Ancient-Type!
Giant-Giant Fruit!
Steel Bone Kong swelled up to eight, nine meters tall.
His trademark whiskers had become the jaw of a titan.
His twin fists pounded like thunder, pouring out animal-type vigor and raw combat power.
Giant forms are famed for overwhelming strength and divine might — and when wrapped in Steel Bone Kong's high-level haki, he towered as one of the era's top champions.
He'd fought countless battles in his life. One clash — the pinnacle duel that would be remembered — was still almost twenty years away: the legendary Red Count, the one who could match Roger and Whitebeard, who would later defeat Steel Bone Kong.
On the sea, many fighters hit their peak in their thirties; how long that peak held determined how long they could dominate. In later years, Kaido would reach his apex at thirty-nine, Shanks would become a Yonko at thirty-three, Blackbeard would climb after age thirty-nine. After Roger's death, the New World belonged to Whitebeard for two decades because his peak endured.
At this moment two men stood at their prime: Rocks and Steel Bone Kong.
Others — Roger, Whitebeard, Garp, Sengoku — were only just approaching their summits.
In God Valley, Steel Bone Kong was indisputably a terrifying force. Wherever his fists landed, haki and pinnacle body technique erupted. Before Garp rose as the red-fisted legend, Steel Bone Kong was the Navy's backbone. His presence allowed the younger generation of the Navy to grow.
"Hey!" he roared, thunder in his voice.
"What are you sneering at?"
"Do you think transforming into a Black Dragon lets you ignore the sea's justice?"
"What about the pirates you've broken, the homeless, the starving? The civilians butchered by sword and gun? The lives you toy with?"
"If the world is entrusted to you pirates, the future would choke on despair!"
Kong himself was an animal-type user — and fiercer than the later Rob Lucci. Black, awakened flames swirled around him; muscles coiled like springs as he poured everything into his arms.
"Here and now — defeat these pirates!" he declared.
"Erase the Rock Pirates who sow chaos in the New World!"
He leapt and threw a colossal punch: Steelbone Vajra. Haki suffused the blow; the impact was a cataclysm, like Garp's body-tech in its brutal directness. The ground cracked open.
High above, Sharn — the Black Dragon — opened his maw and unleashed a torrent of violet lightning and scorching breath. He refused to cower before a Fleet Admiral; giving up because the enemy wore Navy insignia was not his way.
"Violet Lightning Breath!"
Violet bolts braided with raging fire, surging like a tidal wall and colliding with Kong's haki-shrouded strike. Kong split the heat and lightning with a downward punch, eyes bright with resolve to die fighting if need be.
Though Kong didn't glow with Sengoku's Buddha light, his brilliance outshone battle-hardened admirals — a true titan of iron and bone. His fists swept through Sharn's onslaught and struck the Black Dragon's skull with haki. The pain cut through Sharn; the Moon-Lion state snapped off. Smoke trailed from his mouth; the dragon began to fall.
"Sunrise is not for us!" Sharn thought as consciousness wavered — but then he heard another voice.
"Don't go down just yet!"
Whitebeard kicked up earth as he stepped between them, his great sword Tatsumaki rotating, the purple sigil of his flag glaring in the night. "You really think Rocks D. Xebec's antics make no sense? One thing he's right about," the giant bellowed. "True suns are born from darkness — and we are the darkness before dawn!"
Whitebeard spun Tatsumaki with a fury that stitched haki and quake-fruit power into invisible spheres on the blade. Kong's descending fist slammed into those spheres — Whitebeard forced the blow to be absorbed rather than let Sharn be crushed. Purple-black lightning shredded the air. Houses collapsed; the coast convulsed; waves rose like walls.
Sharn forced himself to his feet, head pounding, but alive. He'd eaten enough, and Life Return together with his beastly regeneration sustained him. If not, he might've been finished.
"Ha! How was that, Steelbone?" Whitebeard laughed, wild and full of life as he and his crew carved a path through the battlefield. "Thanks, Newgate."
Sharn drew breath, milking the last ounces of vigor, searching for that thin thread of haki inside him. The fight was not over. Fireflower and Buckin flashed past; gunfire and cannon salvos crashed down — a fresh surge of Navy reinforcements had arrived.
Sharn turned back to face the tidal wave of the age. The dawn had not come for him; if it wouldn't rise, he would make a new one himself.
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