"The one standing in your way… is me!!"
"Is that so?" Gern Reginald Sigmar bared his teeth in a grin, his gaze flicking briefly to the scar across Shanks's chest. "Looks like you've already forgotten the pain."
"This time, if you drop to your knees again, I won't just grab your hair…" His smile turned cold, razor-sharp. "I'll take your head."
"Heh. Then come and try!"
The instant the words left his mouth, Shanks's wrist snapped forward. Gryphon surged ahead, forcing Gern's blade back by half an inch—
—and at the same time, his left leg lashed out in a sweeping kick, driving straight toward Gern's right ribs!!
Gern reacted just as quickly.
Instead of withdrawing his blade, he leaned into the force Shanks applied, letting his entire body fall backward in a smooth arc—almost parallel to the sea's surface—allowing the kick to skim past his chest by a hair's breadth.
At the same time, his freed left hand snapped forward, fingertips gathering high-density vibration particles as he aimed directly at Shanks.
"Sorry," Gern said lazily, voice dripping with mockery, "I'm technically disabled, you know—so don't get jealous."
"Quake Style: Resonance Light—Fivefold Bloom!"
Five perfectly straight beams of pale, condensed vibration energy tore forward like lances of light!!
Shanks's pupils shrank.
Gryphon snapped back in a flash—his guard barely managing to deflect three of the incoming beams.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The sharp, metallic impacts rang out as the residual vibrations traveled up his arm, numbing his wrist.
But Gern had already moved.
Using the recoil, both his feet slammed against the water wall behind him—
"BOOM!!!"
The wall exploded into a spray of foam and shattered currents, and from within that curtain of water, Gern's figure shot out like a cannonball, instantly breaking free from the core suppression zone of the hurricane corridor!
Yet the moment he escaped—
The light above him dimmed.
Dragon had already ascended into the sky at some unknown moment. His deep green coat billowed violently, and between his hands—
—a sphere of hyper-compressed, violently rotating wind had already formed.
He looked down coldly.
"Tornado."
His hands pressed downward.
The sphere didn't simply fall—it expanded, stretched, and unfurled the moment it left his grasp, transforming into a colossal tornado column over ten meters wide—
—a pillar that connected sky and sea, crashing down upon Gern with apocalyptic force!
Before it even reached him, the sheer suction had already torn a massive vortex into the ocean below. Gern's hair and clothes whipped upward violently, his body beginning to lift uncontrollably toward the sky!
"Trying to drag me into the air?" Gern grinned, savage and unrestrained. "Fine…"
"I'll play along!"
He didn't dodge.
Instead, he stomped midair—
A visible ring of pale shockwaves exploded beneath his feet, violently counteracting the suction while blasting away the surrounding airflow.
Then, spinning upward—
—not retreating, but charging straight into the heart of destruction!
His right arm lifted high, Eight Desolations raised overhead.
The vibration particles along the blade surged, compressing to an unprecedented density, emitting a high-frequency, teeth-grinding hum.
The air around the blade began to fracture—cracks spreading like a shattered mirror, space itself trembling.
"Heavenquake…"
His voice roared like a dragon through the storm.
"Skybreaker!"
The blade fell.
No flourish. No wasted motion.
Only a single, perfectly straight line—
—a pale slash laced with flickering dark-purple lightning.
It collided head-on with the descending tornado.
For an instant—
Time froze.
Then—
"VMMMMMMMM!!!"
The tornado split cleanly down the middle.
Ripped apart from its core, the two halves collapsed outward, dissipating violently to either side.
And that pale slash did not stop.
It continued upward—
—tearing through the low-hanging clouds, carving a massive fissure hundreds of meters long across the sky. Sunlight poured through the opening, illuminating the devastated sea below.
The aftershock fragmented into countless pale wind blades, scything outward in every direction, gouging deep trenches across the ocean's surface.
Shanks swung Gryphon, shattering the wind blades headed toward the Red Force, his brows tightly furrowed.
That strike… was even more destructive than expected.
Meanwhile, Dragon dispersed at the moment the tornado was cut apart, transforming into a gust of wind and reappearing over a hundred meters away in the air.
His face was slightly pale.
That "Tornado" had cost him more than he let on.
Gern hovered midair, breathing lightly. The sleeve on his right arm had burst apart, revealing well-defined muscles trembling faintly beneath the strain.
Even for him, clashing head-on with that attack wasn't without cost.
But the light in his eyes only burned brighter.
His gaze swept coldly over the two men flanking him from left and right.
Shanks hadn't yet used his "Observation Killing."
Dragon's wind… was far from its limit.
Good.
Gern steadied his breathing. Vibration particles once again seeped from his pores, drifting like pale mist. The tip of Eight Desolations lowered, pointing toward the churning sea below.
"Swish!"
As expected—
He wasn't given even a second to rest.
Shanks vanished.
Not teleportation—
—but pure speed, pushed to the absolute extreme. Combined with an almost perfect suppression of presence, his existence seemed to be erased from Gern's Observation Haki entirely.
The next instant—
A crimson blade erupted from Gern's blind spot on the left, stabbing straight toward his heart!
Dark-red Conqueror's lightning crackled along its edge.
"Divine Departure!!"
At the same time—
From the right, Dragon brought both hands together in a crushing motion.
"Wind Prison: Rending Cage!"
The air within a hundred meters of Gern condensed instantly, compressing into countless visible strands of azure wind—
binding from all directions, restricting movement while slicing with razor-sharp edges!
A perfect setup.
A killing strike from Shanks, sealed by Dragon's control.
A flawless pincer—
—an execution.
And yet—
Gern closed his eyes.
Not surrender.
In a domain where "Observation Killing" severed foresight, he chose to trust something more primal—
Instinct.
And his perception of vibration.
Three inches before the blade struck.
A fraction of a second before the wind threads touched his clothes—
Gern moved.
His body shifted slightly left—just enough for Gryphon's tip to graze past his chest, sparks scattering in its wake.
At the same time, his right leg snapped out in a brutal side kick, slamming into Shanks's exposed right flank!
Shanks's pupils shrank.
Too late to withdraw.
He took it head-on.
"THUD!"
His body jolted violently, sent sliding dozens of meters sideways through the air, his breath hitching for a moment.
Using that recoil, Gern spun to the right—
Eight Desolations sweeping out in a circular arc, slicing apart every wind thread that tried to bind him!
The blade continued its path, cleaving straight toward Dragon!
Dragon crossed his arms, compressing wind into a circular shield in an instant—
Impact!!
The shield shattered on contact.
Dragon was forced backward, his arms numbed from the shock.
But Gern, pushed back by the counterforce, didn't pause even for an instant.
Eight Desolations plunged downward—
—piercing into the ocean floor.
Then both hands spread wide—
—and slammed outward!!
Pale-blue vibrations surged.
Cold.
Absolute, unnatural cold erupted from nothingness.
Within a radius of a hundred li—
—including the seawater rushing back from both sides—
Everything froze.
Instantly.
A vast expanse of ocean turned into solid ice!!!
For the first time witnessing Gern wield absolute zero, both Shanks and Dragon froze—not in ice, but in stunned disbelief.
"…Islands are hard to come by around here," Gern said casually, pulling Eight Desolations free and lifting it once more.
His tone was almost conversational.
"So instead of getting blown all over the place…"
He raised the blade.
A faint smile crept across his lips.
"Let's just fight here."
...
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