With tremor power surging through his body, Newgate didn't waste another word. He stepped forward and smashed a punch straight at Ortoren.
Ortoren's lips curled into a ferocious grin. He didn't dodge or retreat, answering with a lightning-wreathed punch of his own.
Their fists collided head-on.
Newgate's seemingly unstoppable tremor force failed to break through the hardness of Ortoren's fist. The instant their punches met, Aquino Island shuddered once again.
There was no pause at all. Crack after crack rang out as Newgate and Ortoren exchanged more than a dozen punches in rapid succession. To everyone's surprise, Ortoren relied on his powerful physique and the defensive strength of Black Gold to tank Newgate's heavy blows without suffering any damage.
At the same time, the tremor aura coating Newgate's body displayed astonishing defensive properties of its own. It was as if he were using counter-vibrations to neutralize incoming force. Ortoren's thunder-infused, brute-force punches slammed into Newgate's chest, yet achieved very little.
More than that, every time Ortoren's heavy fist struck the halo of light surrounding Newgate, he could sense it growing stronger.
Another exchange of fist shadows crossed.
Suddenly, the ground beneath Ortoren's feet trembled, throwing his balance off for a split second. Newgate seized the opening and drove a punch into Ortoren's chest, making him stagger. Before Ortoren could steady himself, the space beside him began to vibrate violently in an odd, irregular rhythm. It felt as though he had stumbled into something invisible, meeting strange resistance.
That bizarre sensation didn't stop.
Before Ortoren could figure out what was happening, Newgate threw another punch, and the same strange feeling appeared again alongside it.
It was as if the air, the ground—everything around Ortoren—was actively getting in his way.
When he threw a punch, the air around his elbow would suddenly quake, warping the direction of his strike and even sapping its force.
When he tried to sidestep, it was as if an invisible rock appeared beneath his foot, determined to twist his ankle.
It felt like the entire world was turning against him.
This irregular, rhythmic vibration severely disrupted Ortoren's rhythm. In contrast, Newgate had already plunged Murakumogiri into the ground, freeing both hands. Punch after punch followed, his momentum building with every strike.
After barely parrying a few more blows, lightning flashed beneath Ortoren's feet. His figure flickered and vanished from the spot, retreating more than ten meters in an instant. He stared at Newgate with a grave expression.
On the execution platform, Tokikake watched the scene in surprise and muttered to himself,
"Strange. That Ortoren guy… to be suppressed by Newgate in close combat while in this state?"
He could see it clearly. Many of Ortoren's movements just now had been awkward, as if twisted by some invisible yet overwhelmingly powerful force.
"What's wrong? Weren't you pretty arrogant just now, kid?"
A flash of killing intent passed through Newgate's eyes as he spoke coldly.
Ortoren wasn't provoked. He only frowned slightly as he looked at Newgate.
"That feeling just now… you're combining the use of the Gura Gura no Mi with close-quarters combat techniques… no… that's not quite it…"
When Whitebeard used the Gura Gura no Mi, he normally needed a clear action—punches, kicks, even slashes—to attach tremor power.
Even that strange trembling aura surrounding his body followed the same principle, being something affixed to him.
But the sudden vibrations that had erupted earlier were different.
Ortoren's Observation Haki wasn't weak. It could even be called exceptional. The moment he first noticed that strange sensation, he had already raised his guard with Observation Haki.
Yet those tremors were nowhere to be found.
They required no buildup, no guidance. They arrived purely at Newgate's will, sudden and elusive, like antlers hanging without trace.
"Is that… awakening?" Ortoren asked, a trace of surprise flashing through his eyes.
In the countless intelligence records held by the Marines, Whitebeard's Devil Fruit had never been listed as awakened.
That, in itself, was considered normal. It was widely accepted that the more powerful a Devil Fruit was, the harder it became to awaken.
The most fundamental example was the Logia-type. Some scholars even believed that Logia fruits had no awakening stage at all, or rather, that they were already complete the moment they were eaten. There was no further "awakening" step. From that point on, everything depended on the user. Physical strength, constitution, stamina, and overall development all fed back into the ability. The stronger the user's body, the greater the natural energy they could wield, and the stronger the ability became. It was a mutually reinforcing process.
Among the commonly acknowledged awakenings that were relatively easier were standard Zoan users. Some scholars believed ordinary Zoan abilities had clear limitations, with less room for depth and breadth of development, making awakening more accessible. Others argued that Zoans were easier to awaken because they carried a will of their own. As long as the user could communicate with, suppress, or even erase that will, awakening could be achieved.
