Kaidou once said that only Haki stands above all things.
Rocks had expressed similar views in that book of his, Haki: From Beginner to Buried.
Ortoren used to treat that as absolute truth as well. But now, his strength had long since surpassed Kaidou, and even surpassed Rocks.
His understanding of strength had changed with it. Standing where he stood now, Ortoren had his own perspective.
Perhaps before reaching the so-called other shore, power could still be sorted into ranks, Haki, raw strength, abilities, and all the messy branches in between, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. At that stage, Haki really did feel like it could tower over everything.
But once you reached the other shore, just as Imu said, all roads led to the same destination. All methods returned to one. At this level, there was no longer any "higher" or "lower" between those categories.
You are a seamless, perfect one, and so am I!
As the lightning tore through the raging tide of Haki, Imu's slender figure drove a punch straight at Ortoren.
Ortoren did the same. Feeling that crushing Haki crash toward him like a landslide, he didn't dodge or retreat. He met it with a punch of his own.
Like spring snow meeting warm sunlight, Ortoren's long-tempered Haki was immediately suppressed the moment it faced Imu's surging, overwhelming, utterly unreasonable Haki. It almost collapsed on contact, offering virtually no resistance at all.
And in that instant, Ortoren seemed to see the world, see history, see the past.
This punch carried Imu's conviction as well.
Within that Haki, a vast world unfolded. Centuries of history spread out before him. He seemed to glimpse the great kingdom amid ruins, and the legendary Twenty Kings. Images flashed across Ortoren's senses one after another: the ancient weapons Uranus and Pluton, even a Poseidon from centuries ago that he had never seen, and the countless forms of all living beings, endless faces of the world…
Haki was the condensation of spirit, energy, and will. And Conqueror's Haki was the distillation of a person's entire life, the refinement of everything they had lived through, the endpoint of all spirit.
This strike was what Imu called "World," and that world was the world Imu had walked through, experienced, and felt.
In the space of a heartbeat, Ortoren felt his own smallness in that surging torrent. Eight hundred years was simply too long. Imu's dazzling, richly layered life was so immense that Ortoren nearly lost himself for a moment.
When that faint haze appeared in Ortoren's eyes, a trace of regretful disappointment flickered across Imu's.
It was as if Ortoren failing to withstand that Haki saddened him.
That disappointment, the feeling of finding your own kind only to discover they weren't as exceptional as you had hoped, washed over Imu in an instant.
But in the very next moment, before that regret could settle, Ortoren's eyes snapped bright again. Like a young tree anchoring its roots into rock in the middle of a violent storm, he steadied himself and grew firm, no longer something that could be torn out by the roots.
"What a brilliant, colorful life you've lived, Imu!" Ortoren roared, shouting the praise into the tempest.
If he hadn't found himself again inside that dazzling panorama, found another world that did not belong to Imu, then this single strike would have been enough to declare his defeat.
"Just as I expected of the one I chose as my own kind, Ortoren!" Imu shouted back, exhilarated.
Ortoren's clarity didn't disappoint him. It only made him more excited.
Ortoren's Haki scattered. No matter how hard he tried, at this moment, his Haki simply could not compare to Imu's. That was the weight of time itself, an abyss no one could cross.
Imu's accumulation across eight hundred years, how could anyone casually surpass it?
And yet Ortoren possessed a power beyond what ordinary people could reach, untouchable, unmatched.
When the Haki on his fist dispersed, what gathered in its place was his absolute strength, unrivaled under heaven.
Imu's Haki stood before him like a mountain.
Ortoren's strength struck like a ferocious dragon driving straight into that mountain.
Within that Haki, the brilliant world it carried began to buckle under Ortoren's pure force. World or history, the spread of the past or the imagined future, every scene that had formed within Imu's overwhelming Haki tapestry, before this absolute strength, it finally lost that crushing momentum it had just possessed.
With a heavy boom, the Haki was shattered and scattered, and Ortoren's fist slammed into Imu's with a dull, bone-deep impact.
The terrifying force made Imu's footing lurch. The solid training ground beneath him cracked apart instantly, shattered stone fragments blasting upward like cannon shells. They shot hundreds of meters away, slammed into the God's Knights' castle, and in the next instant, the castle collapsed under the impact, turning into ruins.
Unexpectedly, the sky didn't split. Space didn't shatter. Even the black lightning that should have erupted when monsters clashed stayed completely silent, not a flicker in sight.
When the Haki scattered, this strike that could have destroyed heaven and earth still looked, from the outside, like nothing more than two ordinary fists meeting. Not a thread of force or pressure leaked out.
Imu's Haki, fierce enough to be called a world unto itself, poured endlessly into Ortoren's body, making Ortoren's eyes bloodshot as his breathing grew heavier and rougher.
And Ortoren's savage, world-breaking strength surged just as violently into Imu. In an instant, Imu's noble composure and kingly bearing were stripped away. He looked like a feral mountain brute, face twisted, panting like an ox.
