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When darkness reaches its absolute nadir, there always emerge those who carry hope—those who rise and resist the seemingly invincible night, lighting up the oppressive sky with their own defiant brilliance.
A sharp avian cry pierced the ruined landscape. A blue phoenix erupted from the tunnel near where Marco had fallen—wings igniting with mysterious luminescence, entire body wreathed in blazing azure flames.
The phoenix spread its wings and took flight, soaring high above devastated terrain. Its feathers shone like living sapphires. Each individual feather seemed to contain endless concentrated power, and flames danced across its form like the pulse of life itself—merged inseparably with the creature.
As the phoenix ascended, its silhouette grew larger and larger against the wounded sky, yet the majesty and power radiating from it didn't diminish whatsoever with distance. The creature blazed like a burning meteor, leaving a brilliant luminescent trail across the darkened atmosphere.
When it reached apex altitude, the phoenix's broad wings spread fully to display their magnificence without restraint. With each wingbeat, the flames danced in harmony, forming a splendid sea of fire that rivaled the sun.
The phoenix represented strength and beauty simultaneously—inspiring observers with a sense of endless hope and courage that rose against despair.
Marco, who had died and resurrected through his Mythical Zoan ability once more, had risen to a higher developmental threshold in both strength and presence. He now stood at the precipice of true King-level combat power—the suffering and near-death experience having refined him like metal through fire.
"Marshall D. Teach," Marco's voice carried absolute conviction as the phoenix dove toward its target, "today it ends between us—one or the other walks away from this island."
The Phoenix flew straight and true, attacking the Sixth Heaven Demon King's head without hesitation or tactical calculation. Marco hoped this direct approach—this face-to-face declaration of intent—would make Blackbeard feel the pain he'd inflicted on the Whitebeard Pirates multiplied beyond calculation. He would repay every persecution, every betrayal, every murdered brother with a hundred times a thousand times the intensity.
A terrifying black gas emanated from the Sixth Heaven Demon King's body, rising upward to intercept the Phoenix's assault with maximum effort. Marshall D. Teach remained confident he could suppress two demonic ability users simultaneously without deploying his true strength.
"Marco," Blackbeard's center head spoke conversationally even as combat escalated, "if the Yami Yami no Mi had never appeared on our ship..."
"I might have concealed my ambitions across an entire lifetime," the leftmost head continued reflectively.
"Become Edward Newgate's son in truth—continued playing house with all of you across the seas," the rightmost head finished with something approaching genuine wistfulness.
It was unfortunate that this world contained no "if." Marshall D. Teach—who'd read every available Devil Fruit encyclopedia since childhood—had been drawn to the Yami Yami no Mi through some compulsion he'd never fully understood. Fate or obsession. Perhaps they were the same thing.
To achieve reasonable probability of obtaining this specific fruit, the only viable strategy had been joining the Whitebeard Pirates as an orphan. By becoming someone's beloved son, the mathematical chance of encountering the Yami Yami no Mi somewhere on the seas increased from effectively zero to something approaching possibility.
Years of shipboard life had allowed Teach to suppress his consuming ambitions, burying them beneath genuine affection and family bonds. But when Thatch obtained the very Devil Fruit Teach had spent decades waiting and searching for—that flame of rebellion ignited his heart directly, burning through every false restraint.
Without hesitation, without asking for anything, without granting his brother Thatch even a moment to resist—Teach had ended his life from behind and finally obtained the Yami Yami no Mi.
The journey had strengthened his resolve and provided the most valuable life experience he'd accumulated. Although the road was littered with the corpses of people who'd trusted him, to Marshall D. Teach these were merely minor inconveniences along the necessary path.
"You two are inadequate for the task," Blackbeard declared with casual arrogance, holding back both phoenix fire and serpent attacks simultaneously. "Is this actually the full extent of your capabilities?"
"Send several more losers to assist you, and perhaps the result might change."
The Sixth Heaven Demon King continued suppressing two demonic ability users by himself. The balance of battle gradually tilted toward Blackbeard.
But this time, his premature celebration proved poorly timed.
Deep within the surrounding ocean, a blue flash of lightning suddenly erupted from the sea surface. Like a nimble dragon, it passed through crashing layers of waves at astonishing velocity and streaked straight toward the sky above Nine Snake Island.
