Under the gaze of the entire world, Ortoren and Newgate finally came face to face.
Whitebeard stood there with golden hair fluttering in the wind, his crescent-shaped white beard proud and unyielding, radiating overwhelming presence. Ortoren could tell at a glance—Whitebeard was in his prime.
That suited him perfectly.
He grinned and asked, "How's your condition? Still at your absolute peak?"
"Gurararara!" Newgate didn't rush to attack. Instead, he let out a booming laugh. "You little brat, don't you think that tone's a bit too arrogant?"
When the laughter faded, Newgate paused for a moment, then spoke with unshakable pride.
"More than enough to cut you down."
"Ahahahahaha! So this is the arrogance of the strongest?" Ortoren wasn't offended in the slightest. He answered with the same bold laughter.
After that, neither of them spoke again.
Their gazes locked onto each other, and the roar of the battlefield slowly vanished from their ears. It was as if the world had narrowed down to only the two of them.
The silence didn't last long.
Almost at the same instant, dense killing intent flared in both their eyes.
Newgate lifted Murakumogiri high. In the blink of an eye, overwhelming tremor energy gathered along the blade, and he brought it crashing down toward Ortoren in a single, decisive slash.
Ortoren carried no weapon. Just as Rayleigh had once said, his warhammer was nothing more than a toy in his hands. His true strength lay in fighting barehanded.
Facing Newgate's devastating tremor strike, Ortoren neither dodged nor retreated. He snapped his arms forward.
Pitch-black Haki instantly coated his forearms and fists. At the same time, brilliant lightning coiled around his arms like roaming dragons, exuding domineering power.
He threw a punch straight at the falling Murakumogiri.
Blade and fist never touched.
Within a gap of nearly thirty centimeters, tremor and lightning collided head-on, entwined with the Conqueror's Haki of both men. The clash erupted with terrifying intensity.
Empowered by tremor force, the surrounding space offered no resistance at all. It shattered instantly, cracks and fissures spitting out arcs of pitch-black lightning.
Despite the exchange, the ground beneath Ortoren and Newgate remained perfectly level, unmoving. Both men had locked their power tightly within themselves, not letting even a trace leak out.
Yet while they stood firm, the entire island of Achino shuddered violently, as if startled into a sudden leap.
Across the battlefield, countless Marines and pirates were thrown to the ground. The towering execution platform tilted precariously, though Tokikake managed to steady it in time.
Behind the battlefield, entire blocks of low buildings collapsed. In some of the ground fissures, compressed by the shock, molten lava burst forth.
And that wasn't the end of it.
The sea, which had already been calmed under Isshō's suppression, surged once more. Though not as terrifying as before, raging currents and waves three to four meters high slammed relentlessly into the coastline, flooding fortresses and gun emplacements. Several smaller ships in the Whitebeard Pirates' fleet were nearly overturned.
Nor was this violent disturbance limited to Achino Island and its surrounding waters.
All across the world, people felt tremors to varying degrees, as if earthquakes were rippling through the seas and continents alike.
This was Newgate's power.
The power said to be capable of destroying the world.
In the original story, during the Summit War at Marineford, Newgate was already old and declining. Even so, under the full might of Marine Headquarters, he could still send earthquake aftershocks and small tsunamis rippling across the globe.
And now, he stood in his absolute prime.
The struggle between the two did not stop. Their Conqueror's Haki clashed head-on, violently intertwined. Endless shockwaves and turbulent air currents spread outward from their collision, sweeping across the island as if trying to fling everything into the air.
After only a few breaths, the trembling aura surrounding Newgate's blade began to shrink.
The hands gripping the hilt of Murakumogiri split at the tiger's mouth, blood seeping out.
That was the backlash from Ortoren's savage strength. A recoil so fierce that even Newgate, the wielder of the Gura Gura no Mi, couldn't completely neutralize it.
Or rather, he was already fighting at full power, with no room left to dissipate that force.
As for Ortoren, his monstrous physique spared him any visible injuries, but the arm braced against Murakumogiri began to tremble uncontrollably.
Relentless tremor energy poured from the blade into his arm. Newgate's raw strength was immense. Though it couldn't compare to Ortoren's, nor to Charlotte Linlin's, he was still a monster who, even in old age, could stop the Moby Dick with a single hand.
Now, with that overwhelming tremor force layered on top, the pressure bearing down on Ortoren was immense.
That was why his arm kept shaking, as if his strength were being suppressed.
But in truth…
Crack.
A faint sound rang out as the ground beneath Newgate's feet split first. Then the fracture spread uncontrollably with a sharp snap. In the blink of an eye, the earth beneath him shattered into a spiderweb of cracks.
