That super-meteor, nearly the size of a small island, came wrapped in flames that seared the atmosphere, dyeing the entire night sky a doomsday orange.
Below, Mars, who had only just clawed his way out of the crater, saw something reflected in those massive avian pupils for the first time.
Despair.
He could not take this hit.
In the split second before the meteor touched down, a black afterimage slammed in at an unbelievable speed.
Roar!
Warcury let out a heaven-shaking bellow. Black flame-clouds swelled wildly across his mountain-like Boar form, and his two enormous tusks became indestructible battering rams as they drove straight into the meteor's center!
Boom!!!!
The meteor's descent halted abruptly.
Under Warcury's feet, the Red Line fractured inch by inch. Spiderweb cracks raced outward in every direction, forming a massive depression thousands of meters wide.
Warcury's muscles bulged, veins standing out as he forced every last drop of brute strength to the surface.
Cracks spread across the meteor's burning shell.
Then, with a thunderous, overloaded shriek, it shattered apart.
Countless flaming fragments rained down like a celestial scatter, blasting deep pits into the ground, yet ultimately failing to deal Mars a fatal blow.
Kael was not surprised.
He had never expected pure physics to outright kill the Five Elders. Crippling them was enough.
Kael drifted down from the sky. The instant his feet touched the ground, a sudden change struck!
Hiss! Hiss! Hiss!
Dozens of razor-sharp stone spikes made of Red Line rock burst up beneath him without warning, sealing off every foothold.
At the same time, a gale exploded into being. Yellow sand whipped up into blade-like currents, forming a suffocating sandstorm that rolled over him like a wall.
The Godhead of Agriculture, Saint Peter.
That old rat had been hiding underground, playing guerrilla games.
Kael twisted and shifted through the spikes and sand-gales, moving like a ghost, yet the attacks kept coming from everywhere. There was no clean way out.
Impatience flashed in his eyes.
"Hiding in the dirt like a turtle-shell demon, huh?"
Kael snorted. He stopped dodging.
He flipped Nidhogg upside down and drove the butt of the weapon into the ground with a heavy stomp!
"Quakepeak, Earth-Ringing Wave!"
Hummm.
A hyper-high-frequency vibration, invisible to the eye, exploded outward from the staff-end and poured deep into the Red Line.
The earth began to heave.
Solid bedrock churned like boiling water, surging, shattering, and reforming.
For several kilometers, the surface became a stormy sea of stone.
Roar!
A pained bellow rose from deep underground.
In the next instant, Peter's colossal sand-worm body was forcibly shaken loose, blasted out of the depths by raw vibration, and slammed onto the roiling ground in utter disgrace.
Now!
Kael vanished from where he stood and closed in.
A seven-colored crescent blade wave peeled off the weapon, drawing a gorgeous arc through the air before it landed precisely across Peter's enormous body.
Pshk!
Peter did not even have time to scream.
That mountain-range of a body was split cleanly in two by the strike, neat and merciless.
Foul blood and viscera burst out.
Kael did not pause.
He pivoted midair in a series of sharp turns, slashing again and again.
Pshk! Pshk! Pshk!
Peter's severed worm-body was chopped into seven or eight pieces in a heartbeat, scattered across the ground like butchered meat.
Seeing a comrade dismembered on the spot, fear surfaced clearly in Warcury's beast-like eyes for the first time.
In the distance, Nasjuro was still pinned down by that swordsman, Dracule Mihawk. Even though Mihawk was clearly at the end of his rope, his swordsmanship was so refined that Nasjuro could not break free quickly.
Here, Kael was fighting four against one, yet in mere moments he had badly wounded Mars, crippled Saturn, and now carved Peter into pieces.
What kind of monster was this?
If Im learned that the five of them had joined hands and still ended up like this, the consequences would be unthinkable.
A bead of cold sweat slid down Warcury's temple.
They could not drag this out any longer.
Roar!
The black flame-clouds around Warcury surged, engulfing his massive form completely.
Then, in the next instant, he became a black bolt of lightning, too fast for the naked eye, and smashed straight into Kael's face!
That charge contained all his strength.
All his fury.
Too fast!
Kael's pupils snapped tight. He barely had time to raise Nidhogg across his chest.
Boom!!!
A crushing force slammed into him. Kael felt as if a speeding train had hit his arms head-on, his bones letting out a strained, agonized groan.
Pff!
He spat a mouthful of scalding blood. His body turned into a black meteor and flew backward, crashing into a cliff a thousand meters away and collapsing the entire rock face.
...
On another battlefield.
The land was carved with intersecting sword scars and littered with glittering ice shards.
Mihawk knelt on one knee, using the Black Blade Yoru to hold himself up as he gasped for air.
His body was covered in cuts. The deepest ran from his left shoulder all the way to his right abdomen, and his blood had long since soaked through the front of his clothes.
Opposite him, Nasjuro had dropped his skeletal horse form and returned to human shape.
He held the Shodai Kitetsu, his breathing similarly unsteady. Even the pristine white robes of a holy official now bore several tears.
He stared at the wavering Mihawk, and on that usually indifferent face appeared a complicated look, something close to respect.
"Youngster."
Nasjuro's voice was no longer cold. It carried genuine admiration.
"In my long life, I have seen swordsmen as numerous as carp crossing a river. Yet those as outstanding as you are few indeed. In some respects, even I must admit I fall short."
He paused. His gaze dropped to the black blade in Mihawk's hands, and his tone grew solemn beyond measure.
"On the path of the sword, I, Ethanbaron V. Nusjuro, would call you the strongest!"
It was the highest praise.
But praise did not change reality. Mihawk was already spent.
In raw combat power, he had been slightly behind to begin with. And once you factored in Haki reserves and endurance, the gap between him and a centuries-old Five Elder with an undying body was not small. It was a canyon.
Nasjuro slowly raised the Shodai Kitetsu, the blade pointing toward Mihawk's throat.
"But this is the end."
The icy edge was about to fall.
In that knife-edge instant, a gust rose from nowhere.
The wind carried countless tiny, razor-sharp blades that shrieked through the air, sweeping across the battlefield in a screaming storm.
Nasjuro's expression shifted. He retreated sharply, avoiding the wind blades.
He steadied himself and looked up toward the source.
A man in a green cloak stood before Mihawk, appearing as if he had always been there. A red tattoo marked his face.
He simply stood, quiet and still, yet it felt as if he had fused with the very wind between heaven and earth, radiating a pressure that made the heart tremble.
The Supreme Commander of the Revolutionary Army.
Monkey D. Dragon, has arrived.
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