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Puff!
As the light shield fractured, Poseidon, far away in the New World, let out continuous screams, vomiting mouthful after mouthful of blood. She endured the agony of the virus eroding her body, her eyes filled with ferocity and killing intent.
"Bastard!!!"
All of a sudden, Poseidon threw back her head and let out a deafening roar of fury.
At the same time, atop the ruined Temple in the Palace of Heaven, the light shield suddenly expanded. From merely covering the temple ruins, it swelled until it completely enveloped the entire floating island.
Buzz!!
The enlarged light shield was like an indestructible wall. In an instant, it blasted Im away. Simultaneously, an invisible force spread outward, causing Rowen and the black shadows surrounding him to freeze mid-motion before all of them plummeted toward the sea.
"This is… the power of Seastone?!"
Sensing the lightning vanish from within his body, Rowen endured the bone-aching weakness and forcefully stamped his foot, stabilizing himself in midair.
Then, he nodded silently.
"That's right… If Imu's Devil Fruit weren't restrained by her, he would have seized this power long ago. There'd be no need to wait until today."
The so-called return of God, both the thing returned and the path of return, were nothing more than a trick to deceive the Celestial Dragons. Imu's true intention had been to stall for time and seize control of the world in the process.
Seastone was naturally opposed to Devil Fruits. If Imu had truly held every advantage, things back then would never have ended with mere sealing.
In other words, for eight hundred years, Imu had been completely unable to do anything to her. Only by relying on certain opportunities could he hope to break through the barrier-like defenses outside the temple.
And that opportunity…
"She swapped souls with Shirahoshi. She escaped her confinement, but in doing so gained a fatal weakness, a physical body! And the glow we just saw… that must mean she's been injured?"
What was obvious to Imu required Rowen to piece together through deduction.
Fortunately, he realized it in time.
Even Rowen had lost his Devil Fruit abilities, those black shadows were in an even worse state. One after another, the black figures were like fish out of water, limbs hanging limply as they smashed through the clouds and continued falling.
Before long, the suppressive wave that nullified their Devil Fruit powers suddenly vanished, and lightning returned to Rowen's body.
"Cough cough… not enough!"
"But she won't be able to hold on much longer either!"
Imu, being the closest, had suffered the greatest damage. Hunched over, he shakily stood up like a truly decrepit old man at death's door.
Watching the light shield shrink again and re-wrap the temple, a flash of anger passed through his eyes. Then he suddenly turned around, thrusting a mass of Black Mist Pirates behind him.
Stab!
Creak…!
The jet-black heavy halberd stabbed through without mercy. Terrifying gravitational force dragged the tip of the thunder halberd sideways, preventing it from drawing closer.
Dark Vortex!
The stalemate didn't last long. The hand Imu had kept free suddenly became shrouded in Black Mist Pirates, rapidly forming a heart-stopping vortex of darkness.
As the most ferocious Devil Fruit in history, the most distinctive trait of the Dark-Dark Fruit was its ability to temporarily suppress other ability users' powers.
This wasn't erosion, but suppression, different from Rowen's Eye of Heaven. It wasn't an Awakening-level assimilation effect.
The sudden loss of strength caused Rowen's torso to pitch forward, sending him straight toward Im. But at that moment, two silvery flashes shot out and sank into Im's palm.
Pū chī…
Blood sprayed everywhere!
"Ah!!"
Imu let out a shrill scream as the power in his hand instantly collapsed. Clearly, even Imu could not avoid the Dark-Dark Fruit's double pain effect.
"Hah!"
The instant the gravitational pull vanished, Rowen struck. The jet-black heavy halberd, empowered by lightning, drew a brilliant blue arc as it sliced across Im's arm.
Creak…!
"Tch, didn't sever it?"
Feeling the sticky resistance transmitted back through the thunder halberd, Rowen decisively withdrew and kicked Im square in the stomach, sending him flying.
Kā cā… boom!
Raising his left arm, a series of mechanical clicks sounded as the Seastone needle wrist-crossbow finished reloading, primed and ready.
"You Bastard!!!"
Imu staggered through the air for several hundred meters before stopping. He clutched his right shoulder with his left hand. A terrifying gash tore through flesh and the sleeve of his robe, exposing stark white bone.
At the same time, two Seastone needles were embedded in his right palm, piercing clean through to the back of his hand.
A body so sturdy that even Deep Gate to the head couldn't deal heavy damage wouldn't normally be harmed by the mere penetrating power of wrist-fired bolts.
But the problem was that he had just used Dark Vortex…
As everyone knew, the Dark-Dark Fruit's gravitational pull was area-based, not limited to a single target.
Under the double acceleration of the wrist-crossbow's launch and the gravitational attraction, the supposedly indestructible Seastone needles erupted with terrifying speed, successfully punching through his palm.
