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Chapter 472: Crushing Defeat! Luffy's Nika Awakening
The massive stone sphere high in the sky let out a muffled cracking sound. Green light leaked through the fissure along the sphere's equator. At first, the light was just a thin line, but it grew increasingly blinding. Accompanied by teeth-setting sounds of shattering rock, the fissure rapidly spread out in all directions like a spiderweb.
Dragon clenched his fists tightly. Ignoring the blood spurting from his neck, he locked his purple Rinnegan onto the sky above. In his line of sight, an overwhelmingly massive mass of Nen was frantically expanding within the stone sphere. It felt like an active volcano had been forcefully stuffed into a sealed iron can, ready to blow the entire sky to pieces at any moment.
Gasping heavily, the taste of blood filled Dragon's lungs. The combined toll of draining both his Chakra and Haki made it extremely difficult for him to even stand firm. He knew exactly how strong Chibaku Tensei's sealing power was. Yet that mutated monster was forcefully tearing through the laws of gravity using nothing but pure physical strength and Nen.
BOOM!
A deafening explosion thoroughly tore through the horizon. The artificial meteorite, hundreds of meters in diameter, was violently blown apart from the inside out. Thousands upon thousands of massive, burning rock fragments rained down upon the earth like a meteor shower. The already battered ruins of the NGL Autonomous Region suffered a devastating second strike, with massive boulders smashing into the mud, throwing up waves of earth tens of meters high.
Amidst the sky full of dust and rubble, Meruem hovered in mid-air. He was covered from head to toe in green blood. The broad membranous wings on his back had also been crushed by the rocks into a ragged state, with several bone spurs snapped. Yet, the killing intent in his compound eyes was so thick it practically solidified. That aura of an apex predator had skyrocketed by more than a single tier. The air around him twisted violently due to the high-density Nen radiating from his body. Even the falling rubble above him was instantly ground into powder in mid-air by his aura alone.
"Is this your final trump card?"
Meruem's voice held no inflection whatsoever, yet the words exploded like a sledgehammer in everyone's minds. He hadn't even opened his mouth; this was a mental resonance generated by compressing his Nen to the absolute limit.
Before his words even finished resonating, the green figure vanished from mid-air.
Dragon's pupils shrank drastically. He had pushed the Rinnegan's perceptive abilities to their absolute limit, yet he only managed to catch a sickly green afterimage. It was too fast. This speed had completely surpassed physical limits.
A fierce gust of wind blew against his face as Meruem appeared right in front of Dragon. Unable to form a hand seal in time, Dragon could only focus all his remaining Armament Haki in front of his chest. The black and red Ryuo flowed wildly across the surface of his skin.
Meruem raised his right leg and delivered a deceptively simple front kick. The crisp sound of shattering bones was exceptionally piercing in the dead silence of the ruins. Dragon's proud, high-tier Ryuo defense was like a thin sheet of paper before this violent power. His sternum caved in extensively. Like a detonated heavy artillery shell, Dragon was smashed straight into the ground, creating a bottomless black hole. Blood drew a shocking red line through the air as dirt mixed with groundwater erupted into the sky.
"Dragon!" Ivankov let out a mournful shriek. His oversized face completely twisted in extreme panic. Furiously flicking his ten fingers, he sent a dozen pink Hormone whips lashing toward the underground crater, desperately wanting to pull Dragon out.
Without so much as a glance, Meruem merely flicked his ragged tail. A half-moon-shaped blade of green Nen shot out close to the ground, leaving Ivankov absolutely no time to react.
Squelch.
Ivankov's left arm was severed at the root. Boiling hot blood sprayed far out like a fountain. The thick arm rolled several times on the ground, its cross-section as smooth as a mirror. Ivankov fell to his knees, clutching his severed stump, his features scrunched together in agony. He didn't even have time to use his proud Hormone Fruit abilities to stop the bleeding.
Remaining in stoic silence, Kuma stepped his massive body directly in front of Ivankov, aiming his right paw pad squarely at Meruem.
"Thrust Pad Cannon," Kuma growled lowly. The violent, compressed air formed a massive paw print, roaring forward with an ear-piercing sonic boom. He held nothing back in this strike; even the paw pad on his palm oozed blood from the overload.
Standing his ground, Meruem didn't even attempt to dodge. He simply raised his left hand, stained with green blood, and violently squeezed his five fingers. The transparent air bullet, capable of leveling a mountaintop, was forcibly crushed by his single hand. The turbulent air currents spilled through his fingers, causing his broken wings to flutter noisily.
