The vast battlefield fell into sudden silence.
Everyone stood stunned, mouths agape.
Had Blackbeard not been boasting so confidently just moments ago, the contrast wouldn't have felt so brutal.
But now, reality had slapped him hard across the face.
He'd claimed his powers could nullify all Devil Fruit abilities.
Yet Luo Yu's golden aura had blocked him cold.
And now, the thousand golden arms forming behind Luo Yu struck like a blow to the soul.
"Blackbeard, this is the confidence you had when you tried to force me into overtime?"
Luo Yu turned to face him, calm and unimpressed.
"I wasn't planning to make Fleet Admiral Sengoku pay me another bonus. But since you insisted on delivering yourself to my door… I guess I'll reluctantly accept."
"Smoker, you all saw it—Blackbeard struck first!"
Smoker and Tashigi were dumbfounded.
Only Luo Yu could still be thinking about bonuses while facing a potential Warlord candidate.
"Damn it… he baited Blackbeard from the start. That idiot! He's dragged me into this mess too."
Spandine's face went pale.
He still remembered vividly how Luo Yu had once pretended to be CP0 and nearly killed him.
If Blackbeard fell here, Spandine might not survive either.
"Blackbeard! I told you—he's baiting you! Get out of there! You can't judge him by normal standards!"
Spandine shouted in panic.
Blackbeard's face twisted with rage. He nearly cursed Spandine's entire family.
Couldn't he have said that earlier?!
Now, there was no turning back.
He didn't know why his Dark-Dark Fruit wasn't working on Luo Yu—but the arrow was nocked, and he had to fire.
A savage glint flashed in his eyes.
"Dark Water Surge!" he roared.
"Wrath."
Luo Yu spoke a single word.
The golden thousand arms around him shifted.
The radiant gold turned blood-red, and the wrathful visage of a Vajra deity emerged.
A storm of fists rained down like a crimson monsoon.
Blackbeard, using the repelling force of Dark Water to retreat, felt his hair stand on end.
His Dark-Dark Fruit was indeed a Logia-type.
But its ability to nullify others came at a cost: he couldn't become intangible.
And worse—physical attacks hurt him twice as much.
Facing the onslaught of fists, Blackbeard knew—if even one landed, the pain would be unbearable.
"Dark Hole Devour!"
He roared again.
His Devil Fruit power surged to its peak.
With a twist of his hands, a massive black vortex formed in front of him.
It swallowed most of the incoming fists.
But the relentless barrage caused the vortex to swell like an overinflated balloon—
—and then it burst.
BOOM!
The shockwave blasted Blackbeard off his feet.
He slammed into the mast of the giant raft with a sickening crunch.
The mast cracked and snapped under the impact.
Blackbeard crashed to the deck, coughing up blood in full view of everyone.
"Captain, this isn't funny! Why didn't his powers get nullified? We were supposed to use this new Admiral as our stepping stone to fame! Stop holding back!"
Burgess wiped blood from his face, shouting in frustration.
He remembered how Blackbeard had used the Dark-Dark Fruit to suppress Fire Fist Ace again and again, eventually capturing him after a brutal fight.
But now, that same strategy had completely failed against another "rookie" Admiral.
It was hard to accept.
Blackbeard's jaw twitched as he stared at Luo Yu, still cloaked in his wrathful aura.
He had questions too—but as a seasoned schemer, he never fought without a plan.
"Burgess, Lafitte, relax. I was just testing the waters. Now I'll fight for real."
He staggered to his feet, eyes gleaming with resolve.
With a furious roar, he spread his fingers wide.
The Dark-Dark Fruit's power exploded from within him.
"Kid, take this—my strongest attack!"
"Dark Abyss!"
BOOM!
A pitch-black tsunami erupted from Blackbeard, unrestrained.
Everything swallowed by the darkness surged back out like a volcanic eruption.
A towering wave of darkness rose around him, crashing toward Luo Yu and the others.
The sky darkened. Smoker and the others turned pale.
"This darkness devours everything. Let's see if you can handle it!"
Blackbeard laughed maniacally.
The massive raft was already engulfed in shadow.
Burgess and Lafitte, eyes gleaming with battle lust, shouted:
"Captain, you're finally serious! When do we jump in?"
In the shadows, Spandine's nerves were stretched to the breaking point.
Could Blackbeard really turn this around? Did he have a trump card?
But just as the thought crossed his mind—
Blackbeard suddenly spun around, one hand gripping the raft's edge, the other pointing to the sea.
"Jump in? Are you crazy? That Admiral's clearly baiting us! If we don't run now, are we supposed to wait until he walks out of the darkness and kills us?"
With that, Blackbeard unleashed another surge of darkness.
It exploded across the sea, creating a massive recoil wave that launched the raft backward at high speed.
On deck, Burgess, Lafitte—even Ace—were stunned.
Only now did they realize:
Blackbeard had set all that up…
…just to make a serious escape.