Bang… Rumble!!
At that moment, a powerful shockwave surged up from below. Even though they were high in the sky, it still created a dizzying sensation like an earthquake.
Rowen swept his thunder halberd horizontally, then thrust it downward with force, piercing straight through the Tremor-Tremor Fruit attack.
His eyes immediately burst with blue lightning. The Eye of Heaven opened, and amid deafening thunder, it shattered the flames and frost that followed close behind.
Next, the Vampire Fruit shadow flapped its wings and lunged forward. A mass of Black Mist Pirates, different from the Dark-Dark Fruit's darkness, coiled around its body and transformed into countless sharp spikes that shot outward.
The last time he had faced Patrick Redfield, this very move had nearly driven him into a dead end.
Dīng Dīng Dāng Dāng!
But now, Rowen's expression remained calm. He whirled the thunder halberd, defending flawlessly, flicking away the black spikes one by one.
At the same time, he suddenly raised his hand and slammed a blinding lightning storm toward the cloud homies. The kilometer-long cloud-dragon vortex instantly turned from blue-gray to pitch black. Terrifying currents ravaged the Soul-Soul Fruit power within, blasting apart the clouds' assimilation.
Outnumbered, but unmistakably holding the upper hand!
Then, with an angry shout, Rowen cast aside the half-dead cloud homies. The assimilated portion of dark clouds suddenly exploded, and a thunderous auspicious beast appeared high in the sky, raising its head and roaring toward the heavens.
Thunder Cloud · Qilin!
Boom…!!!
Caught completely off guard, the Dream Fruit shadow and the Fuwa Fuwa no Mi (Float-Float Fruit) shadow that followed behind were bitten directly by the Qilin. Exploding thunderlight tore through them, drawing horrifying screams as they were blasted far away.
"That's it?!!"
After doing all this, Rowen rested the thunder halberd behind him with one hand and sneered contemptuously. His cold, sharp gaze swept across the battlefield, radiating unrestrained dominance.
"You think these defeated underlings can kill me?!"
"Lord Imu, have you gone senile?"
Hearing this, Imu's expression in the distance turned utterly grim.
He had indeed been thinking too simply. These six, combined with the Dark-Dark Fruit under his own control, meant seven Devil Fruit abilities, all no weaker than their original.
Even if Rowen could kill any one of them in a one-on-one fight, adding all seven together should have been more than enough to counterkill him.
By conventional logic, that was absolutely correct.
But in the end, Imu had underestimated Rowen's understanding of these Devil Fruit abilities, and the Soryu (Azure Dragon)'s most famous trait of all: battlefield control.
Rowen had specifically countered each black shadow's Devil Fruit ability, using his strengths to strike their weaknesses.
As for the Dark-Dark Fruit, there was no need to mention it, two Seastone needles were still embedded in Imu's hand. His sturdy body had locked them tightly in his muscles, and he hadn't even had time to recover enough to pull them out.
The Tremor-Tremor Fruit looked overwhelmingly powerful, but Rowen had precisely seized upon its weakness, its power lacked sufficient concentration.
A weakness that wouldn't count as one to ordinary people became glaringly obvious before an ability like the Goro Goro no Mi (Thunder Thunder Fruit), which could continuously compress its power. A point shattered the surface.
The Yamata no Orochi was the opposite extreme, its power was sufficiently dispersed, immune to being broken point-by-point. However, it couldn't withstand the fact that Rowen possessed an even more powerful wide-range attack: the Eye of Heaven.
The Dream Fruit belonged to the realm of mental attacks and provided no enhancement to physical combat. The Fuwa Fuwa no Mi (Float-Float Fruit) was similar, its offense relied heavily on external objects. But high in the sky, it had nothing to control, forcing it to summon sea-lion constructs from the ocean below, far too slow.
Thus, Rowen used his top-tier Awakening power to forcibly assimilate part of the cloud homies created by the Soul-Soul Fruit, forming the terrifying Thunder Qilin, and blasted the two of them far away.
And the one Imu had placed the greatest hopes in, the Vampire Fruit…
Imu couldn't help but frown.
"Is mind-reading the real key?"
Back then, Patrick Redfield had relied on that very ability to push Rowen into a desperate situation, giving Imu a glimpse of how Rowen might be dealt with.
However, without Patrick Redfield's foresight gained from reading thoughts, mere concealment with Black Mist Pirates was clearly useless against Rowen.
"This… Monster!"
Staring at the thunderlight standing proudly at the center of the encirclement, Imu bit down and yanked out the Seastone needles with his teeth, roaring:
"Attack!!"
Yet deep in his heart, a premonition arose; the contingencies he had prepared were far from enough.
(End of Chapter)
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