"You sure talk big. Let's see what you can actually do," Newgate snorted coldly.
On the other side, Ortoren said nothing more. His body relaxed for a split second, then suddenly tensed. He planted his feet firmly into a horse stance, neither forward nor back, fists clenched at his waist as power rapidly gathered.
He drew in a deep breath.
The air poured into his lungs, swelling his chest noticeably. At the same time, the dense lightning covering his body transformed into streams of light, flowing inward through his slightly parted lips and nostrils, rushing straight into his body.
As vast amounts of lightning power surged inside him, his muscles expanded once more. It wasn't an exaggerated change, but the oppressive presence radiating from his body grew far stronger.
Then he exhaled.
At that moment, Ortoren's pupils vanished again, replaced entirely by thick currents of lightning. Unrestrained electrical energy leaked from the corners of his eyes, radiating overwhelming dominance.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
His heartbeat grew heavy and thunderous, like an emperor's engine roaring within his chest. The sound alone carried across nearly a hundred meters.
With every beat, the veins beneath his skin thickened further. Several major arteries bulged like coiling dragons, brimming with raw power.
All of this happened in an instant, within a single breath.
At that moment, even Newgate, with his level of strength and experience, felt as though he were facing a ferocious beast.
As if struggling to contain his own power, Ortoren gradually lowered his center of gravity. His arms dropped naturally from his waist, hanging straight down until his fingertips touched the ground.
With just that light contact, the solid earth yielded like tofu, his fingers sinking straight in.
That single motion sent a jolt through Newgate's heart. It wasn't future sight, but the instinct of a top-tier fighter sensing danger.
He reacted without hesitation.
Violent tremor power spread rapidly across Newgate's body. The faint aura surrounding him expanded several times over, while his awakened power formed layers upon layers of vibrating barriers in front of him, like invisible, intangible shield walls.
Almost at the same time Newgate braced himself, Ortoren moved.
He dug both hands into the ground, shattering the solid earth and flinging debris into the air. His body launched forward like a cannonball, crashing straight toward Newgate.
"Let's see if your awakened power can stop this Admiral!" Ortoren roared.
Before the words fully left his mouth, he slammed into something invisible.
Violent tremor force exploded outward, trying to repel him, to fling him away.
Yet no matter how fierce that tremor was, it failed to stop Ortoren in the slightest. A sharp cracking sound rang out, as if something had broken, though nothing visible could be seen.
Layer after layer of invisible tremor barriers failed one after another. In the blink of an eye, Ortoren smashed through Newgate's awakened power and burst right in front of him.
Newgate's reaction speed was just as terrifying.
The instant Ortoren broke through, Newgate locked onto him. His arm surged with Conqueror's Haki and overwhelming tremor power as he swung a crushing punch downward.
Where the fist passed, space folded in on itself before being torn apart by brutal vibrations. Black spatial cracks split open, even warping the area around Newgate, a clear sign of the punch's horrifying power.
Ortoren threw his own punch at the same time.
Their fists narrowly missed each other.
With a thunderous impact, their thick forearms hooked together instead. The collision of those two monstrous forces completely shattered the surrounding space, plunging them into pitch-black darkness for a fleeting instant.
In the very next moment, space repaired itself, and both figures reappeared on the battlefield.
Using Newgate's arm as leverage, Ortoren twisted his body and slipped beneath it in a flash, appearing behind Newgate's waist. His fingers curled into a claw as he reached straight for Newgate's lower back.
But Newgate had already anticipated it.
At the critical moment, he slammed his hand down and precisely caught Ortoren's wrist. The instant his grip closed, tremor power exploded from his palm, threatening to crush Ortoren's hand outright.
But it was useless. Ortoren's extreme defensive power allowed him to withstand the tremor force without doing anything at all.
A smile curled at the corner of his mouth.
"Got you, Whitebeard."
That was right. At that critical instant, Newgate had instinctively grabbed Ortoren's wrist. And that was exactly what Ortoren had been waiting for. Before Newgate could react, Ortoren snapped his grip back, overlapping their hands and locking onto Newgate's wrist as well.
Newgate's expression shifted in shock. He exploded with strength beneath his feet, shattering the ground. This time, it wasn't tremor power. It was raw physical force.
He tried to shake Ortoren off.
But it was already too late.
Ortoren's grip clamped down like iron. At the same time, he stomped hard, sinking half his calf straight into the ground, and bellowed,
"Up!"
For a brief instant, Ortoren's unrivaled strength and Newgate's explosive force were locked in a stalemate.
Then Ortoren's power surged.
Newgate was crushed outright.
When it came to pure strength, Ortoren was confident he yielded to no one.
Whitebeard was powerful, but in this regard, he was far inferior.
Under the stunned gazes of everyone watching, Ortoren hauled Newgate straight off the ground and flung him violently into the air.
Newgate hadn't jumped that high himself. He had been thrown.
And no matter how strong he was, being forcibly hurled upward created a split second of weightlessness, a fleeting opening.
That was exactly the opening Ortoren wanted.
The instant he threw Newgate skyward, the moment that brief vulnerability appeared, a dazzling bolt of lightning seemed to tear through time and space itself.
As if rising alongside Whitebeard, Ortoren's figure appeared in midair, directly behind him.
Ortoren's arms slid under Newgate's armpits and snapped tight, locking onto the back of his neck. At the same time, savage, violent lightning erupted from Ortoren's body.
"This move is—!?"
The moment he was restrained, Newgate instinctively felt overwhelming danger. The kind of danger that meant severe injury, or death, if he failed to respond.
At that critical instant, his tremor power erupted at full force.
But it was already a step too late.
"Lightning Self Bomb!!!"
Ortoren's roar echoed across the entire island.
In the next moment, wrapped in endless lightning, Ortoren dragged Newgate's massive body down from the sky like a cannonball, slamming it brutally into the ground.
Waves of lightning exploded across the earth, surging outward in all directions. At the same time, the impact blasted out a massive crater more than a hundred meters wide. As if only now feeling the blow, Aquino Island convulsed violently, lurching like it had leapt from the sea before crashing back down, sending towering waves and tsunamis rippling across the surrounding waters.
Then, as if celebrating the sheer violence of the strike, enormous quantities of magma were squeezed out from cracks across the island, shooting dozens of meters into the air and bursting like fireworks.
All of this happened almost simultaneously.
And in that same instant, from the center of the impact zone, wild, unrestrained tremor power surged outward, as if it were trying to tear the sky apart.
Ortoren's body was hurled away by that force, flung dozens of meters into the air and ripped back and forth by the relentless vibrations.
Then his body turned into a streak of lightning, vanishing from the sky before landing back on the ground.
The tremors shredded and dispersed the dust and lightning filling the air. In the deep crater at the center of the Lightning Self Bomb's impact, Newgate was half-kneeling on the ground. Blood streamed down his forehead, his golden hair a tangled mess. One hand covered his mouth, yet bright red blood seeped through his fingers.
His presence was clearly weakened. He looked utterly battered.
And yet, among all the powerful figures who had ever taken Ortoren's Lightning Self Bomb head-on, he was the only one who hadn't fallen.
About fifty meters away, in another crater, a trace of blood also seeped from Ortoren's mouth. It was clear that the full-force tremor attack he had taken at close range had injured him as well.
Even so, compared to Newgate, his condition was far better. Aside from the blood at his lips, it was as if he hadn't been affected at all.
Ortoren raised a hand and wiped away the blood, his face splitting into a savage, feral grin.
"Worthy of the strongest man. You're the first one to take my Lightning Self Bomb head-on and still stay standing."