There was no doubt about it. In this contest of strength, Newgate had fallen slightly short, failing to completely lock his power within his body.
This wasn't a problem of strength itself, but of physical constitution. He simply couldn't compare to Ortoren.
As the ground collapsed, Newgate's center of gravity shifted ever so slightly.
To Ortoren, that was an opening.
In that instant, Ortoren's pupils vanished, replaced by a sea of surging lightning. It even overflowed from the corners of his eyes.
At the same time, the torrential lightning power stimulated his blood, cells, and organs in an instant, sending his heartbeat surging several beats faster.
His trembling arm snapped straight.
With a furious roar, monstrous strength erupted outward.
Boom!
The clash of their Conqueror's Haki detonated. Murakumogiri was struck by Ortoren's fist and knocked upward, and that upward swing marked Newgate's complete loss in this exchange of force.
Newgate wasn't stubborn enough to refuse to yield. Realizing he had come up short, he didn't force the struggle any further. He relaxed his footing and stepped back two paces. Each step crushed the shattered ground beneath him, stamping it flat and kicking up clouds of dust.
This struggle had nothing to do with victory or defeat. It was merely the advantage and disadvantage of their first exchange.
Knowing he had slipped into a disadvantage, Newgate didn't hesitate. Murakumogiri spun in his palm like a windmill, turning halfway before coming to a horizontal guard in front of him, Haki wrapped tightly around it.
This was a prediction, an anticipation of the future.
Sure enough, the very next moment, dazzling lightning carried Ortoren's heavy punch straight into the hilt of Murakumogiri.
How heavy was that force?
Even though Murakumogiri ranked among the Twelve Supreme Grade Swords, even though this top-tier Meito was infused with the Haki of the strongest man…
It was still smashed inward by Ortoren's punch, the hilt bending into a curve aimed straight at Newgate's chest.
At the same time, Newgate, bracing himself against the blow, dug his feet into the ground. Even so, Ortoren's surging brute force pushed him backward, his boots scraping across the earth for three or four meters, carving out two deep trenches.
Yet Newgate was, after all, a battle-hardened peak-tier fighter. After holding on briefly, he seized the moment when Ortoren's punch had spent its old force and the new force had yet to rise.
His counterattack came.
This had nothing to do with strength anymore. From this short exchange, Newgate had already understood that he simply couldn't overpower Ortoren in raw strength. In fact, he felt that Ortoren's monstrous power had surpassed its source, faintly giving him the sense that it might even exceed Charlotte Linlin's.
At the very least, Newgate was certain of one thing. When Charlotte Linlin was Ortoren's age, she definitely did not possess such strength.
So, setting strength aside, at the fleeting moment of slack created by Ortoren's punch, terrifying tremor power erupted from Newgate's entire body.
It burst outward without a single blind spot, crashing head-on into Ortoren.
Ortoren immediately mobilized his Haki, forming an invisible armor that gathered over his body. Even so, that world-destroying tremor force still shoved him backward, forcing him to retreat five or six meters in one go.
The tremor power didn't stop there. It passed straight through his body, leaving his blood and energy surging violently inside him.
With that single exchange, Newgate instantly reversed his earlier disadvantage and seized the initiative again. Using the length of Murakumogiri to his advantage, he took just one large step forward and brought the blade down, slashing straight at Ortoren's shoulder.
Ortoren's reaction speed was terrifyingly fast. A fierce glint flashed in his eyes as he prepared to counter with a punch.
But just as his arm began to rise, Newgate barked out,
"You've exposed an opening, Ortoren!"
The tremor power that had previously passed through Ortoren hadn't fully dispersed. A trace of it remained hidden inside his body. At the instant Ortoren lifted his arm, Newgate triggered that lingering tremor.
It wasn't much, but it was enough to freeze Ortoren's movement for a split second.
The fist that should have struck the blade missed.
Only someone worthy of the title of world's strongest could do this. His combat experience and technique were simply too refined.
Even so, this single strike still wasn't enough to injure Ortoren.
In the rush, Ortoren couldn't coat his entire body in lightning, but he managed to wrap it around his arm. Immediately afterward, Haki surged onto his shoulder.
Then Murakumogiri came down.
It first tore through the lightning, then smashed into the Haki armor, shattering it as well.
And then… it stopped.
Ortoren's skin, hard as steel, blocked Murakumogiri outright.
Beneath the shattered Admiral shoulder insignia, the exposed skin was pitch black.
"Tekkai · Black Gold," Ortoren said softly.
Who says Tekkai can't compete at the highest level?
It all depends on who's using it.