While Garp and Valthior were still sighing over their thoughts, another wave of freezing air erupted. In an instant, the turbulent sea surface froze into a vast sheet of ice stretching thousands of meters wide.
This wasn't Valthior doing. It was Kuzan's ability.
There was no helping it. Valthior and Garp had completely sunk the island, and Kuzan could not just watch things go on like that. Seeing that Valthior had no intention of freezing the sea and seemed ready to decide the battle with Garp right above the ocean, Kuzan had no choice but to act first, freezing the sea and creating a wide "stage" for them.
"You ice-type ability users really do have an advantage. Even in a battle at sea, you do not have to worry much about the ocean holding you back," Garp clicked his tongue and said.
"I told you that kid has a bright future. A Logia-type Ice-Ice Fruit user, hahaha. Just looking at him, I can tell we are meant to get along. Why not let him stay on my ship for two years?" Valthior laughed.
"We are righteous Marines. How could we ever mix with a bastard like you?" Garp said with disdain.
"I do not like hearing that. You went through the God Valley incident with me, so how can you still say the word justice so easily? Does that not feel a little fake? Has your son never asked you what the Marines' justice really means?" Valthior raised his brow and mocked him.
Trash talk was also an important part of battle. If words could stir the enemy's emotions, then they could indeed tilt the battle slightly.
It had to be said, Valthior's words truly struck one of Garp's sore spots.
He suddenly remembered the scene from years ago, when Dragon had said in prison that he wanted to leave the Marines and that he looked down on him.
Garp's face darkened.
But after a moment, he froze, then shouted angrily, "Anyone on this sea has the right to question me like that, but you Celestial Dragon bastards are the only ones who do not!"
Damn it. Valthior had almost dragged him into his logic.
Could the God Valley incident really be blamed on the Marines? In the end, should the blame not fall on those Celestial Dragon monsters?
"So you still remember that I am a Celestial Dragon. Striking someone above your station is a serious crime. Believe it or not, I can make one call to Mary Geoise, and that kid Kuzan will never become an Admiral in his life," Valthior laughed loudly.
"I will tear that mouth off right now, so you can never say things like that again!" Garp laughed in anger. After cursing, he pushed off with his feet, and the ice pillar under him shattered on the spot.
Then his figure rushed toward Valthior.
"Galaxy Impact!"
Terrifying Conqueror's Haki instantly gathered into one point and wrapped around Garp's iron fist. The moment he threw the punch, Valthior felt a storm of force crashing toward him.
"Majestic Attire: Frost Sky Ice Zheng!"
Valthior roared. This time, he no longer held back his Conqueror's Haki. It burst out fully in an instant. At the same time, his ability changed with it. In the blink of an eye, he had fully transformed into a fierce frost beast. His Susanoo opened at full power, wrapping around his huge body completely and turning into a mighty beast-shaped armor.
Facing Garp's heavy punch, Valthior drove the clear, crystal-like horn on his forehead straight into it.
Violent force and waves of Conqueror's Haki surged wildly. The instant fist and horn collided, ring-shaped shockwaves spread outward one after another.
Right after that, the huge glacier Kuzan had just frozen seemed to be struck by an earthquake. It broke apart layer by layer, shattered, and cracked for more than a thousand meters.
During this contest of strength, Valthior's beast form had the advantage.
After a brief deadlock, his massive tail, large enough to cover the sky, lashed out fiercely.
Garp did not have a tail to swing around, so when faced with this change, he had no choice but to shift his move. He raised his arm to block, coating it with Haki, but the tail still smashed into him and sent him flying.
The moment Garp was sent flying, Valthior showed no mercy. He let out an earth-shaking roar. The sound wave passed over the already shattered glacier, turning it into a silver-white cloud of powder that rose into the air.
"Beast Calamity!"
As Valthior's roar fell, the ice powder within a thousand meters seemed to come under the control of some strange force. It quickly gathered in front of his open jaws. The chilling frost seemed cold enough to freeze space itself, forming a terrifying silver-white sphere of ice dozens of meters wide before his mouth.
