I am the Bandit King of the East Sea.

Thinking of this, Katakuri suddenly stopped in his tracks.

Kaido and Big Mom had just arrived in Elbaf when Higuma showed up right after.

Is this really a coincidence?

Big Mom made a special trip to Elbaf, the land of giants, because Sieg had wiped out Caesar's laboratory. This made Big Mom feel a sense of urgency, and she prepared to arrange a marriage early to gain the power of the giants.

And Sieg probably got this clue from Caesar's words.

"If I'm not mistaken, Sigray Elbaf's goal is to deal with Mother. Attacking Caesar is just a means to force Mother to leave Whole Cake Island!"

"Sig wants to sabotage Lola's wedding. This is a very important matter, and we must inform Mom immediately!"

The thought had just crossed Katakuri's mind, but his conversation with Sig was slowly creeping back into his thoughts.

Sig wants to stop Lola's wedding... Should he really report it to the old lady?

This might be an opportunity, a chance to end Lola's arranged marriage and give her her freedom.

Katakuri alone is powerless to change Big Mom's decision.

But if it's Sieg...

Katakuri pondered for a moment before returning to the royal city to meet Big Mom.

"Katakuri, you're back? How's the investigation going?" The old woman raised her eyelids and glanced at Katakuri.

Five days of fasting have passed, and the woman has not yet shown signs of fatigue, although she has become slightly smaller than before after her frantic eating.

Katakuri lowered his eyelids and took out the old woman's Vivre Card from his pocket.

"That's right, that woman does indeed possess your life card, Mom."

"However, that man who calls himself the Sun Knight is no pushover. He's quite strong and not easy to deal with."

"Even you couldn't take him down?" The woman was slightly surprised, as she knew her son's capabilities.

“The Sun Knights have a good relationship with the Giants, and they live in the Warrior Village of Elbaf, near the Giant Warrior Pirates' camp. It wouldn't be appropriate to attack them rashly.” Katakuri's expression remained calm.

"Therefore, I think we should not create unnecessary complications at this time."

“…You have a point, so let’s do it that way.” The older woman seemed a little distracted. She rubbed her round belly, gently licked her lips, and muttered “caramel puff tower” to herself, seemingly not paying much attention to Katakuri.

She also had to participate in the fasting, making it inconvenient for her to take action, and Katakuri alone could not take down the Sun Knights and their group under the watchful eyes of the giants.

These are all trivial matters to the older woman.

A wedding, and a giant caramel puff tower, are what she truly desires.

...............................

Time passed quietly, but the sun still did not appear, and the world was shrouded in darkness, with the long night continuing.

The seventh day of the fast.

More than sixty years ago, on this very day, five-year-old Charlotte Linlin began her rampage.

But the older woman was in much better condition; she had made many preparations in advance.

By the seventh day, the woman's size had returned to normal, after previously being as large as a mountain of flesh.

Apart from that, she was normal, rational, and did not have any relapses; her only problem was that her craving for caramel puff pastry tarts grew stronger every day.

Day 8, Day 9, Day 10...

With each passing day, the woman's figure would become noticeably thinner.

On the 13th day, which was the day after the 12-day fast ended, the woman's door was pushed open.

"Hehe...ha...I really made it through."

A deep, slow voice came from inside the door.

Then came several heavy footsteps.

When Katakuri and the others saw what the old woman looked like, even they, as her sons, were greatly surprised.

The woman was still tall, nearly nine meters, but she had lost a lot of weight and her body proportions were now close to normal.

Her round belly deflated, and the excess fat on her cheeks disappeared, leaving only slightly drooping skin on both sides of her face.

There's a lot less fat, but the skin looks much looser and the wrinkles are more noticeable.

Although he had lost a lot of weight, the sense of oppression he gave off had not diminished at all; in fact, it was even more frightening.

only......

"Has Mom... gotten old?" This thought flashed through Katakuri's mind.

He vaguely felt that the woman at this moment seemed to bear a slight resemblance to the nun in the photograph that the woman treasured.

"Is it time for the wedding?" The woman's voice was low, and her eyes seemed to be faintly glowing with a scarlet light.

Upon closer inspection, it wasn't that the woman's eyes were glowing, but rather that the whites of her eyes were covered in blood vessels, making her entire eyeball appear large patches of scarlet.

She looked to be in very poor condition, even on the verge of collapse, but she still retained basic rationality.

The woman's unusual behavior only made her sons more afraid, since none of them knew if she might suddenly go crazy at any moment.

"The Giant King has already set up the wedding venue in the city square. It will be a city-wide celebration, and the wedding will be held in conjunction with the Winter Solstice Festival," Charlotte Owen quickly replied.