Kuma adjusted his small, round sunglasses. Before he could launch his next attack, Meruem's figure appeared directly above his head. His barbed right leg was raised high. Tearing through the air with a mournful wail, the leg cleaved down viciously onto Kuma's broad shoulder.
BOOM!
Kuma's cyborg body, resilient enough to withstand cannon fire, was smashed down onto one knee. The hard bedrock was shattered into a crater by his knee. The bones in his right shoulder were completely pulverized, and half of his body caved in. The Bible in Kuma's hand dropped into the muddy water. His entire body crashed to the ground, unable to rise again as electrical sparks crackled from short-circuits within his chassis.
.....
Far away in Partys Bar in Foosha Village, Blake leaned against the counter, holding his juice. He looked at the scene in the virtual light screen, raising an eyebrow.
"This ant's mutation is a bit ridiculous," Blake muttered to himself.
Dragon's Rinnegan and Ryuo Haki, combined with Kuma's Soten Kisshun and Paw-Paw Fruit—this lineup would be enough to level the Marine Headquarters, Marineford, in the One Piece world. But in the face of absolute numerical suppression, the advantages of technique and systems were infinitely marginalized. After the Ant King devoured his two Royal Guards, his total Nen capacity had reached an unfathomable level.
Blake was in no rush to intervene. The death failsafe mechanism he sold was still active. As long as they hadn't breathed their last second, the system wouldn't forcibly teleport them back. He was more interested in seeing how this desperate situation would force out someone's true potential.
.....
This was an entirely one-sided, unreasonable slaughter. There were no flashy moves. Just pure, violent crushing. One kick. One tail whip. One downward cleave.
In the span of just three breaths, three of the highest-tier combatants at the pinnacle of the One Piece world—the leader of the Revolutionary Army, a Warlord of the Sea, and the Okama King—were all heavily injured and collapsed on the ground, their fates unknown. On the ruins of the entire NGL Autonomous Region, only the whimpering of the wind blowing across the rubble remained.
Meruem stood amidst the blood and mud. He turned around, his compound eyes void of any emotional warmth falling upon the three youths in the distance. Luffy, Ace, and Sabo. These three youths, who fancied themselves geniuses in the East Blue and even dared to rob pirates, were now completely pinned to the spot by this god-like pressure. They couldn't move a single finger. The surrounding air was as viscous as mercury. Every breath felt like razor blades cutting through their lungs.
Meruem looked at them as if looking at three lambs waiting to be slaughtered. They weren't even lambs—at best, they were three slightly larger ants. Slowly raising his left arm, covered in deformed eyeballs, a blinding white light began to gather at his fingertips. He was going to wipe out the last bit of annoying trash on his territory, and then he would dig out the guy with the golden barrier ability and eat him.
Ace gritted his teeth, biting his lip until it bled. He desperately tried to urge the Pyro Element within him, but under the absolute suppression of Nen, that scorching power from the continent of Teyvat couldn't even produce a spark. Sabo gripped his broken steel pipe, his hands trembling so hard his knuckles were white. The Wind Vortex had barely formed in his palm before being crushed by the terrifying surrounding air pressure.
They had never felt death so close before.
Luffy didn't speak. His straw hat was long gone. His short black hair was blown into a mess by the fierce wind. He looked at Dragon, who had been smashed into the ground, his fate unknown. He looked at Ivankov, crying out in a pool of blood with his left arm severed. He looked at Kuma, his shoulder pulverized, unable to even stand.
These three people had ended up like this trying to protect them. Especially that man with the red diamond tattoo on his face. Although Luffy had never once called him "Dad," the connection pulsing in his bloodlines couldn't be faked. When that kick landed on Dragon's chest earlier, Luffy felt his own heart skip a beat.
Luffy's breathing grew heavy. Something seemed ready to explode within his chest. In his usually carefree, large eyes, blood vessels were multiplying at a visible rate, quickly covering the entire whites of his eyes. An unprecedented, extremely violent aura was frantically awakening within the young man's body.
The surrounding air, which had previously stopped flowing, suddenly began to agitate erratically. The gravel on the ground seemed to lose its gravity, floating into the air piece by piece. An invisible aura centered on Luffy and exploded outward in all directions. Even the white light gathering at Meruem's fingertips briefly distorted under the impact of this aura.
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