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Chapter 373: Shattering Divine Departure
Time felt as though it had been stretched into infinity.
Under Beckman's terrified, despairing gaze, Shanks' "Divine Departure"—the pinnacle of his combat prowess, wrapped in Conqueror's Haki capable of slicing through the New World itself—descended like black-and-red lightning of divine punishment. It was less than ten centimeters from the bald man's head!
The destructive gleam of the blade was vividly reflected on that shiny, smooth scalp.
Just one more inch. That was all it took to decide the victor!
However, that single inch became an uncrossable chasm that Shanks would never bridge for the rest of his life.
"What a pain..."
An exasperated sigh echoed abruptly through the frozen space, cutting clearly through the deafening roar of the Haki.
Saitama's dead-fish eyes glanced downward. There was no fear in that gaze. No surprise. Only the supreme annoyance of a man dealing with a mosquito that wouldn't stop buzzing in his ear.
And... the agonizing anxiety of missing out on the supermarket sale.
"I told you I'm in a hurry, old man."
In the next instant, the bald man moved.
No, his speed had completely transcended the very concept of "movement."
Within Shanks' top-tier Future Sight Observation Haki, the future was... completely blank! The opponent's speed was so incomprehensible that it outpaced the timeline's ability to render the prediction! It was as if an invisible hand had simply deleted the middle frames of the animation.
Swish—!!!
Without any warning. Without winding up. Before the sonic boom of displaced air could even echo, the yellow figure previously standing under the blade had vanished!
Shanks' pupils shrank to the size of pinpricks. His heart skipped a beat, and a primal, ultimate terror exploded through his entire nervous system!
It was the undeniable stench of death!
Where is he?! Where did he go?! His Observation Haki was screaming, blaring alarms, begging him to flee! But his body couldn't even process the command fast enough to react.
"Right here."
The lazy, hollow voice drifted directly from his chest.
Every single hair on Shanks' body stood on end! He hadn't even registered what happened, but the bald man had effortlessly bypassed the storm of black-and-red Haki lightning and pressed himself directly against Shanks' torso!
The distance was so intimately close that Shanks could clearly see the "I want to go home" expression plastered across Saitama's face. He could see the faint fraying on the red rubber glove from being washed too many times.
What kind of speed is this?! What kind of monster is this?! Not even Whitebeard in his prime could pull off a teleportation-like dash of this magnitude! Even Kizaru, a man literally made of light, required a split-second wind-up at this range!
"Your intensity is pretty good, but..."
Saitama raised his perfectly ordinary right hand. His fingers weren't even tightly clenched into a fist. It looked as casual as a morning stretch. There wasn't a single trace of suffocating bloodlust. It was as plain and unremarkable as a glass of tap water.
"You're really getting in my way."
"Killer Move..."
Saitama's lips parted slightly. It was a whispered death sentence.
"Supermarket Bargain Sale Style..."
"Normal Punch."
Boom—!!!
The punch landed.
It lacked apocalyptic visual effects or void-shattering shockwaves. It was just a simple, unadorned fist making direct contact with Shanks' chest, which was heavily coated in top-tier Armament Haki.
The moment they connected, Shanks felt his entire worldview shatter.
His proud Armament Haki, capable of tanking attacks from fellow Yonko, was treated like wet tissue paper before this fist. It failed to offer even 0.01 seconds of resistance.
With a sickening pop, the defense was pierced clean through!
Immediately after, an indescribable, overwhelming kinetic force detonated inside his chest cavity! If Kaido's Thunder Bagua was a siege ram, then this punch... was an asteroid slamming directly into the Earth!
"Pfft-gahhh—!!!"
Shanks' sharp eyes bulged outward, instantly webbed with blood vessels. His mouth wrenched open as a geyser of blood, mixed with pulverized internal organ fragments, sprayed wildly into the air!
His only arm, gripping the legendary blade Gryphon, instantly lost all power from the concussive shock. The legendary sword slipped from his grasp and flew into the distance!
Crack-crack-crack-crack—!!!
A horrifying symphony of shattering bones echoed from within his body like firecrackers. His ribs were completely pulverized! His signature black cape instantly shredded into a thousand floating butterflies.
Like a discarded ragdoll caught in a hurricane, he was launched backward at a speed impossible for the naked eye to track!
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Shanks' body violently tore through the remains of countless ruined skyscrapers. The moment his body made contact with the reinforced concrete structures, they exploded into dust as if they were made of styrofoam!
Through billowing smoke and flying debris, he kept flying.
And flying.
Until he crashed into a small hill several kilometers away.
Rumble—!!!
With an earth-shattering boom, the small hill was entirely flattened by the sheer kinetic force of Shanks' airborne body!
The ground violently quaked. A deep, jagged trench extended from where Saitama stood, stretching all the way to the end of the ruins miles away—a violent scar carved into the earth itself.
At the end of that trench, the dust slowly settled, revealing a massive, spider-webbed impact crater.
At the bottom of the crater, the Red-Haired Yonko—a man whose very name terrified the New World—was embedded spread-eagle into the rock face. His eyes were rolled back, he was foaming at the mouth, and thick white smoke wafted from his battered body. He had completely lost consciousness.
One punch. Instant defeat!
Whether it was Conqueror's Haki Coating, Future Sight Observation, or swordsmanship rivaling the world's greatest, in the face of absolute, unadulterated power... it was all a pathetic joke!
"Phew..."
Saitama retracted his fist and blew away nonexistent dust from his glove. There wasn't a single bead of sweat on his dead-fish face.
"That was close. I almost forgot to hold back. If I accidentally killed him, the police would make me file a report, and then I'd definitely miss the bargain sale."
Having said his piece, he didn't spare another glance at the "cosplayer old man" he had just blasted away. He completely ignored the petrified statues that were Beckman and Bone Cracking Bat.
Instead, he instantly turned around and bent his knees, his expression shifting to one of unprecedented severity. It was the unyielding resolve of a man protecting his half-price beef!
"I've only got... five minutes left! Just wait for me, premium marbled beef!"
Boom—!
The ground exploded into another crater. The yellow blur shot off like an arrow from a bowstring, dragging a trail of sonic booms behind him before vanishing at the end of the street.
All that remained was swirling dust. And deathly silence.
A gentle breeze blew past, tumbling a few pieces of scrap newspaper along the ruined street.
The flintlock in Beckman's hand slipped from his grip, clattering to the ground with a dull thud. The cigarette dangling from his lips—one that rarely ever fell—lay quietly by his feet, long since extinguished.
Beckman's jaw was slack. He stared blankly at the smoking, massive crater in the distance, his mind completely wiped clean.
"Did we... lose?"
"No..."
Beckman felt as though something was lodged in his throat. His voice came out dry and raspy, like old bellows.
"This wasn't even... a battle in the same dimension."
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