Watching Kozuki Oden's movements, Ortoren let out a short laugh.
"What? Planning to take me on?"
Slowly unsheathing both swords, Kozuki Oden fixed his sharp gaze on Ortoren.
"Of course. When you finally come across a rare beast, who could possibly hold back the urge to draw their blade?"
"Oh? A beast, is it?" Ortoren's lips twisted into a savage grin. "Beasts... tend to eat people."
Before he even finished speaking, Kozuki Oden could no longer restrain his fighting spirit. A fierce glint flashed in his eyes as his body tensed, and a surge of overwhelming Haki instantly darkened both of his blades.
The next instant, the deck beneath him splintered apart. His figure turned into a streak of light, launching off Jozu's flagship and shooting straight toward Ortoren.
"Oden Nitōryū: Tōgen Shirataki!" Kozuki Oden roared.
A tremendous slash burst forth from his swords. The force of his aura was so immense that even the spectators far away at the harbor felt their breath catch.
A spark lit in Ortoren's eyes. Just from this strike alone, Kozuki Oden's strength truly lived up to his name.
He might be an idiot who often acted on impulse and thought too highly of himself, and while Ortoren had no respect for Oden's so-called charisma, he had to admit—the man's strength was undeniable.
In the blink of an eye, Oden and his fierce slash were already upon him.
At that exact moment, a surge of Haki exploded from Ortoren's hand. He didn't even think of dodging—instead, he reached out to seize the raging slash head-on.
The instant he moved, invisible forces of Haki collided. Before Oden's twin blades could touch Ortoren's palm, they stopped dead in midair.
At first, both fought with Armament Haki. But after just two seconds, a crimson light flickered in Oden's eyes. The Haki coating his blades began to change—Armament Haki giving way to the overwhelming power of Conqueror's Haki.
Ortoren followed suit. Though he had the upper hand early on, once Oden's Haki turned into Conqueror's, the pressure bore down hard, forcing Ortoren to raise his own Haki to the same level.
When their Conqueror's Haki burst forth completely, the space between them became untouchable. Black lightning arced through the air, crackling wildly around them.
A moment later, the space itself shattered under the strain of their clashing wills. All that power and force compressed between them, and for an instant, the sea fell silent.
Then, the compressed energy rebounded violently. The ocean surface dropped several meters, gales roared, the sky split open, and a crushing wave of pressure swept across everything nearby.
With a deafening boom, the air where Ortoren and Oden clashed erupted. There was no smoke—only pure force. The mast beneath Ortoren's feet shattered into fragments, and Oden's body was hurled backward uncontrollably.
In midair, Oden stomped his feet several times against the air itself, forcing his momentum to stop. His muscles tensed as his twin blades spun, tracing arcs of light. His gaze locked once more onto Ortoren, who was falling from the broken mast.
"Oden Nitōryū..." Oden muttered lowly, tightening his grip as Conqueror's Haki once again surged along the edges of his swords.
But before he could attack, a bolt of lightning shot toward him from afar, condensed like a beam of light. Acting on instinct, Oden slashed forward with both blades, splitting the thunderous column clean in two.
As he cleaved the pillar of lightning, Kozuki Oden also witnessed Ortoren's transformation in the distance. Surrounded by swirling currents of lightning, Ortoren hovered in midair. Two silver plasma arcs, far more turbulent than the surrounding currents, coiled around his arms before rapidly converging in his palms.
Then, Ortoren thrust the gathered plasma forward with force, growling, "Raikōhō!"
Accompanied by Ortoren's furious roar, blinding lightning erupted from his hands. Like an energy beam cannon, it transformed into a straight pillar of energy, hurtling straight toward Kozuki Oden.
At that moment, Kozuki Oden could have dodged. He possessed the reflexes for it.
But just as he prepared to evade the energy pillar, he suddenly realized something. Behind him lay Jozu's flagship. If he dodged, Ortoren's strike would be powerful enough to obliterate the entire ship into splinters!
