Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
Mid-air, Issho plummeted while frantically swinging his cane sword. He parried Zephyr's high-speed strikes in a continuous, dense cacophony of shrieking metal.
"Hah—!"
With a sudden, sharp cry, Issho swept his blade. A purple radiance shimmered as a powerful gravitational field erupted.
Wommm—!
BOOM!
The air trembled. Zephyr's body jerked in mid-air as the crushing gravitational force slammed into him, driving him straight into the ground. He hit with a thunderous impact, carving a circular crater several meters wide as a violent shockwave kicked up a pillar of dust. Simultaneously, a slab of floating rock surged beneath Issho's feet, catching him and halting his descent.
"What a troublesome ability!"
Zephyr lay flat in the crater, sounding more annoyed than hurt. His entire body was hardened by his ability; it was clear that simple gravitational pressure wasn't enough to breach his obsidian-like defense.
"That was close," Issho muttered, slowly sheathing his cane sword while wiping a bead of cold sweat from his brow. "If I had taken a direct hit from Zephyr-san's Shigan, I would have lost half my life right there."
Zephyr forced himself up, breaking free from the gravity's grip. He looked up at Issho in the sky and grinned. "A pity. But then again, I never expected to take you down that easily!"
"Then please, be careful from here on, Zephyr-san," Issho said, his expression turning solemn. "One lapse in concentration, and your head will be parted from your shoulders in the blink of an eye!"
As he spoke, the rock beneath Issho's feet surged upward, carrying him higher into the sky.
"Hmm?"
Zephyr's brow furrowed, his muscles coiling like springs as he warily watched Issho ascend.
Shing—!
The cane sword left its scabbard. A terrifying gravitational pull erupted instantly. Every rock on the mountain larger than a human head was seized by the invisible force and dragged into the air. Even the massive meteorite that had previously fallen was caught in the pull, hovering once more in the heavens.
"This scale..."
Zephyr's mouth twitched. He stared at the sky, momentarily dazed.
Thousands of boulders floated two to three hundred meters up, clustered so densely they blotted out the sun. It was a magnificent, terrifying sight.
"Go!"
Issho barked, slashing his blade twice through the air.
Wommm—!
The gravitational field shifted.
The endless sea of rocks suddenly accelerated, hurtling downward with a velocity several times faster than a natural terminal fall, as if driven by invisible engines.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
ROAR—!
RUMBLE—!
In an instant, a rain of stone hammered the desolate mountain. Finally, the titanic meteorite slammed into the summit for the second time.
The mountain groaned under the relentless bombardment. The entire island shivered as a thick shroud of dust enveloped the landscape.
"Shigan!"
"Shigan: Cannon!"
"Shigan: Great Orb!"
Zephyr moved like a blur, weaving between falling boulders and shattering those he couldn't avoid with his hardened fists.
Suddenly, a massive, jagged fissure snaked across the ground beneath his feet. His eyelids jumped in alarm. "Damn it, the mountain is collapsing!"
He was right. Under the weight of the gravity-boosted rocks and the double impact of a giant meteorite, the several-hundred-meter mountain had reached its limit.
The peak shuddered violently as if struck by a massive earthquake. Fissures spider-webbed across the mountain's flanks, and entire sections of the earth buckled and gave way. Zephyr stopped running; he leaped into the air, using Geppo to sprint across the sky.
RUMBLE—!
Massive slabs of rock and soil cascaded down like a mudslide. Amidst the deafening roar of landslides, the desolate mountain literally fell apart. The hundreds of meters of stone collapsed like a house of cards.
The resulting shockwave sent dust soaring so high it stained the sky a hazy, suffocating grey.
Whirr—!
Suddenly, a blue-white light pierced through the fog. A crescent-shaped vacuum blade, over ten meters long, tore through the air like a rising moon.
"Rokushiki Secret Technique: Rankyaku—New Moon Breaker!!!"
"Not good!"
Shock flickered across Issho's face. He maneuvered his rock platform backward while coating his cane sword in Armament Haki, bracing it against his chest.
CLANG—!
Before Issho could retreat even a meter, the ten-meter crescent slammed into his blade. The shriek of metal on metal rang out, followed by a visible shockwave of pure force.
Crack!
Issho strained against the massive vacuum blade in mid-air. The rock slab beneath him began to splinter.
"Tch, it won't hold!"
The rock shattered, exploding into a cloud of fragments. Losing his footing and balance, Issho was sent flying backward by the force of the Rankyaku.
Below, the once-proud mountain was gone, replaced by a jagged "ruin" of rubble.
Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!
Zephyr sprinted through the air, white sonic rings erupting under his soles. He cleared the dust zone, heading straight for the trajectory where Issho had been blown back.
But before he could clear two steps, a sound from above made him freeze. He looked up.
Small sparks of light had appeared in the high atmosphere. Not just one, but dozens.
Dozens of fireballs grew larger by the second. Meteors. Thirty-one of them, to be exact, ranging from twenty to eighty meters in diameter, all hurtling toward the island.
"This guy, Issho..." Zephyr's voice was dry. "Does he plan on breaking the entire island to pieces?!"
The screech of atmospheric friction grew deafening. The thirty-one flaming stones became terrifyingly clear.
Across the island, people looked up in paralyzed horror. There was no time to run.
Click.
Hundreds of meters away, Issho landed on a square stone monument rising into the air. He slowly slid his blade back into its sheath.
"Fire Festival!!!"
Seconds later, the thirty-one meteors slammed home. They struck the collapsed mountain and the surrounding wasteland in a staggered, apocalyptic barrage.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The world turned into a sea of roaring flames. The island was seized by a tremor equivalent to a magnitude nine earthquake. The surrounding seas churned, sending ten-meter-high waves crashing against the coast.
RUMBLE—!
Under the impact of dozens of meteors, the land buckled and sank. Massive canyons tore open across the island, spider-webbing through the terrain like a jigsaw puzzle. A hurricane of dust and heat swept across the sky.
In those deep, jagged chasms, seawater began to surge upward from below.
If anyone were looking down from the clouds at that moment, they would see the impossible: Monsbona Island had literally fractured.