The sea wind, heavy with smoke and the stench of scorched stone, spiraled above the ring-shaped lake.
Gern Reginald Sigmar's right sleeve had long since been shredded to nothing.Across the exposed skin of his arm, pale裂纹 crawled like living scars.
With every breath he took, those裂纹 subtly opened and closed, as if they might shatter at any moment—yet they were also the unmistakable mark of Heavenquake.
Gern smiled faintly as he slowly raised his left hand, palm facing upward.When his five fingers curled and clenched, a sharp crack echoed from his knuckles.
"Heavenquake · White Vortex!!"
BOOOOM—!!
The ground of the entire desolate island twisted and folded like a towel being wrung by a giant.Dozens of pale pillars of light—each more than ten meters in diameter—erupted from beneath the earth. Wherever they passed, rock was not shattered, but vaporized at the material level, erased in an instant.
"This level of destruction is just straight-up cheating, you bastard!"Roger's figure darted frantically between the pillars.
Each swing of Ace precisely cleaved through the core of a shockwave.The instant dark-red blade light collided with pale energy, explosions tore through the air.
His captain's coat was shredded into rags, and his bare back was already crisscrossed with countless thin cuts, blood seeping through the skin.
"Is that so? Too bad—this isn't over yet."Gern laughed, deliberately letting his right arm hang at his side.
The裂纹 on that arm had already spread to his shoulder blade, yet his trembling fingertips were still condensing vibrating particles.
When both of his palms slammed into the ground—
The instant skin met soil, a visible ring of pale ripples spread outward from his body.
"Heavenquake · Earth-Roaring Kagura!!!"
The land rose like a blanket being violently flipped by an invisible hand.Tens of thousands of tons of bedrock were hurled into the sky.
The massive stones, wrapped in high-frequency vibrations, glowed with a dark red heat—like iron pulled straight from a furnace.
Roger's pupils shrank sharply.The shockwaves crushed his eardrums, filling them with a deafening roar—
Yet he grinned.
"Using my Divine Departure as a stepping stone before… and now you're using the entire island as a weapon?"
He suddenly drove Ace blade-first into the ground.
Armament Haki wrapped around both fists began to flow like liquid.Dark-red Ryuo spiraled into sharp, conical spikes at his knuckles.
"Supreme Armament · Sky-Piercing Charge!!"
Two torrents of拳劲 blasted upward.
Every boulder flying toward him exploded midair, fire and debris merging into a vast crimson curtain.The aftershock punched straight through the cloud layer above, tearing open a massive gap.
Sunlight poured down like a waterfall.
But at that very moment—
Gern's figure vanished from where he stood.
"Above!"Roger snapped his head up. Violet afterimages still burned across his retinas, while his Observation Haki screamed in warning.
High in the sky, the black blade Eight Desolations was no longer a weapon.
It had become a segment of severed space, wrapped in pale energy.
Light twisted into spirals around the blade.The atmosphere wailed under the strain of its high-frequency vibration, on the verge of collapse.
As Gern plunged downward, his trajectory carved a vacuum tunnel through the air.Before the blade even reached him, spiderweb cracks spread across the ground beneath Roger's feet.
"Heavenquake · Eight Desolations—Rend!!!"
"CLANG!!!"
Roger's legs sank into the rock up to his ankles as he blocked in haste.
But the vibration carried by this strike far surpassed anything before it.Whether due to spatial distortion or some deeper effect—
Ace's blade began to bend.
"CRACK!"
With a crisp, terrifying sound, Roger was cleaved straight into the earth.The ground within a thousand meters collapsed outward in a radial pattern.
Yet before the dust could even rise—
"Divine Wrath!!!"
A dark-red streak erupted from underground.The Haki wrapped around Ace was now dense like flowing blood.
As the blade cut through the air, it no longer produced wind—but a shriek like the wailing of countless亡魂.
The instant Gern raised his blade to block, sparks exploded along Eight Desolations' edge.The sheer force blasted him through three entire mountains.
"Ha… hahaha…"Amid collapsing rock and debris, Gern knelt on one knee, coughing blood.
Yet his eyes never left Roger.The hand gripping his sword trembled—not from weakness, but exhilaration.
"This… yes… this is it…This is what deserves the title of 'Pirate King'!"
Roger walked toward him.
His upper clothing had also been reduced to tatters.His bare chest was heaving, Ace held low at his side.
"Your growth rate is terrifying, Heavenquake."
"Is it?"Gern slowly straightened.
