Rumble, rumble...
The collapsing rocks finally slowed to a stop.
A thousand meters away, Warcury panted heavily, those beastial eyes locked on the rubble. The dust had not even settled, yet a blinding streak of gold pierced through the shattered stone from deep within.
The glow grew brighter and brighter, turning that patch of ruin into something like a divine realm.
The next instant, countless chunks of rock were shoved aside by an invisible force, lifted, suspended, then blasted outward in every direction.
The dust cleared.
A colossal divine general, a hundred meters tall, clad in golden armor and bearing an awe-inspiring, regal face, rose slowly from the broken mountainside.
This was not some illusory projection. Every plate of armor, every line of muscle radiated a heavy, tangible presence.
Kael stood on the god's head.
His clothes were in tatters, blood hanging at the corner of his mouth, yet there was not a hint of embarrassment in him. He merely lifted a hand, brushed imaginary dust off his shoulder, and looked down at the four monsters with golden eyes, like a god judging mortals.
"Go on. Get a good look."
Warcury's pupils shrank to pinpoints.
Saturn's freshly regrown limbs stiffened in place.
This aura... was completely different.
If Kael had been a peerless murderous blade before, sharp enough to cut the world, then now he was an unshakable divine mountain, suppressing heaven and earth alike.
No more words were needed.
Roar!
The deafening roar did not come from Warcury's throat. It erupted from every inch of his flesh, every bristle on his body, a destructive shockwave that made the entire battlefield on the Red Line tremble.
A black blur tore through the atmosphere. The ground along its path was plowed into a bottomless trench. Destruction condensed into something you could almost touch, as if it would grind everything ahead into dust.
Atop the divine general's head, Kael's expression did not change. He merely willed it.
The golden armored giant moved.
It sank slightly, its legs stamping two deep craters into the Red Line, then launched forward like a cannonball straight at Warcury!
One massive, one massive in a different way, two titans slammed together head-on!
Boom!!!
No explosion, only an impossibly deep impact, as if it could rattle a man's organs loose.
At the collision point, the air crumpled like paper, twisted and folded, then expanded outward in a transparent ring-shaped shockwave that swept every pebble and speck of dust clean off the ground.
The golden general reached out with both enormous hands and caught Warcury's two tusks, stopping his charge by force.
Bloodshot veins spread through Warcury's eyes. His muscles swelled again, power pouring out without restraint.
Where they struggled, the earth could no longer endure. Cracks were no longer spiderwebs but widening chasms, dozens of meters across, ripping outward in every direction.
It was dead even!
Warcury's ferocity sharpened as he prepared to drive out even more strength.
The golden general suddenly raised its right leg.
A knee carrying mountain-crushing force slammed into Warcury's nose bridge!
Bang!
Warcury felt an irresistible impact smash into his face, as if his massive head were about to snap backward. Stars burst in his vision. Pain and humiliation surged straight into his brain.
The general seized the opening. Its arms bulged like coiling dragons, waist twisting, and it actually swung the mountain-like Boar form up and over, then smashed it into the ground!
Boom!
The Red Line shuddered again.
Before Warcury could rise, light gathered in the golden general's right hand, condensing into a massive shining halberd dozens of meters long, lightning flickering around its spear point.
No hesitation.
The general raised it with both hands, poured all its strength into a single point at the tip, and drove it down into Warcury's abdomen!
Something shocking happened.
Clang!!!
Sparks exploded.
A piercing metallic impact replaced the expected sound of flesh being pierced.
The lightning halberd, capable of punching through an island, sank less than a meter into Warcury's body before it could not advance another inch, caught and locked by an unimaginable toughness.
The Boar's defense was horrifying.
Warcury's eyes flared with savage light. He opened his maw and roared in rage.
Then his bloodshot gaze turned toward the general's head, toward that tiny figure standing above him. Malice and mockery intertwined.
"Brat... you think this breaks my defense?"
Before the words even finished, the airflow in the world suddenly stalled.
The air became damp, sticky, as if the sky had turned into a sponge swollen with water. Centered on Warcury's enormous body, visible droplets condensed from nowhere, gathering with the sound of rushing currents.
The Boar was a mythic beast said to govern cloud and rain.
Two vicious water dragons, forged entirely from high-pressure streams, erupted from the ground with a roar.
They were not phantom constructs. Each scale was a rapidly spinning vortex, carrying power sharp enough to slice metal and jade.
The water dragons screamed through the air, coiling around the golden general from left and right, then tightened, strangling and grinding with insane force!
The Boar, in ancient myth, had always possessed the power to summon rain.
Creak... creak...
The golden general's armor groaned under the crushing bind.
On its head, Kael's torn coat hem snapped wildly in the violent airflow. He could clearly feel the force trying to grind the giant to pieces.
With a thought, the general surged, golden radiance exploding. It shattered one dragon's head into scattered water, tore free, and stepped back dozens of meters to open distance from Warcury.
It released the halberd still stuck in Warcury's body, letting it dissolve into drifting motes of light.
The next second, the general's enormous palms slowly came together before its chest.
Between them, an ultimate point of white light ignited, like a newborn star.
The air was instantly sucked thin and searing. Even the water vapor Warcury had summoned recoiled from the terrifying heat.
Far away, Saturn watched, his freshly regrown limbs unconsciously scraping at the ground as he cursed inwardly.
That old boar is getting serious.
And that Kael brat isn't someone you can bully either.
The light in the general's hands stretched, shaped, and finally became a gigantic blade, denser and more dazzling than the lightning halberd had been.
No thunder remained, only pure light and heat at the absolute extreme.
"Cut."
Kael's voice was soft, yet it reached everyone.
The golden general gripped the blazing white sword with both hands. No fancy technique. It simply raised it high, then brought it down with the force to boil seas and burn mountains.
Warcury's eyes flashed. He drove the remaining water dragon and the other one as it reformed, sending them forward without fear to meet the descending blade!
On one side, ultimate scorching ferocity.
On the other, ultimate chilling cold.
Light and water collided in midair.
Screee!
After a shriek sharp enough to tear eardrums came absolute silence.
An immeasurable volume of water vaporized completely in 0.01 seconds, exploding into a dense white fog that blotted out the sky.
Boiling steam surged outward like a tsunami, swallowing the battlefield for thousands of meters in every direction.
Sight. Sound. Awareness.
Everything was stripped away by this white, steaming hell.
Warcury's heart jolted. A sinister premonition rose.
The water vapor he created had become the enemy's cover.
Inside that fog, Kael's goal was already achieved.
The moment had come.
Run.
"Hawk-eye!"
A sharp shout pierced the rolling steam, landing precisely in the ears of someone on another battlefield.
...
Among crisscrossing sword scars and glittering ice shards, Nasjuro's blade was blocked by a sudden burst of wind.
Monkey D. Dragon stood before Mihawk, expressionless as he faced the Elder who wielded the Shodai Kitetsu.
"The Revolutionary Army..." Nasjuro's tone turned icy.
Dragon did not answer.
Then Kael's shout arrived.
Dragon's eyes shifted slightly. Mihawk, leaning on his black blade, slowly forced himself upright.
"Looks like the game's over," Mihawk said hoarsely.
The next instant, he and Dragon vanished from where they stood, turning into a black streak and a green streak that shot toward the steam.
Nasjuro's face sank. He moved to pursue.
A wall of wind rose from the ground in front of him, blocking his path.
By the time he cut it apart, the two were already gone within the fog.
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