Franky nodded. "Got it!"
He rushed to the control room to sync his firepower with Chiyu's and launch a coordinated strike. As long as they kept pressing, even the Five Elders would hit their limit sooner or later.
Seizing the moment while the two hadn't fully recovered, Chiyu brought his blade down again in a savage arc.
"God—Dragon-Slayer!"
The brutal blow split their massive bodies apart once more, exploding them into chunks.
Amid their screams, "Jupiter" suddenly unleashed a power of devouring. The sandworm's gaping maw snapped open, triggering a force that could swallow anything. Chiyu felt himself being dragged toward the monster.
He sneered. "Trying to swallow me?"
"Know your place."
"Thunder God Realm—Judgment of Sin!"
He hurled down a blast of awakened Devil Fruit power, riding the pull of that devouring force and slamming it straight into the creature's body.
Boom—
The sandworm's torso was punched through and torn wide open. Thunder detonated, pulverizing everything, until the sandworm was nothing but mangled scraps.
The hulking bull-fiend roared when he saw it, unleashing his own specialty—its baleful eye and control powers flared together, a violent wave of mental force surging straight at Chiyu.
Chiyu gave another cold laugh.
You want to play mind games with me?
He hadn't used his eye techniques in a while. With a single piercing glance, he tested the waters—then a storm of psychic power howled out, not only shattering the attack but reversing it, slamming into the bull-fiend like a tidal wave. The beast let out a soul-rending scream as if the sky itself had fallen on him.
"What's going on?!"
"Saturn's best power—completely crushed by Uchiha Chiyu?!"
Chiyu took the opening and swung down again.
"God—Demon-Butcher!"
That terrifying strike reduced the bull-fiend to pulp as well.
In a short span, Chiyu had already maimed—and even "killed"—two of the Five Elders multiple times. Immortal bodies or not, being beaten and slaughtered like this couldn't go on forever—and the humiliation alone was already set in stone.
The other three Elders were seething and ashamed, but the enemies in front of them were monsters in their own right. There was no breaking away to help.
Red-Haired Shanks.
Dracule "Hawkeye" Mihawk.
And the full might of the Red-Hair Pirates.
Any one of them was top-tier power, absolute peak level—foes even the Five Elders couldn't guarantee to defeat.
Under Chiyu's relentless assault, Saturn and Jupiter were being broken again and again. Their regeneration was slowing… and slowing…
Franky noticed the shift and burst out laughing. "Eat another shell!"
Rumble— RUMBLE!
A shell from the Reaper screamed out again, and the bull-fiend and sandworm—who had only just pulled themselves back together a bit—were blown back into bloody chunks.
Chiyu drove his "divine arts" to the limit—blade work, awakened Devil Fruit, bombarding them in turn. The two Elders were miserable, staggering, and utterly humiliated.
By now Chiyu had a read on them: beyond their immortality, the Five Elders weren't actually that impressive in a straight fight. They were nowhere near the level of a Yonko or the three Admirals.
Maybe they'd been truly powerful once.
But not anymore.
As Chiyu's onslaught raged on, Saturn and Jupiter felt their strength failing.
"This is bad! Even our immortality is starting to give out!"
"Saint Saturn! We need to pull back and recover!"
"Are you crazy?!"
"If we return empty-handed, you know what will happen to us!"
"But if this keeps up—"
"Which is more terrifying, Uchiha Chiyu… or that being? You know the answer!"
They didn't even dare say Imu's name.
Chiyu said it for them.
"If you go back like this, Imu will execute you. Stay here and you die all the same."
Hearing Imu's name from Chiyu's mouth, the two Elders went white.
"H-How could you possibly know that name…?"
"I know everything," Chiyu replied coolly.
For a moment, the two Elders trembled as if they were staring at their natural enemy—at a demon.
"W-What are you…?"
Chiyu didn't answer—he simply dropped another bolt of thunder, blasting their bodies to pieces yet again.
At last, the two couldn't hold on.
"Help us!"
Having barely reformed a little, Saturn and Jupiter screamed for aid from the other three Elders. But those three were barely holding on themselves. How could they spare the strength?