It looked like a strange version of a Tailed Beast Bomb.
Even Kuzan, who was not at the center of the battlefield, felt deeply shocked. He could sense that as the huge ice sphere kept growing, the cold energy inside his own body seemed to be pulled toward it.
It felt as if Valthior could even forcefully draw in and control the ice power of a Logia user like him.
"How is that possible!?" Kuzan shouted in disbelief.
When the silver-white sphere reached its limit, ripples began to move across its smooth surface. It seemed even Valthior was starting to lose control of that huge mass of energy.
But at this point, there was no need to keep controlling it.
He aimed at the place where Garp had landed after being blasted hundreds of meters away and fired the frost sphere from his mouth.
Garp tumbled across the shattered ice dozens of times. Every time he hit the ground, he kicked up large amounts of ice mist and debris. Finally stopping himself, he looked up to see the frost Tailed Beast Bomb hurtling toward him like a meteor.
Wherever the Tailed Beast Bomb passed, the previously shattered ice surface instantly refroze, and countless vicious ice spikes shot outward in all directions, leaving behind a dangerous and eerie trail.
At this distance, Garp could have dodged.
But when he remembered Valthior's mocking words from earlier, he could not swallow that anger.
In an instant, Garp made his decision.
He would break Valthior's attack from the front.
He took a deep breath, and the Haki around his body seemed to collapse inward. The space around him looked as though it could not hold his terrifying presence, and ripple-like cracks flashed in the air from time to time. Then black lightning born from his Haki crackled around him.
"Infinitum…" Garp muttered under his breath, his eyes narrowing.
As the frost Tailed Beast Bomb rapidly closed in on him, frost had already formed on Garp's eyebrows, suit, and hair. The power of the attack was clearly immense.
"Explosion!"
With a furious roar, Garp threw what looked like hundreds or even thousands of punches in that single moment!
A storm of relentless blows met Valthior's frost-white Tailed Beast Ball head-on!
For that moment, the whole battlefield seemed to fall silent. The glacier no longer cracked, the clouds no longer moved, and even the roaring sea wind seemed to stop.
The next instant, a dazzling silver-white light suddenly burst open.
The giant frost sphere exploded.
Wild waves of freezing air spread out in layers, blooming like a lotus. Layer after layer of frozen "petals" formed and rapidly expanded outward.
By the time everyone came back to their senses, the place where the frost blast had erupted had already become a huge, fierce ice lotus. It looked like an enormous bomb had exploded, only for the blast to be frozen in place at the very moment of detonation.
High in the sky thousands of meters away, Morgans, who was observing the battlefield through a long-range camera, watched the scene and swallowed hard. He couldn't help but mutter, "What is this? A frozen explosion? Even seen from this distance with the naked eye, it is huge. Without a doubt, this is a terrible power that could destroy an island in one strike…"
Morgans even compared it to Marine Headquarters, Marineford, in his mind. Looking at that terrifying ice blast, he guessed that if such an attack were fired at Marineford, the whole place would be covered.
At that moment, a part of the huge ice blast suddenly shattered, and Garp's powerful figure walked out from inside.
Looking closer, frost-colored patches could be seen on his arms and fists.
They were frostbite.
Clearly, even someone as strong as Garp had suffered no light injury after taking that attack head-on.
Garp raised his hand and looked at the pale frost on his knuckles. There was no very obvious wound, but he only felt numbness there, as if he had lost all feeling. When he clenched his fist slightly harder, the flesh in that area suddenly split apart and crumbled into dust, leaving a deep hole where the bone could be seen.
His iron fists had been trained countless times, so much that he had almost forgotten the last time his hands had been hurt this badly.
As these thoughts passed through his mind, his Observation Haki sharply caught the breathing of the frost beast Valthior had transformed into.
The next second, Garp grinned.
"My turn…"
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