As the electrical light rose, it began coalescing into a high-density energy construct. This energy form emitted dazzling illumination—like a sapphire of impossible size containing endless concentrated power within its core.
The surface of the energy construct flickered with blue electrical currents, intertwining like nimble serpents and forming mysterious geometric patterns across its skin. From time to time, electrical discharges erupted outward from the construct, interacting with surrounding water vapor to produce brilliant arcs and cascading lightning.
The entire spectacle resembled a dreamlike celestial display—breathtaking in its scope and beauty.
Within this mysterious and magnificent manifestation, observers could sense the infinite creative power of natural electricity responding to conscious will.
"Allow me to add one more participant to this equation."
The terrifying energy construct emitted a sharp electrical sound that crackled across entire atmospheric layers. This was Admiral Kennen—who had been hurled into the deep ocean by Blackbeard Teach during earlier combat exchanges.
When facing a genuine crisis of life and death at the bottom of the sea, the other two consciousnesses dwelling within the Admiral's body had reached consensus with Kennen's primary personality. Three consciousnesses converged and merged with each other within the ocean depths—different voices that had previously maintained separation achieving unprecedented unity.
This convergence prompted the Fur Tribe Admiral to cross the threshold of Devil Fruit Awakening through a different mechanism entirely. The three consciousnesses merged, fused their understanding and power, and directly entered what the ancient rituals described as Ascension Mode.
The experiment performed by Queen the Plague of the Beasts Pirates on Kennen had been only half successful at the time. The other half had now been accomplished by the small Admiral himself—working cooperatively with the other two consciousnesses dwelling within his unique body, achieving the ancient ritual ascension described in texts referencing figures like Zerath—an elevation approaching something close to divinity.
Admiral Kennen had transcended the conventional distinction between himself and lightning.
He had become lightning.
And he carried natural restraining properties against things corrupt and evil—things that stood in opposition to heaven's order.
The sky above Nine Snake Island had been shrouded in oppressive black since Blackbeard's arrival. But now thick white lightning tore through that manufactured darkness, rending the artificial night and allowing actual sunlight to penetrate the scarred land of Nine Snake Island for the first time since catastrophe began.
White lightning struck the Sixth Heaven Demon King's body from multiple angles in rapid succession. To halt his forward movement completely, the white lightning transformed into binding chains—pure electrical restraint wrapping around Blackbeard Teach layer by layer with constricting force.
But even this dramatic reversal wasn't sufficient alone.
A beautiful figure approached from the distance. Although the woman retained only one arm—the other lost in previous combat—she moved with undiminished grace, like the Venus de Milo whose missing limb never diminished the sculpture's fundamental beauty.
"It's not over," Wonder Woman Diana declared, her voice carrying the authority of one who had never learned to surrender. "Your evil existence must be erased from this world completely."
The golden Lasso of Truth sensed its master's restored presence. The divine weapon automatically broke free from the Sixth Heaven Demon King's grip—where it had been held as trophy—and returned to Diana's remaining hand with unerring precision.
Although she could now manipulate the Lasso of Truth with only one hand, the divine blood flowing through the Amazon warrior's veins continued surging and boiling with undiminished intensity. Her heritage continuously supplied fighting power to sustain her through injuries that would have felled ordinary warriors long ago.
The Lasso of Truth possessed its own enemy-seeking mechanism. The instant its owner released it in combat, it automatically wrapped around the Sixth Heaven Demon King's neck with precision no manual throw could match. Confronted with this manifestation of evil wearing stolen enlightenment, the Lasso began tightening—Diana working in coordination with its divine intelligence to strangle or tear apart Blackbeard Teach's thick black neck.
Having lost the mortal Silvers Rayleigh—that human legend, the last conventional combatant among them—four entities that could no longer be described as simply human worked in coordinated combination to suppress the Sixth Heaven Demon King.
The primary offensive role fell on the Empress Boa Hancock.
On Medusa.
As long as the petrification ability Medusa commanded could completely transform the Sixth Heaven Demon King into an immobile stone statue—permanently frozen mid-motion, mid-threat—even Blackbeard's tremendous supernatural power couldn't overcome the authority of that particular law.
He would be sealed forever on Nine Snake Island.
A monument to the moment when darkness overreached itself.