A thin smile finally touched Chiyu's lips.
"So you've finally hit the wall…"
"So these 'Five Elders' are this pathetic. Forget the Yonko and the Admirals—you're not even on par with the Seven Warlords you look down on."
"Useless trash like you is just a blight on this world."
"Die."
He unleashed his strongest sword technique in an instant.
"God—World-Ender!"
The ferocious blow tore their massive bodies to tatters and dust. This time, the writhing flesh tried desperately to knit itself together… only to falter, fail, and finally fall still.
Two members of the world's highest authority, the Five Elders—
Saint Shepherd Ju Peter.
Saint Jaygarcia Saturn.
—were dead. Truly, finally dead.
"Ju Peter!"
"Saturn!"
The remaining three Elders blanched in horror. They never imagined that even with all five of them deployed, it would end in something this catastrophic.
The fall of the Five Elders.
Unthinkable—until it happened.
Radiating murderous pressure, Chiyu now looked every inch the demon who destroys worlds. The Five Elders—and all their forces—quaked, souls rattling in their chests.
Chiyu showed no mercy and moved straight for the other three.
"God—Fiend-Cutter!"
A savage blade of qi tore toward the foe facing Beckman and the others—
Saint Topman Warcury.
He had taken the form of a monstrous boar-beast, a Fengxi—towering like a mountain, four huge tusks, spots across his hide, shrouded in coils of black flame-cloud.
He could turn those tusks into razor blades and slice through anything.
Worse—
Unlike the others, this Elder's defense was monstrous. He could not only block attacks—he could rebound them, forcing enemies to eat their own strikes.
But Chiyu's Fiend-Cutter, wrapped in Conqueror's Haki, hit too hard to bounce back. Warcury could only guard, and deep bloody furrows opened across his body.
Ben Beckman scowled. "Uchiha Chiyu—he's our target!"
Chiyu didn't care. "They came here to kill me. I don't make a habit of sparing my mortal enemies."
Beckman was furious but helpless. He barked an order, and the entire Red-Hair crew unleashed a full-power barrage. As a Yonko's crew, from the first mate down through a dozen officers, their combined strike was fearsome.
But even that didn't match the power Chiyu could bring alone.
He'd already judged this Elder: not just high regen and vitality, but absurd defense. So—
"God—World-Ender!"
"Thunder God Realm—Final Judgment!"
"God—Heaven and Earth, Obliterated!"
He fired off his ultimate—his strongest combo, the same one that had badly injured Red-Haired Shanks.
RUMBLE—
The gigantic boar-beast shrieked in hysteria. Thunder and blades chewed him to slurry; his whole body seemed to melt, dissolving into raw meat.
His defense was insane, but once broken, he didn't have the same freakish recovery the others did.
Under Chiyu's strongest strike, he died. Completely.
Seeing that, the last two Elders didn't dare linger a second longer. Abandoning their fights with Shanks and Mihawk, they triggered the pentagram's power and vanished on the spot—
Tucking tail and fleeing in disgrace.
Even Shanks was taken aback. "They ran that fast?! Some 'Five Elders'—what a disgrace."
And yet, it was understandable. After watching Uchiha Chiyu butcher three of them in a row, what human wouldn't feel terror and despair?
Shanks sighed. "Uchiha Chiyu—after killing three of the Five Elders, there's no arguing it: you're the most terrifying being in the world."
"As I thought… maybe the only one who can truly bring change is you."
"A promise is a promise. I'll tell you where the last Road Poneglyph is."
"It's in Elbaf, the land of giants—held by someone with burn scars. Who he is exactly… I can't say."
Chiyu nodded calmly. "All right."
He turned to leave.
Shanks laughed. "You're just walking away like that? With your 'leave no evil standing' style, shouldn't we be fighting to the death?"
"A deal's a deal—one move to decide it. That won't change," Chiyu said. "Besides, we already fought."
"But next time we meet, it's still to the death."
