Before they even had the chance to marvel at that soaring, peerless assault, the clash had drawn to an abrupt close.
Across the undulating surface of the ocean, countless fish floated belly-up—vast in scale, of every size and species imaginable.
A legendary titan of the seas had failed to withstand a single blow!
"Ugh... cough, hack, cough..."
Sprawled across a colossal slab of floating bedrock, Shiki lay like a dead dog, coughing violently.
Twitching feebly, he struggled back up onto his broken stumps.
Fresh crimson pooled beneath him in alarming volumes, a gruesome sight that made Kenshin and his crew feel an icy chill spread across their scalps.
The Golden Lion, a man who looked down upon the entire world, had fallen just like that.
What did this imply?
It meant that had they not been shielded within the reinforced hull of the Demon Warder, Shiki's shattered, blood-soaked state would be their own direct reflection.
Safely ensconced inside the vessel, they were insulated from that mortal terror. Yet they knew with absolute clarity that the moment they stepped beyond the ship's threshold, their fate would be no different from Shiki's.
"Impossible... Impossible... This cannot be real!" Shiki's eyes grew vacant, staring blankly at the pulverized ruins around him.
He could not fathom how an entire floating island commanded by his own will could be smashed to atoms in a single strike. It felt like an absurd nightmare.
Yes!
This has to be a dream! How could such power even exist?!
Khehehe...
From the swirling gloom of the surrounding black mist, dozens upon dozens of shadowy homunculi materialized anew, leaping through the air as they converged on Shiki like a swarm of ravenous locusts.
"Damn you mongrels! I'll grind every last one of you into dust!" Gritting his teeth through blinding pain, Shiki prepared to lash out once more.
Whoosh!
In the blink of an eye, the shadowy figures swarmed him, cutting off every angle of retreat. Striking in relentless succession, they granted him not a fraction of a second to catch his breath.
Shiki was driven onto the defensive almost instantly.
The physical debris he could manipulate out here was far too scarce; he desperately needed to locate another island.
Every single one of these shadowy homunculi possessed frightening combat prowess—even pinnacle masters boasting bounties of a billion Berries would struggle to overcome them in single combat.
And now, nearly a hundred of them had surged forth at once. If an army like this were unleashed upon the world, the collateral destruction would be cataclysmic.
Unstoppable!
Shiki was left virtually helpless. Barely managing to parry an initial barrage, he was immediately subjected to a one-sided, brutal beating—a spectacle that left Kenshin and the crew clicking their tongues in dismay.
Are those shadowy runts really that strong?
Enclosed within the Demon Warder, the crew felt none of the oppressive weight radiating from the figures.
The homunculi possessed no overt aura; to the naked eye, they appeared entirely mundane.
After all, they were not living flesh and blood. They wielded no Haki, relying purely on ingrained martial proficiency and terrifying physical force.
Having fought them hand-to-hand, Shiki understood their lethal nature intimately. The problem was that Kenshin and the others were completely oblivious.
From their perspective, Shiki simply looked utterly pathetic.
Failing to handle small fry like that while claiming to be a legendary pirate? Tch.
It was an outright insult to the legacies of Whitebeard and Roger.
"Hey! Are you lot just going to sit there, or are you going to help?!" Using the slab of floating rock beneath him, Shiki barely broke through the encirclement, bellowing at the top of his lungs toward the Demon Warder.
Even if it hadn't been their deliberate intention earlier, they had undeniably bought him a moment of respite. Leaving him to die right now was unforgivable!
Seeing the Demon Warder remain completely motionless, Shiki was gripped by genuine panic. Behind him, the dark figures swarmed forward like an encroaching storm cloud, cutting off any further room to speak.
They fell upon him in a ruthless mob, subjecting him to hundreds of concussive strikes every single second.
The moment he coughed up a mouthful of blood and fought for air, another volley slammed into his battered frame.
Bell watched the savage beatdown with wide eyes.
