Fujitora withdrew from the battlefield, but he was still carrying out the meteor-strike plan.
Dense clusters of small meteors once again covered the sky, bringing with them an apocalyptic meteor shower of ultimate destruction.
Yet at this moment, Akainu did not move to stop them. Instead, his expression was grave as he stared fixedly at the sky.
His Observation Haki was telling him that something even more terrifying was coming!
And in truth, that was exactly the case!
"Then, let's say hello."
Floating in midair, Ren spread his arms wide. The vertical eye on his chest erupted with violent light, radiating outward into a massive plasma beam!
The deep-blue beam split the sky like a sharp sword, bringing with it a suffocating sense of danger.
One moment, Akainu had only just seen the light erupt. The next, it was already before him, about to erase him together with the large warship beneath him!
'This attack!'
Akainu's hair stood on end. In an instant, he revealed his trump card.
Conqueror's Haki surged forth, mingling with Armament Haki as it wrapped around a gigantic magma fist formed from his lava-transformed arm. Then, like an erupting volcano, he blasted it out.
"Great Eruption!"
Boom—!
The magma fist collided with the deep-blue beam. The phenomenon of Conqueror's Haki clashing against Conqueror's Haki had not even appeared yet.
The extreme temperature instead pierced through the magma fist from the front, and the dazzling light fell upon the large warship where Akainu stood.
Boom—!
A blinding flash erupted. After the deep-blue ray faded, layered waves of flame burst forth, forming an enormous mushroom cloud of fire.
The large warship was already gone from its original position. All that remained was a gigantic crater with a radius of one kilometer.
Seawater poured toward the crater, yet for a time, it could not fill it.
Akainu, in an utterly wretched state, pulled himself out of a pool of magma.
He was now at the very bottom of the crater. Looking up from here, he could see only a tiny speck of light.
In other words, a single strike had blasted him at least eight kilometers down into the seabed.
And all the material that should have filled this crater had been vaporized by the energy released in that one strike!
"That damn brat…"
Akainu stood up, baring his teeth. His eyes were gloomy and confused.
Although he had a rough understanding that Demon Ren was very strong, he did not remember the other party being strong to this degree.
There was no time to think too deeply. His Observation Haki was giving him a warning.
He instinctively raised his head, only to see a streak of light descending toward the earth.
Ren's figure emerged from within the light and appeared in front of Akainu. With great interest, he said, "Conqueror's Haki? So you really do have it after all."
Conqueror's Haki was very rare in the world of One Piece, but that was only when speaking of the whole.
Just as Chinjao had once said, in the New World, those who possessed Conqueror's Haki were as numerous as carp crossing a river.
In other words, the stronger someone was, the greater their chances of possessing Conqueror's Haki.
Only before that premise, Conqueror's Haki had another requirement: it could only be awakened by those with ambition and aspirations.
In Ren's earlier view, so-called ambition and aspiration were nothing more than the intent to become a king.
For example, the Pirate King, a national king, or desires connected to ruling and domination.
However… there was a very practical counterexample: Garp, who also possessed Conqueror's Haki!
That man was no ambitious schemer aiming for the world. On the contrary, he stood firm in his own justice.
For the sake of the justice he bore, he had even been able to sit by and watch Ace be executed.
That point alone was enough to overturn the aforementioned requirement.
Even Zoro followed the same logic.
So Ren corrected his own view.
Perhaps what was needed was not ambition, but a firm pursuit of some grand, overarching thing.
Of course, if those factors were stripped away and one looked at it purely from the perspective of his previous life, then it was simply a matter of version updates and Oda eating his own settings.
But in this reality, this newly corrected judgment should be the truth.
"Demon Ren. As expected, you really did cooperate with Whitebeard. You interfered in the Marineford War as well, didn't you?
"Reckless pirates like you should have been eliminated long ago."
Sakazuki's face was cold as he clenched his fists.
"Kill me?"
Ren tilted his head. "If this is all you've got, I don't think you'll be able to leave here alive.
"You should take this seriously. At least let me see the Awakening of a Logia."
"You will."
Akainu's entire body bubbled and gurgled with magma. The temperature inside the roughly one-kilometer-wide crater rose sharply.
Logia Fruits represented the embodiment of natural disasters within Devil Fruits.
Light was Kizaru's Glint-Glint Fruit.
Winter and cold were Kuzan's Ice-Ice Fruit.
As for Sakazuki's own Magma Fruit, what it represented was a volcanic eruption in nature.
Elementalizing into magma was only one of its effects. When a Logia Devil Fruit ability was developed to the level of Awakening, the Logia user became a natural disaster in the truest sense!
At this moment, Ren could clearly sense the change in the environment. It was as though he stood before a volcano.
Looking ahead again, Akainu had already transformed into a humanoid figure covered in magma. Some kind of danger was brewing within him.
"Interesting. What is this?"
Ren grinned. Among the Logia users he had encountered, the only one he had truly fought was Crocodile.
The Awakening ability of Crocodile's Logia seemed to be the desolation symbolized by the Suna Suna no Mi.
In other words, an abstract conceptual encapsulation.
Then what would the abstract conceptual encapsulation of a volcano be?