With that, Chiyu gave the order, and Franky sent the Reaper roaring off into the sky. Mihawk couldn't help but admire him. "What a terrifying man…"
Shanks nodded. "Maybe it really will take someone like him to open a new world."
Everyone fell quiet in agreement.
…
Holy Land Mary Geoise—Pangaea Castle, the Room of Flowers.
The two surviving Elders blinked into the chamber before Imu-sama—gasping, battered, and a mess. One look told Imu all he needed to know.
"Speak."
His voice was glacial.
They stammered out the report, and before they'd even finished, Imu's fury boiled over. He nearly struck them down on the spot, shadow swelling into a vast black shape that covered the Room of Flowers—and their hearts—with suffocating dread.
And yet…
Imu did not act.
Three of the Five Elders were already dead. If he killed these last two, the group would be gone entirely—and the World Government would be a laughingstock in truth.
"Your sins," he said coldly, "couldn't be atoned for in ten thousand deaths."
"But if I kill you, I'll have no one left to use. I'll spare your wretched lives… for now."
Drenched in sweat, the two prostrated themselves in trembling gratitude. "Thank you for your mercy, Imu-sama!"
But Imu himself felt a chill.
"Has Uchiha Chiyu really become that strong?"
The two traded a look. "His power is beyond imagination now—swordsmanship, hand-to-hand, Devil Fruit, all three Haki—each at the peak. And he's fused in some other, unknown force that feels like…"
"…like it came from another world."
Imu's eyes narrowed. He already knew Chiyu wasn't of this world. He just hadn't imagined the gap would grow this vast.
Was there truly no one left but himself who could stop him?
Imu drew a long breath—and made his final decision.
…
Franky laughed loud and free. "Now that was a fight!"
"Not only did we beat Red-Hair Shanks—we took down three of the Five Elders. Hell yeah!"
"And my Reaper finally showed what it can really do…"
Chiyu said, "Aside from their immortality, the Elders are weaker than Red-Hair. Killing them isn't much. But their deaths mean that final enemy will have to step out himself."
Franky scratched his head. "You mean the one you mentioned—Imu?"
"Hasn't he always hidden in the shadows, never letting the world know he exists?"
"Well, makes sense. If he doesn't move, there's no one left on this planet who can stop you…"
Chiyu shook his head. "Enough. The last Road Poneglyph is in the giants' land. We head there next."
Franky lit up. "On it!"
Chiyu knew the endgame had arrived. The curtain was about to fall—and he had to quicken his pace.
…
At the same time, another force had its sights set on the Celestial Dragons: the Revolutionary Army. They had stirred up fresh waves in eight countries in a row, toppling World Government rule to establish new regimes, their influence swelling by the day. Even so, compared to Chiyu's Ascendant Army, they were still far off—and no longer the world's most feared name.
News of Chiyu killing three Elders spread like wildfire, shaking the entire globe.
Revolutionary Army HQ.
Leader Monkey D. Dragon stared at the report, brow furrowed. "Uchiha Chiyu…"
"That man did what we never could."
His right hand, Sabo, smiled faintly. "Whoever did it, killing those rotten old fossils is a blessing for the world."
Emporio Ivankov guffawed. "Uchiha Chiyu may not share our ideals, but when it comes to the World Government and the Celestial Dragons, we're on the same page!"
"Dragon, if the one who ushers in a new world ends up being Uchiha Chiyu, you wouldn't oppose it, would you?"
Dragon shook his head. "Our mission is to overthrow the Celestial Dragons. If Uchiha Chiyu can do that, all the better…"
"In that case, I can lay down my burdens."
Ivankov teased, "Oh? Don't forget—you've got a son."
Sabo said, "Luffy, huh? And Ace. I'd love to see them again…"
"Then why not go?" Ivankov asked.
Sabo smiled. "Luffy and Ace chose their paths. I have mine. Until the dream's achieved, this is enough… As long as I know they're safe."
"I lost my memory during the Summit War. I regretted it after. But knowing Ace and Luffy are together now—that makes me happy."
Dragon rose, gazing at the land rising on the horizon. "Let's keep moving."
"Elbaf—the land of giants—is just ahead."