Suddenly, Eight Desolations erupted with blinding white light.
Centered on his body, space began to warp and fracture.Countless pale spatial裂 spread outward like a spiderweb.
A teeth-grinding crack crack crack echoed through the air—as if the world itself were on the verge of collapse.
"Actually…"A dangerous curve lifted the corner of Gern's mouth."There's something even more terrifying."
Before the words fully fell—
Eight Desolations transformed into a streak of light and shot forward!
Roger twisted aside on instinct honed through countless battles—but the instant the blade brushed past him, his pupils constricted.
Gern's presence vanished.
When Roger's Observation Haki finally locked on again—
That man was already right in front of him.
Gern's right fist was wrapped in profound Ryuo.Countless vibrating particles compressed and collapsed at the knuckles, forming a terrifying core like a miniature black hole.
"Black Quake · Piercing Star!!"
BOOOOM!!!
The sudden straight punch smashed squarely into Roger's chest.
The instant the force penetrated his body, his chest visibly caved inward.Blood burst from his mouth in a violent spray.
Even worse—
The residual force formed a cylindrical震爆 zone a thousand meters wide behind him.The air was completely drained, and even light warped under the pressure.
Roger's body flew backward like a kite with its string cut—
Only to be intercepted midair by an even faster shadow.
"I caught your opening!"Gern's tremor-flash pursuit was faster than thought itself.
He appeared above Roger, his right leg raised high.
Black-red Haki and pale shockwaves entwined around his heel, forming a jagged blade of energy.
"Black Quake · Severing Path Kick!!"
The moment the kick came down—
The sky itself was torn apart.
A fan-shaped shockwave split the clouds in two.Below, the sea was pressed into a depression several kilometers wide.
Roger's body crashed downward like a meteor.
At the instant of impact—
RRRRUUUUUMBLE!!!
The land within a hundred miles fractured in an instant!
The center of the impact sank into a massive basin.The surrounding bedrock buckled upward under the pressure, forming a brand-new ring of mountains.
The blast wave shoved hundreds of tons of seawater outward, generating tsunamis tens of meters high along the coastline.
But Gern's killing move had only just begun.
Mid-descent, his right arm snapped outward.His fingers spread like claws.
Far away, Eight Desolations responded to its master's call.
The blade screamed through the air, tearing it apart as it returned, carving a pale vacuum trail behind it.
The moment Gern's left hand brushed the spine of the blade—
Purple-black Conqueror's Haki surged like a living venomous serpent, wrapping around it.
It collided violently with the blade's inherent vibration particles, releasing blinding dark-purple lightning.
An even more horrifying transformation followed.
Billions of vibration particles collapsed madly along the blade's edge.Each compression twisted the surrounding light—
as if even light itself were being devoured.
A low hum rose steadily, escalating into a shriek sharp enough to pierce eardrums.Everything around Gern silently disintegrated—
not shattered, but dispersed at the molecular level.
"Heavenquake…"
Gern raised the blade overhead in the most basic high-guard stance.
In his hands, that simple posture became a ritual of creation and destruction.
The instant the blade fell—
CRACK!!!
A jet-black spatial裂 spread alongside the slash, like a god dragging an ink-soaked brush across the canvas of the world.
Where it passed, the very concept of material existence was briefly erased.
Rock, air—even light—collapsed before this scar of nothingness.
"Void Rend!!!"
Centered on the slash, web-like pale裂 instantly spread across the entire island.Within every裂, destructive light surged.
Far out at sea, massive waves suddenly rose tens of meters high—not pushed by shockwaves, but because the space itself in that region was warping, twisting, folding.
Amid this apocalyptic vision—
Only Gern stood clearly visible, blade in hand.
His pupils reflected a shattered world,yet his lips curved into a smile bordering on reverence.
This was the highest tribute to destruction,one reserved solely for those at the summit of power.
However—
"Sorry—but I think I saw something unbelievable… before you even kicked."
As the light faded, Roger stood there, gripping Ace with both hands, blocking that world-ending strike.
The red glow burning in his pupils left scorching afterimages even within Gern's Observation Haki.
The instant the two legendary blades met—
The violent energy torrent blasted every drop of water from the ring-shaped lake into the sky.Suspended curtains of water reflected countless shattered afterimages of their clash.
Their Conqueror's Haki erupted completely at that moment.
Dark red and pale lightning intertwined, staining the entire sky in eerie dual colors.
The sea roared.The earth trembled.
And the gears of the era—
Let out a thunderous, world-shaking roar.