Therefore, he couldn't dodge.
"Damn it..." Kozuki Oden cursed inwardly as primal strength surged through his hands. He swung both blades forward in a fierce cross-shaped slash, roaring, "Oden Nitōryū: Tougen Totsuka!!!"
The powerful cross-slash instantly cleaved the barrel-thick energy column into four pieces. As Kozuki Oden spread his arms, he forcibly altered the column's trajectory. It shattered like fireworks, scattering backward as it passed through Kozuki Oden, sparing the warship behind.
Yet in doing so, Kozuki Oden left his chest wide open as his arms spread. At the very instant the energy column erupted, Ortoren's figure abruptly emerged from the blinding flash.
The turn of events was so swift that Kozuki Oden had no time to adjust his stance. As he attempted to retract his arms, Ortoren's hand already pressed down on his shoulder. Simultaneously, Kozuki Oden saw the other hand that had darted through the lightning—clutching a warhammer.
In an instant, the warhammer whistled upward, tracing a semicircle through the air. The overwhelming, domineering strength radiating from it seemed capable of shattering the very space it traversed, creating ripples in the invisible air.
"Full Moon!!!" Ortoren roared.
With a thunderous thud, the hammer slammed directly into Kozuki Oden's midsection. His expression twisted into a grimace of agony. The overwhelming strength pounded into him, causing the full, taut muscles of his abdomen to tremble and contort. Immediately following, another powerful shockwave erupted—the original semicircle now completed into a perfect circle, shaped like a full moon.
"Ugh..." Kozuki Oden's cry of pain finally escaped him at that moment. His figure, like a baseball sent flying, became a dark shadow. Unable to withstand the brutal hammer blow from above, he plunged headfirst into the ocean.
The already turbulent sea surface erupted as if struck by a bomb, instantly churning up a towering wave over ten meters high that swallowed Kozuki Oden's form.
Simultaneously, Ortoren gracefully halted his descent midair, slinging the warhammer over one shoulder. Surrounded by shimmering electric currents, he wore a faint, composed smile as he remarked, "The Second Division Captain of the Whitebeard Pirates... seems rather unimpressive, doesn't he?"
Seizing what seemed like a fleeting moment of arrogance from Ortoren, Jozu's eyes flashed with intensity as he barked from the deck, "An opening! Brilliant Punk!"
The words had barely left his mouth—no, even faster than the sound itself—when half of Jozu's body had already transformed entirely into dazzling diamond. Simultaneously, he charged forward in a shoulder-bash stance, hurtling toward Ortoren midair.
It must be said, for a man of Jozu's stature to suddenly erupt with such speed without any special abilities was truly remarkable. In the original story, during the Summit War, Jozu used this very physique to launch consecutive surprise attacks, injuring both Crocodile and Kuzan. Even Crocodile found it unbelievable—a testament to the sheer speed he could achieve in bursts.
In the blink of an eye, Jozu had soared high into the air, closing in on Ortoren. At that moment, he believed Ortoren had nowhere left to hide.
But in truth, Ortoren showed no intention of dodging. At the very last moment, from the perfect distance, he raised his hand and casually pressed it against the shoulder of the charging Jozu. With a cheerful smile, he said, "Hey hey, no need to be so enthusiastic. If you want a hug, go find someone else..."
At that moment, Jozu's face froze in disbelief. His charge possessed immense power, yet now, Ortoren had casually halted it midair with a single hand—without even a ripple of strength or energy escaping.
Seeing Jozu's stunned expression, Ortoren laughed heartily. "What's that look for? You didn't actually think you were that strong, did you? Pride is a cardinal sin, Jozu."
As the words fell, Ortoren's wrist suddenly surged with power. Even Jozu's diamond-hardened shoulders felt immense pressure and a twinge of pain. Before he could react, a colossal force erupted from Ortoren's grasp. Jozu's massive form was instantly hurled backward, crashing violently into a warship on the sea surface. He smashed through the deck, vanishing from sight.
...
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