum from his earlier parry, Jinbei swung his left fist downward in a vicious arc.
The sheer force of this blow surpassed even the right by over fifty percent, crashing down toward Doflamingo's sweeping left leg.
Jinbei's strategy was clear: use the recoil from this strike to create distance, then launch a powerful area-based attack to overwhelm finesse with brute strength—compensating for his own disadvantage in flexibility compared to the ever-shifting threads.
But unexpectedly, when the punch landed, it felt like punching into cotton—there was no impact at all!
Not only did the expected counterforce vanish, it even threw off Jinbei's form.
He staggered, nearly face-planting on the ground.
And the elbow strike from earlier? It missed its mark entirely.
With a sinister laugh, Doflamingo's thread on his left claw abruptly extended again—this ti, finally striking toward the top of Jinbei's skull!
Jinbei felt a sharp chill crawl across his scalp as the desperate realization hit: I'm about to get my skull pierced!
In the critical mont, he surged his Armant Haki—without restraint—toward the top of his head, forming a powerful helt of hardened Haki to protect his vital point.
Screech—!
A piercing sound rang out.
Jinbei felt a jarring shock on his scalp—the Haki-ford helt was being shredded by the thread!
Fortunately, the thread's energy was depleted in the process and dissipated entirely.
Cold sweat poured down his back, but he had—at last—barely escaped death from Doflamingo's endless dirty tricks.
As he quickly retreated, Jinbei thought to himself: This guy's special status clearly isn't just from being a Celestial Dragon's descendant—he's genuinely got so frightening skills of his own!
This mixture of feints and unpredictability—it's practically impossible to defend against!
But if, as Lord Roya says, Haki and Devil Fruit powers are simply different manifestations of energy, then what if I try simulating threads using Armant Haki? Fight flexibility with flexibility...
At that thought, Jinbei suddenly spread his hands wide, ten fingers flaring.
Ten streaks of Armant Haki extended from his fingertips—reaching barely an inch beyond them.
Controlling Armant Haki this way... it's really hard!
He felt a pang of frustration—barely an inch of reach, and certainly nowhere near as fluid or versatile as actual threads.
But even this attempt was enough to leave Doflamingo utterly stunned.
He froze mid-pursuit and exclaid in disbelief:
"You can shape Armant Haki during external projection?!"
What Jinbei had just done far exceeded common understanding of Armant Haki.
Yes, external projection was known—but typically it exploded out like a volcanic blast, forming barriers or shockwaves.
But projecting it like thread—this fine, this focused? This was a first.
Even if Jinbei hadn't succeeded completely, the very act shook Doflamingo's beliefs to their core.
In that instant, Doflamingo realized—this might've been Jinbei's first ti even trying it.
And if given a few more attempts... he might actually replicate the abilities of my String-String Fruit!
A sudden revelation hit him: this must be the foundation of Roya's mysterious ability to replicate others' techniques.
He looked again at Roya, still standing there, calm and indifferent—and panic began to grip his heart.
His body trembled... and suddenly unraveled into a long, nearly invisible thread, surging toward a crack in the ceiling.
Roya snorted coldly.
"You ca all this way, and now you want to leave?"
"Even if I let you go... do you really think Kong will forgive you for failing your mission?"
The thread, already halfway into the wall, suddenly trembled—caught by an unseen force pulling it back from the tip. It couldn't advance a single inch more.
Dragged back by an invisible hand, it slamd to the ground and reford into Doflamingo's body once again.
Roya continued coldly:
"You thought I didn't know that Kong sent you to stall for ti?"
"You thought I didn't know your real body was racing to relocate the artificial Devil Fruit production line?"
"You wondered why I hadn't acted yet?"
The puppet—his String Clone—was trembling violently, mirroring Doflamingo's rising terror with perfect accuracy.
Because, far away in another part of the base, the real Doflamingo—who was overseeing the relocation of the production line—suddenly realized sothing horrifying:
His connection to the string clone was becoming... eerily tighter.
His real body was starting to turn into thread—without his control!
Thread transformation of the body was supposed to be part of his next-stage evolution. But now it was happening on its own—without cause or warning.
There wasn't a shred of excitent. Only overwhelming dread.
Every single thread his body had turned into... was out of his control.
Every ergency failsafe he'd prepared—all the threads hidden across the base—were now acting on their own.
He could still feel them—they were still connected to him—but sohow, Roya had taken complete control over them through ans Doflamingo couldn't even comprehend!
At last, Doflamingo realized—he had never even scratched the surface of Roya's true power.
And now, it was far too late for regrets.
Within his senses, all of his threads suddenly began to move.
They weaved in complex, precise patterns—lightning-fast, impossibly ordered.
Seconds later, they stopped.
And what Doflamingo sensed next made his heart collapse.
Every one of his subordinates... every staff mber in the secret base...
Sliced to pieces.
The research facility—the culmination of years of toil from elite scientific minds—was reduced to shreds.
The artificial Devil Fruit production line, annihilated.
The experintal data, reduced to ash.
Personnel, machinery, knowledge—all gone in the blink of an eye.
The results of years of investnts, all wiped out.
But there wasn't even ti for grief or rage.
Because his real body had now been completely absorbed into the String Clone.
Ever since developing the String Clone technique, Doflamingo—paranoid to the core—had never allowed his true body to appear before anyone other than a few trusted insiders.
But now, that very clone... had turned into a prison, entrapping him fully before Roya.
Roya gazed at the frantically struggling string inside the puppet—slamming about, trying and failing to escape.
With a sneer, he said:
"And you dare to proclaim you'll be king of the world… looking like this?"
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