In practice, awakened Zoan users were indeed the most numerous among the three main categories. Even so, this was largely limited to ordinary Zoans and, at most, Ancient Zoans.
Mythical Zoan awakenings were exceedingly rare. Take Marco the Phoenix of the Whitebeard Pirates, for example. He had clearly not awakened. After all, the hallmark of Zoan awakening was the body being wreathed in black flames.
Not just Marco. Even someone as powerful as Kaidou had never entered such a state. On the other hand, the Five Elders, who lived in deep seclusion and had little real combat experience, seemed to have each awakened their Mythical Zoan abilities.
Perhaps the Five Elders possessed some special method. Or perhaps they had held their powers for so long that time itself had tempered their abilities to that level.
As for Paramecia, the difficulty of awakening varied greatly. Creation-type Paramecia were generally considered easier to awaken, such as the Goru Goru no Mi or the Ito Ito no Mi.
Energy-output types, however, were widely regarded as extremely difficult. Newgate's Gura Gura no Mi, Slekemind's Masu Masu no Mi, and the Impact Impact no Mi all fell into this category. The reason lay in their sheer power. Much like Logia abilities, the stronger the user's body and stamina, the greater the force they could unleash. Their development space was vast, which ironically made awakening far more difficult.
As for rule-based abilities, there was no need to elaborate. They were even harder.
And yet now, Ortoren was beginning to suspect that Newgate had awakened his Gura Gura no Mi at some unknown point in time.
"You noticed?" Newgate said in a deep voice, his upturned crescent mustache trembling slightly. "I haven't had this power for long myself. You're the first opponent to experience it, so you should be proud, kid."
Hearing that, the surprise in Ortoren's eyes deepened.
So he really had awakened the Gura Gura no Mi?
As the strongest man in the world, Newgate had no reason to exaggerate or lie about something like this. Since he admitted it himself, Ortoren naturally believed him.
Ortoren had imagined what it would look like if Newgate ever awakened the Gura Gura no Mi. In his mind, a Devil Fruit with such extreme destructive power would, upon awakening, bring about apocalyptic devastation. The kind that could shatter an entire island, an entire sea, in an instant.
What he hadn't expected was that Newgate's awakening ran completely counter to the outward nature of the Gura Gura no Mi.
If the surface expression of the fruit was violent, savage, and bent on shattering and destroying everything, then its awakening in Newgate's hands felt like thunder heard in utter silence. Calm, restrained, and incredibly refined.
Even though this awakening was the complete opposite of what Ortoren had imagined, he couldn't help but feel that it suited Whitebeard even better.
Newgate's offensive power was already overwhelming. This awakening seemed to perfectly compensate for his relative weaknesses in physique and defense, patching up what little shortcomings he had.
"Could it be," Ortoren thought to himself, "that the direction of awakening for this type of Devil Fruit expands according to the user's own will?"
On the other side, Newgate watched Ortoren's astonishment with mixed feelings. There was nothing shameful about admitting it. A large part of the pressure that had pushed his ability to awaken had come from Ortoren himself.
The last time they fought, Ortoren's so-called "Hell Thrust · One-Punch Spearhand" had left a deep impression on him.
Newgate knew Ortoren would challenge him again. And when that happened, he wasn't confident he could truly block or evade that Spearhand.
Ever since then, the pressure had weighed heavily on him. Driven by that pressure, he had, by chance, awakened this power.
After the initial shock passed, Ortoren gradually steadied himself. He looked at Newgate and spoke.
"Interesting. I never imagined that the Devil Fruit said to possess the greatest destructive power would awaken into this kind of… force in your hands. It really is astonishing. But if this is the full extent of your strength, then today, you will fall here, Whitebeard."
Ortoren and Newgate were both top-tier monsters. At their level, deciding victory or defeat no longer required countless exchanges. Their earlier clashes had already been tests, each forcing the other to reveal their growth and current condition.
Neither of them had any obvious weaknesses left.
With conventional combat alone, it would be impossible to determine a winner in a short time. If they continued at that pace, they could fight for ten days, eight days, even shatter the entire island, and still fail to decide the outcome.
Under these circumstances, there were only two ways to defeat the other.
Either borrow the external force of war itself.
Or display power far beyond the opponent's expectations, crushing them with an overwhelming strike that ended the battle in a single blow.