"However, the original plan was to hold the wedding at dawn, but it's still dark."

"How much longer?" The woman's voice suddenly rose a few octaves.

"Soon...soon." Irving wiped his sweat, glanced at his watch, and explained:

"According to the giants, the fasting days will last for 12 days. It's already 6 a.m. on the 13th day, and dawn will break soon."

"It's dawn?" The woman glanced eastward.

There seemed to be no sign of the sun appearing; the world remained dark, though a bright moon could still be seen in the west.

"This... there might be a slight error."

The speaker was a long-bearded giant, who explained:

"The polar night in Elbaf lasts about 12 days, which is a general rule. It may be an hour or two later or an hour or two earlier for the sun to rise, which is also normal."

However, the older woman's reaction was quite strong.

"Slower still? Isn't the time up? I've already passed my fast!" She took a deep breath, her bloodshot eyes glaring fiercely at the long-bearded giant before her.

The woman thought her fasting days were over and that she could finally relax after 12 days of tension, but then the other party told her that it wasn't time yet.

Being glared at by the old woman made the long-bearded giant feel inexplicably uneasy.

Not only him, but also Zeus the thundercloud, Prometheus the sun, and other Homies beside him showed fear, clearly realizing that the big woman was in bad shape.

"It won't be long. In my experience, at most two hours... no, one hour," the long-bearded giant guessed.

The old woman silently looked down at the giants before her, without uttering a word.

"Fine, then I'll keep waiting," she said indifferently.

Half an hour passed.

The sun still hadn't risen on time; instead, a bolt of lightning suddenly streaked across the sky, and raindrops began to fall from the heavens.

"It's raining?"

The giants looked up, but instead of the sun, they were greeted by rain.

Looking up at the sky, I realized that large cumulonimbus clouds had appeared sometime earlier, almost covering the entire sky, and it looked like the sun wouldn't be shining anytime soon.

"It's raining at this hour; it seems the wedding should be postponed a little longer," the Giant King muttered to himself.

Chapter 1193 Conqueror's Haki Entanglement 5k

Suddenly, dark clouds covered the earth, and raindrops fell heavily, landing on the wedding venue that the giants had already prepared.

Lola and Loki's wedding is to be held in conjunction with the Winter Solstice Festival celebrations.

Therefore, the wedding venue was not chosen in the Giant King's palace, but in the open square of the royal city, where they would celebrate with all the giants in the city.

Because it's outdoors, it wouldn't be good if the prepared snacks got wet from the rain.

Upon hearing the Giant King's words, Lola, the bride who had been keeping her head down, suddenly felt a glimmer of hope.

"Should the wedding be postponed?" She felt a little uneasy.

It was supposed to be her wedding, but she was never the main character at this wedding.

This was a blatant arranged marriage; the old woman was using her as a tool to contact the Elbaf giants, and she had no choice.

"If we could postpone it a little longer, Mom might go berserk. If the giants saw Mom like that, they might be able to cancel the wedding."

Beside the bride, Lola, her twin sister, Charlotte Chiffon, offered words of comfort.

Those who knew the woman well could tell that she was on the verge of losing control.

"Actually, Loki, the Giant Prince, might not be a bad person. After all, the giants of Elbaf are all honest and straightforward guys," Capone Bege chimed in, trying to comfort him.

"Look at me and your sister Qifeng, aren't we doing just fine?"

Capone Bege, one of the 11 Supernovas in the same class as Luffy.

This man was less a pirate and more a classic mafia godfather.

After the Marineford War, the Supernovas collectively stormed into the New World. Apart from a few like Luffy, Zoro, and Law who continued their training, the other newcomers without connections all crashed into the Four Emperors, suffering heavy losses.

Some were crippled, some were arrested and imprisoned, and some decisively surrendered when things turned bad... Becky can be said to be the one who fared the best among the Supernovas.

Instead of openly opposing the older woman, he became the son-in-law of the Charlotte family and has been thriving ever since; he's almost a father now.

Becky naturally had her own thoughts and wasn't truly submitting, but now was certainly not the time to rebel against Big Mom.

"What? The wedding has to be postponed?"

In the distance came the hysterical arguing of an old woman; she was arguing with the giant king about the wedding.

The giant king remained calm and did not get angry.

The old woman had clearly lost a lot of weight and her emotions were obviously off, indicating that the 12-day fast had had a huge impact on her. From the Giant King's perspective, this actually showed that the old woman was very sincere and genuinely wanted to inherit Sister Carmel's dream of a unified nation of all races.

"If you feel hungry, you can eat something beforehand; the fasting day is over," the Giant King said with a smile.