"Should we... maybe lend him a hand? His ability could be useful to us," Bell suggested suddenly.
A faint glint flickered in the boy's eyes as he spoke.
He wasn't proposing this out of pity; his instincts told him that the Golden Lion wasn't a particularly decent person.
However, in terms of sheer utility, the man still had value.
"Alright, if that's the case, let's step in," Kenshin agreed, glancing at Bell. He knew that if Bell had spoken up, the boy had a clear tactical calculation in mind.
"Aaargh... Ahhh... Guh... cough... gaaah..."
Shiki's agonizing screams gradually weakened into muffled whimpers, until the sounds of his suffering were drowned out entirely by the wet, rhythmic impacts of fists and blades pounding his flesh.
His life force flickered like a candle in a gale.
Is this... how my life ends...?
Damn it all!
I merely stepped into the weakest of the four seas, yet I'm throwing my life away here? And through such a humiliating death...
I curse this sky!
Roger!
I bet even you never imagined this old life of mine would be extinguished in the East Blue...
On the threshold of oblivion, Shiki seemed to detach from his physical agony, the memories of a lifetime flashing through his consciousness.
The figure that surfaced most vividly was that wildly grinning man: the first Pirate King in history, Gol D. Roger!
His eternal rival.
A hated enemy he had respected above all others.
Decades ago, Shiki had stood at the pinnacle of the world, commanding one of the greatest armadas to ever sail the Grand Line.
Back then, Roger had been nothing more than a greenhorn carving his name into the sea.
What nostalgic days...
Gradually, Shiki's eyelids grew impossibly heavy. His body and consciousness felt weighted with lead; this voyage of a lifetime had dragged on for far too long.
Perhaps... it was finally time to rest...
BOOM!
A thunderous roar shattered his fading stupor. The Demon Warder descended with bone-crushing weight, landing squarely atop the massive slab of rock beneath Shiki.
Calling it a mere rock did it a disservice.
It was a massive shelf sheared off from the pulverized island, spanning the footprint of several galleons.
Stationed atop it, the Demon Warder looked as though it were resting on solid ground. Suddenly, the bedrock shuddered violently, entering a steep vertical plunge.
"What's happening?" Kenshin's brow furrowed.
Bell glanced at the motionless figure of Shiki below, offering a swift deduction: "Shiki has lost consciousness, causing the Float-Float Fruit's grip on this rock to fail. It's in freefall!"
"What?!" the crew gasped in unison.
"Hey! Old man, are you done already?! Aren't you supposed to be a legendary pirate?!" Kenshin roared.
Through the mechanical vocal amplifiers of the Demon Warder, Kenshin's shout echoed across the sky with deafening intensity.
Yet Shiki remained utterly limp, looking indistinguishable from a corpse.
The bedrock continued its plunge toward the churning sea.
"Kenshin, look out! They're coming!" Locke yelled, pointing upward.
A dense cloud of shadowy figures descended toward the Demon Warder. The shockwave of the ship's landing had blasted them back moments ago, but they had reformed instantly.
The violent tremors running through the rock flipped Shiki's limp body onto its back.
With agonizing effort, Shiki forced his eyelids open, only to witness the entire army of dark figures plunging toward the Demon Warder.
His pupils contracted into pinpricks.
A cold dread seized his heart: It's over. Certain death!
He understood the lethal might of those figures intimately. Impressed as he had been by the Demon Warder's mobility earlier, he held zero faith that the vessel could withstand a concentrated assault from a swarm of that scale.
"Thousandfold Thunder!"
The Demon Warder moved. Shifting its mechanical footing wide, it unleashed a catastrophic tempest of lightning that flooded the surrounding space.
Every shadowy figure that brushed against the blinding arcs of electricity was instantly vaporized into pure nothingness.
In a single heartbeat!
Shiki's eyes bulged from their sockets, his deathly pale face freezing in sheer, dumbfounded shock.
Impossible!