Akainu gave the answer.
"It is boiling disaster. It is an unstoppable eruption. It is the burning end."
Magma wrapped around Sakazuki, transforming him into a lava demon. Yet the surrounding temperature did not change too greatly.
Only those with sharp perception would discover that the truly terrifying power was all contained within that boiling magma.
The magma beneath his feet continuously spread across the earth, turning this region into true lava. Even beneath the ground, boiling geothermal energy began to surge upward!
This was the reason why, in the original timeline, parts of Punk Hazard had transformed into a volcanic region!
He had truly changed the geological environment, causing the natural disaster known as a volcano to descend permanently.
"Are you ready? Prepare to meet your end!"
Akainu looked extremely confident as he stared coldly at his opponent.
"Impressive."
Ren sighed sincerely, and then—he moved!
To a blazing sun, a volcano was nothing more than one landform in the mortal world.
Boom—!
A fist as fast as light smashed toward Akainu. The latter met fist with fist and erupted with firepower.
Rather than clashing fists with a person, it was more like fighting against an erupting "volcano," as though trying to block the mouth of a volcano spewing magma.
Against any other opponent, Akainu's delayed but faster-landing punch would have been impossible to stop.
However, his opponent was Ren!
The name "Phase Four: Blazing Sun" was something he felt was relatively consistent with reality.
Boom—!
Akainu groaned and flew backward several meters, only for Ren to grab him by the leg.
That boiling "magma" transmitted the heat of a volcano, yet it could not injure the enemy in the slightest.
Before Sakazuki could counterattack, he was viciously hurled into the sky.
"Try this!"
Ren stomped down and shot straight after Akainu, who was flying upward. In an instant, he appeared below Sakazuki as the latter tried to stabilize himself.
Ren raised his knee, then suddenly drove a knee strike into Akainu's abdomen, folding him violently over it.
Thick bolts of lightning immediately erupted around the two of them, and then a beam of light blasted from the mouth of the crater into the sky!
Only after flying thousands of meters into the air did Sakazuki abruptly spit out a mouthful of blood, his expression turning ugly and incredulous.
What was going on? Why was the difference between them this great?
Before he could think further, his Observation Haki detected Ren rapidly closing in.
Yet before Akainu could react, the deep-blue figure of light had already appeared in the sky behind him.
Ren spread his arms wide, and the vertical eye on his chest erupted with dazzling radiance once again!
Boom—!
A deep-blue beam pierced through the sky, completely engulfing Akainu. Then, like a sharp sword, it stabbed through the sea and left an identical mark behind.
First, the beam vanished. Then, a giant fireball rose from the ground. After the flames disappeared, what remained was a kilometer-scale crater, and the sea began to boil as it raised a massive tsunami.
This was the second Roaring Cannon. Or rather, one of Ren's small skills.
In terms of quantity, it might not match the previous times he had used it, but in terms of quality, it far surpassed them.
At the very least, Sakazuki could not ignore such high temperature.
Before this berserk high-temperature energy that seemed ready to vaporize everything it touched, even a "volcano" had no way to remain unharmed.
He used Haki to defend with almost all his strength, then stepped on the air to pull away the moment the beam faded.
But it was useless.
Ren's speed was beyond imagination.
Meteor Burst, having obtained sufficient high-quality energy, had truly displayed the splendor of its original version.
With the slightest movement, he crossed several kilometers in an instant. Such speed, akin to teleportation, could only be dealt with by Kizaru.
However, Kizaru did not possess equal power, while Ren did!
This combination of speed and mass instantly crushed Akainu, who was in midair and whose weaknesses were obvious.
Ren changed methods, using the crudest punches and kicks to attack.
Boom, boom, boom—For a time, hundreds upon thousands of "Rens" appeared in the sky, surrounding Akainu and beating him madly.
With high-energy power serving as propulsion, his speed and strength far exceeded the range Akainu could cope with.
Occasionally, when Akainu seized an opportunity to launch a Hellhound, Ren chose to ignore it and tank it directly.
The suffocating one-sided beating continued for a long time.
Until Akainu could no longer endure it. His entire body transformed into a mass of scorching magma.
Just as Ren punched into it, he collided with a large number of volcanic bombs being fired out.
Their power was far greater than during the Marineford War.
Fist shadows erupted instantly, smashing the incoming volcanic bombs apart and lighting up great blossoms of fire across the sky.
One volcanic bomb that had not been aimed in Ren's direction fell into the sea, exploding near a large warship and raising layered waves of flame.
A huge volume of seawater evaporated in an instant, and the raging fire waves almost overturned that large warship and sank it into the sea.
"That was close…"
Vice Admiral Goul, who was leading the group, was drenched in cold sweat.
If that volcanic bomb had landed a little closer, everyone on their ship would have been fish food.
Although he was a vice admiral, that was only because there was an extreme shortage of manpower at that rank and he had been promoted to fill the gap.
However, before Vice Admiral Goul could feel relieved, the terrified cries of the Marines pulled him back to reality.
A huge shadow covered the sky above the large warship. The meteor controlled by Fujitora was still purging the warships on this sea!
(End of Chapter)