As the Sandworm convulsed in its death throes—its massive body splitting apart and collapsing—Darren's speed surged to its absolute limit.
Haki lightning crackled around his three-fingered Dragon Claw. A brilliant tail of light flared behind him like a shooting star, etching dreamlike streaks across the void. The sheer pressure rolling off him warped the air into shimmering distortions.
"Damn it!"
"Stop him—now!"
"Too late!"
…
The Gorosei's pupils tightened as their voices broke with urgency.
But aside from Saint Peter, already gone beneath the ground, none of them— not even Saint Nusjuro, the fastest among the five—could match Darren's pace. They could only watch as he moved faster than naked eyes could track, closing the final distance to Figarland Garling.
"Die!" Garling bellowed, swinging his sword in a furious arc.
Darren barreled in with a savage grin, his Dragon Claw carrying an all-consuming force.
"Griffin: Divine Reception!"
"Magnetic Field Rotation: Dragon's Breath!"
In the next instant—
A colossal griffin seemed to roar, wings thrashing in a storm of wind, while a frigid dragon surged forward in unrestrained fury.
Two titanic torrents of power collided midair. Three-fingered talons and the Griffin Blade met with a deafening, world-shaking crash.
For a heartbeat, everything froze.
Then—centered on Darren and Garling—twin waves of crimson and violet erupted at the same time, slamming into each other, grinding, intertwining, devouring.
"You think you can kill me?!" Garling snarled. Blood threaded from the corner of his mouth, yet he threw his head back and laughed—wild, unrestrained. The shockwave tore through his crescent-shaped hair, crimson strands whipping like a banner as arrogance radiated off him.
"I am…"
He locked on to the black-haired youth before him, eyes blazing as he roared,
"The Strongest Celestial Dragon—"
"That kind of trash?" Darren cut him off with a booming laugh.
In Garling's narrowing pupils, twisted blue lightning coiled around Darren's arm, carrying a rotational force that felt almost impossible to comprehend. The muscles in Darren's right arm swelled like molten rock, flesh tightening and winding beneath the skin like a living dragon. Garling could hear it—blood roaring through veins like surf in a storm.
This is—
A terror Garling hadn't felt in years slammed into him without warning. Every pore on his body prickled. Cold sweat crawled down his spine.
For a split second, staring at that figure wrapped in blue lightning—black hair whipping like a demon god's—Garling's vision wavered. The plaza vanished, replaced by an image burned into his bones: that earth-shattering battle from the past.
The one that had crowned him king among the Celestial Dragons.
And the one that—unknown to most—had brought him closest to death.
That suffocating pressure. That blazing, deranged ambition.
Darren made one name surface in his mind like a curse:
Rocks D. Xebec!
"I already tore one of you apart!" Darren roared, a chill grin spreading as his aura flared again.
He drove a punch forward.
Crack! Crack!
Fissures exploded across the Griffin Blade, spiderwebbing over its surface and spreading in an instant.
Garling's pupils shrank to pinpricks. His heart seemed to stop.
"Die!"
The next instant—
Shatter!
The Griffin Blade—the symbol of the King of God Valley's glory—burst apart under Darren's strike, detonating into a storm of fragments.
Steel turned to shrapnel.
The hilt, stamped with the griffin crest, was crushed into dust.
And before the Gorosei's violently trembling eyes—
Garling's sword arm began to come apart, piece by piece, under Darren's onslaught.
A gloved hand. A slender forearm. A stronger upper arm. The shoulder—
Nothing held. Not Haki. Not flesh. Not bone.
Darren's Dragon Claw tore through everything with unstoppable force.
The most terrifying part was the speed. Garling had no time to react, no time to retreat—only enough time to watch as his entire arm was blasted into bloody mist, and death closed in on his heart.
This… is a strike that pierces the soul.
"No…"
For the first time, fear flickered in Figarland Garling's eyes.
He had assessed Darren's strength from intelligence reports before the battle. He had calculated. He had prepared himself.
But he had never imagined that Rogers Darren at full power could be this overwhelming.
Strength. Speed. Physique. Defense. Explosive power. Haki.
A complete fighter—without a single weakness—bearing down like a natural disaster.
Even against the Gorosei and their "undying bodies," Darren had handled their combined assault with unnerving ease.
At first, Garling had assumed that if the previous Commander of the Knights of God, Saint Michael, had fallen, Darren must have relied on allies—or paid a terrible price.
Now, the truth looked far worse than anything he'd allowed himself to consider.
Thoughts flashed through Garling's mind like sparks as agony spread and the cold edge of death crept closer to his heart.
"Enough!"
A hulking figure burst through the smoke and dust. Armor-like Armament Haki framed his body as an iron fist slammed into Darren.
Bang!
Darren was caught cleanly—sent flying backward. He tore through the air for dozens of meters before his boots hit the ground, carving two long trenches into the earth as he skidded to a stop.
"You're a real nuisance, Old Man Kong."
Darren wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, lifted his head, and grinned at the towering figure now planted before Figarland Garling like an iron wall.
"You've gone too far, kid," Kong growled, breathing hard as he glared.
As his words fell, five eerie presences formed beside him, lining up in a row.
The Gorosei—human forms restored, black cloaks settling around them like shadows.
A violent wind swept the plaza, dragging dust into swirling clouds.
From more than a hundred meters away, Darren glanced at Garling, now shielded behind Kong and the Gorosei. The Saint clutched the stump of his severed arm, face ashen, struggling for breath—looking like he might collapse at any moment.
"I can't touch you old monsters," Darren said, rolling his neck until the joints popped. He bared his teeth in a grin. "But do you really think six of you can stop me from killing him?"
To be continued...