The hunting game had temporarily come to an end. Kael turned his attention once again to the distant battlefield, where the storm of energy had not diminished. On the contrary, it had only grown more intense, as though something even more terrifying was brewing within.
He found the highest peak on the island, merged into the stone using his "Light Mirage Mirage" ability, and resumed his role as a devoted live spectator.
This time, he bore witness to the prologue of the final act.
The battlefield was unrecognizable. Rocks, Roger, and Garp were all covered in wounds. Blood soaked through their clothes and stained the ground beneath their feet.
Roger's captain's coat had been torn to shreds. His muscular arm gripped his sword "Ace" tightly, veins bulging with effort.
Garp's iron fists were bloodied and raw, exposing the white of bone beneath torn flesh. Each breath he took exhaled a blast of steaming air.
Rocks looked the worst of them all. His body was etched with wounds that cut down to the bone. His once wild and unruly hair had been glued together with blood, but his eyes still burned like two dying stars.
They had reached their limits… and yet, somehow, they surpassed them.
"Divine Departure!"
Roger's roar was no longer thunderous. It was hoarse, frayed at the edges, but the black-and-red slash that followed was sharper than any before it. All of his will and spirit had been poured into that one blade, tearing through the sky.
"Fist Bone: Galaxy Impact!"
Garp shattered the rock beneath his feet as his entire being became a meteor streaking upward. His battered fist surged with overwhelming Armament Haki, so dense that it swallowed light itself. With a single punch, the air itself trembled.
Faced with a strike born from the combined desperation of two legends, Rocks laughed.
It was a manic, reckless laugh. One that carried bitterness, fury, and a strange… sense of relief.
"Hahahahaha... that's more like it! Roger! Garp!"
He neither dodged nor blocked. Instead, he opened his arms wide as if to embrace the world-ending attack.
"Let it all return to nothing!"
With a defiant roar, an abyssal burst of Conqueror's Haki exploded from within his body, deeper than anything ever seen before.
"Dominion of the Conqueror: Oblivion!"
The world froze.
Sound vanished.
Light vanished.
The wind stopped, and even the clouds hung still in the sky.
Kael's pupils contracted sharply. He wasn't watching anymore. He was feeling.
His prized Wave-Wave Fruit powers were completely sealed in that moment. He could perceive no ripples of any kind. It was as though the world itself had been seized by an invisible hand, stripped of all energy and law.
At the center, where Rocks stood, a domain of absolute "Nothingness" began to expand uncontrollably.
The sky was no longer sky. It had become a pitch-black curtain with no stars, no lightning, only an endless, bottomless void.
The land was no longer land. It crumbled in silence, disintegrating into dust, rock, soil, and trees all breaking down into their most basic particles, consumed by the darkness.
Roger's Divine Departure and Garp's Galaxy Impact struck into the void like two stones thrown into a black hole. They stirred the darkness only slightly before vanishing completely.
The island of God Valley, this so-called sacred land, began to scream in agony.
Massive cracks split the earth like a spiderweb. Bottomless canyons tore through the mountains, and murky seawater surged inward, roaring like thunder.
This… was true calamity.
Rocks was sacrificing his own life force and Haki to bury the entire island, and everyone on it.
Kael's thousand-meter-high mountaintop began collapsing like a sandcastle. The stone beneath his feet shattered inch by inch.
He had no time to marvel. A beam of light exploded beneath his feet as he bolted for the coastline at top speed.
If he didn't leave now, he really would be buried with the legends of this sea.
At the heart of the darkness, Rocks' figure had become hazy, on the verge of merging with the void itself.
His attack had destroyed everything… but in doing so, it had exposed him.
When power expands to its absolute limit, its core inevitably becomes fragile.
"This is it!"
Roger and Garp's voices rang out at the same time, clear even through the collapse of heaven and earth.
Roger's figure flashed through the shadows. His blade Ace traced an unadorned arc, every ounce of Haki restrained into the razor edge of his sword, aimed at the very center of the void.
Garp poured everything into his right fist. With unwavering resolve, he stomped across crumbling ground and threw his punch toward the same point.
One blade. One fist.
The moment they struck, the expanding Dominion of the Conqueror halted abruptly.
Crack.
The sound came not from the body, but from the soul itself.
The devouring darkness shattered like glass. Fractures spiderwebbed across the void.
Then, light burst forth from the cracks. Sound returned to the world.
Rocks stood frozen in place. His head bowed slightly as he looked down at the hollow in his chest pierced by sword and fist. The madness faded from his face. What replaced it was peace.
He had lost.
"The D Clan... really is... fascinating…"
His voice was soft, almost tender. Then his body began to break apart into tiny motes of black light, scattered by the wind.
A ruler of an era had fallen.
And his final attack had consequences that could not be undone.
God Valley continued to collapse, and even faster now. Vast sections of land sank beneath the waves, triggering a tidal wave hundreds of meters high. Seawater surged in, forming a vortex capable of devouring everything.
Kael had already reached the coast. Without hesitation, he pushed a small boat he'd prepared into the water and tossed several stuffed sacks of loot onto it.
Gotta make a living somehow. No shame in that!
He jumped aboard and turned to look back.
The island that once stood tall was now gone. In its place, a bottomless maelstrom churned violently, swallowing clouds and sea alike.
Countless pirate ships were dragged in, their screams lost as they vanished into the deep.
This… was the end of God Valley.
Kael guided the currents beneath his boat, deftly avoiding the deadly undertow as he steered toward the distant Oro Jackson.
By the time he climbed aboard, dripping wet, he was met with stunned silence.
Rayleigh, Scopper Gaban… all the crew stood along the rail, staring at the sea that was finally calming down, leaving only a permanent scar behind.
Kael dropped his heavy bags onto the deck. The clatter of metal and gemstones rang out like a cheerful bell.
"Yo, I'm back," he said, wiping his face dry and flashing a grin. "Made it just in time for the grand finale, and grabbed a few souvenirs while I was at it."
They had just witnessed the fall of one legend…
And perhaps, the rise of another.
Kael said nothing more. He walked to the railing, leaned against it, and pulled out a cup to pour himself some orange juice.
As he gazed into the giant whirlpool, he could still feel the residual pressure of those three titanic forces in the air.
An era… had ended.
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