"I am... WHITEBEARD!!!"
With his massive frame fueled by an explosion of raw power, Whitebeard charged toward Alucard. Taking heavy, deliberate strides, he swung his naginata in a brutal, horizontal cleave.
Slash!
Starting from the crown of his head, Alucard's body was split perfectly in two by Whitebeard, the blade passing all the way down between his feet. His body was completely severed into two halves.
Thick plasma connected the left and right sides of his form. A split second before the two halves could collapse to the ground, Alucard's body eerily zipped back together.
Whitebeard, however, gave him no such opening. With a backhand swing, he cleaved Alucard's torso horizontally at the abdomen, rendering the body into four distinct segments in an instant.
"Hmph!!"
Spinning his frame, Whitebeard condensed his power in his left hand. A glowing silver sphere of force encased his entire fist as he hammered it forward.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The Moby Dick, which had only just steadied itself, was once again sent reeling by the violent atmospheric shockwaves. Unlike his previous controlled outbursts, Whitebeard was now fighting at full tilt.
Alucard's body was vibrated into a mess of shredded meat by the Tremor-Tremor Fruit's power, dissolving into the blood pool. Following the strike, Whitebeard immediately gripped his naginata and leaned on it, using the weapon to prop himself up and keep his knees from hitting the floor.
He was given no time to recover. Suddenly, the sigil of a glowing red pentagram, the emblem of the Immortal Pirates, manifested within the blood pool.
Something gradually rose from the depths of the crimson tide, revealing its true form: a fully reconstituted Alucard.
"What's wrong, Edward?"
Holding a pistol in each hand, Alucard strolled toward Whitebeard. "Panting after only the first round? Even for an old-timer, this is a pathetic sight, don't you think?"
As he finished his sentence, Alucard reached Whitebeard and abruptly raised his black pistol, Jackal, leveling it directly at the center of the old man's brow.
KABOOM!!!
The moment the muzzle pointed at Whitebeard's head, the world shifted.
The blood pool groaned as the entire sea seemed to tilt in a state of weightlessness. In Alucard's vision, Whitebeard appeared to be standing "upside down." A glance at the base of the naginata revealed a silver, web-like sphere of vibration gradually fading; clearly, this upheaval was his doing.
The blood pool that had covered the ocean surface began to buckle under the pressure of the churning tides below. One wrong move and Whitebeard himself would sink. Was he so confident in Alucard's ability that he knew the blood pool wouldn't break from this level of force, or was he so confident in himself that he believed he could escape even if the pool vanished and the sea swallowed them?
In Alucard's perspective, Whitebeard was "upside down," but the reality was that Whitebeard had used his power to flip Alucard into the air.
Whitebeard bent his knees slightly and leaped, the tip of his naginata whistling toward the head of the inverted Alucard.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Alucard's white pistol, Casull, roared in rapid succession. Silver light bloomed from the tip of Whitebeard's blade as it danced with wild precision, batting away bullets that even a Marine Vice Admiral would find impossible to defend against.
Hovering before Alucard, Whitebeard threw a punch. The two were positioned in total opposition: Whitebeard facing the sky, Alucard facing the abyss.
THOOM!!!!
Accompanied by a deafening roar, the crew of the Whitebeard Pirates, the only observers two nautical miles away, saw the clouds in the sky shatter like a bar of chocolate. Countless men raised their arms and cheered, roaring in approval of their father's peerless strength.
How many years had it been since they last saw Whitebeard unleash power of this magnitude?
Only the few who understood the grim reality of the situation did not join the celebration. Lucky Roux stopped chewing his meat and looked toward Marco.
Marco's attention wasn't on the fractured clouds, but on a small piece of white paper in his palm.
Seconds after Whitebeard landed that punch, Marco and several cadres surrounding him saw a corner of the pristine paper begin to smolder. Though subtle, the white paper was unmistakably vanishing.
This was no ordinary paper; it was Edward Newgate's Vivre Card.
It was a brilliant invention, not just a tracker, but a mirror of its master's life force.
That last move may have looked like a hit on Alucard, but in truth, it was Whitebeard who had suffered the damage.
Suddenly, the surrounding blood pool surged. Marco and the others watched as the eye-covered tide rose several meters high before crashing back down.
When it settled, ten thousand knights had appeared upon the blood pool. Each wore silver battle armor and rode a black stallion. Both men and horses were shrouded in a crimson mist from the pool, exuding a sense of pure, unbridled slaughter.
Whitebeard and Alucard both landed on the surface. By now, Alucard had entered his "Count Dracula" state, returning to the appearance of a man in his prime.
Count Dracula tilted his head back slightly and suddenly drew the heavy broadsword from his waist, clashing violently with Whitebeard!
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
Crimson and silver lights flickered, carving through the clouds and tearing the blood pool asunder.
While Alucard and Whitebeard traded blows, the Wallachian Knights did not sit idle. They maneuvered their steeds with perfect coordination, forming ranks that surrounded the two combatants in layer upon layer of steel.
Despite the overwhelming numerical disadvantage, Whitebeard ignored the knights entirely, as if they didn't exist. His eyes were locked solely on Alucard.
After using his full strength to force the Count back, Whitebeard seized the opening. He crooked his left hand into a claw, raking it against the air with an ear-piercing crack.
"GAAAHH!!"
With a great roar from Whitebeard, the very surface of the sea collapsed.
WORLD TREMOR!!
However, the moment Count Dracula was pushed back, he raised his great knight's sword high toward the heavens. The shattered clouds began to spin, centering on the point of his blade until they formed a massive vortex.
CRACK-BOOM!
Violet-white lightning descended, turning a deep, blood red the instant it touched the sword.
SPIRIT OF ALL THINGS!!