Imu's body, which had never looked particularly strong and even seemed somewhat slender, was now like steel tempered a thousand times over, unshakably solid. Ortoren's wild, violent power couldn't break it.
It was Haki's forging.
Over hundreds of years, Imu had tempered his entire body, inside and out, with Haki until it reached its absolute limit.
He wasn't born with iron bones, but he had reached that realm, and even beyond it.
At this moment, it was as if the pinnacle of Haki and the very end of strength were evenly matched.
A moment later, Ortoren and Imu exchanged a look, perfectly in sync, and both withdrew the Haki and power they were pressing into each other.
The instant those two forces vanished, the ground around them turned into a thick layer of powder. A sea breeze swept through, rolling it into a haze that quickly dispersed.
"Just as I thought," Imu said softly. "Once any kind of power reaches this realm, there's no higher or lower anymore."
"Yeah," Ortoren replied, genuinely impressed. "I didn't expect Haki, once it reaches the pinnacle, to carry this kind of force."
That punch had been terrifying. Anyone weaker than Imu would have had their inner world shredded to pieces by it.
The pinnacle of Haki was a storm of the spirit.
Looking at it now, Ortoren felt as though he stood on the other shore of physical strength, while Imu stood at the very edge of the spiritual world.
"The price is obvious too, isn't it?" Imu murmured.
Because his spiritual world had reached its end, he felt his soul rotting more and more with each passing day. Without some new light shining in, even the most dazzling world would eventually decay, fall silent, collapse, and never stir again.
That was why Imu sought a new future, a new path. That was why he could toss everything he had now aside without hesitation.
Ortoren didn't know whether he would face the same problem one day, but there was no need to think about that now.
They had traded only one blow, yet that single blow already stood above everything under heaven. It was more than enough to measure both of them.
Each had gained something from it. Imu and Ortoren fell into silence, as if each had sunk into his own world.
More than half an hour passed before they finally came back at the same time.
"Besides that 'World,' do you have any move that can beat me?" Ortoren asked bluntly.
Imu shook his head. "It was only one strike, but it was my strongest. It fused nearly nine hundred years of my Haki and spirit… and it still didn't defeat you."
After a pause, Imu asked in return, "And you? Besides that punch that stepped onto the end of strength, do you have any other way to defeat me?"
"That wasn't the end of strength," Ortoren said, a confident smile curling at his lips. "It was still missing a crown."
As he spoke, Ortoren slowly raised a single finger.
In that instant, thunderous power that felt endless began gathering within him. From every part of his body, from inside and out, it converged toward one point.
That point was the finger he held upright.
Watching this, Imu's eyes lit with anticipation and excitement. "Is this the strike you used last year to finish Whitebeard?"
"That's right," Ortoren said. "I promised him I'd use this strike to send him on his way. So, to keep that promise, I used this power. But his so-called 'strongest' wasn't worthy of matching it. Today… this strike finally has a true target."
As he spoke, Ortoren lowered his stance.
Body and mind as one, spirit and power poured into a single point. He extended that finger forward and settled into position, then asked, "Want to try it? The so-called end of strength?"
"Come," Imu said.
His Haki trembled, and he stood perfectly still, not dodging, not retreating, eyes fixed on Ortoren with undisguised expectation.
Perhaps he, too, had been waiting for this all along, waiting for the truly peerless power that could defeat him.
"This technique is single-minded, relentless, unstoppable. It is the end of strength, the other shore of the body!" Ortoren said, voice low.
The moment the words left his mouth, he moved.
That towering, muscular body became a streak of dazzling lightning, surging forward at terrifying speed. It reached Imu's front and stopped there, as if the distance between them had never existed at all.
A single point broke the whole surface. Imu's Haki couldn't stop that light.
Imu's face froze in shock, as though he still hadn't recovered from what he'd just seen.
Ortoren was already standing right in front of him. His finger had pierced into Imu's chest. Drip. Drip. Dark red blood slid down along Ortoren's wrist and fell to the ground.
"So this is the end of strength…" Imu murmured. The shock in his eyes slowly turned into satisfaction.
"You really trusted me," Ortoren said, raising an eyebrow as he pulled his finger out. "You didn't dodge at all. If I'd aimed for your heart, you'd be saying goodbye to this world right now."
He hadn't struck a vital point. The blow landed in the center of Imu's chest, enough to wound, but not kill.
"You had no reason to kill me," Imu replied casually.
Then he closed his eyes, clearly ignoring Ortoren, still savoring and digesting that strike that had pierced straight through his world.
"Relentless… unwavering…" Imu smacked his lips, eyes still shut, tasting the feeling like something exquisite. "Beautiful. Truly elegant."
He had lost, yet there was no resentment in him at all, only relief, only satisfaction.
Because that decaying spirit of his now held one more brilliant piece of scenery. And if he fully digested what he'd just experienced… perhaps his Haki could become even stronger.