"What?!"
"The Celestial Spirit King actually wants to fight Kael?"
Loke and Lucy stood stunned. Lucy, in particular, was speechless. Was this really how men solved everything—young, old, or ancient spirit? By punching the problem until it went away?
Kael, however, smiled at the Spirit King's declaration.
"You're being remarkably reasonable. I like that."
"You call this reasonable?!"
Lucy shrieked behind him.
"Full-Body Take Over: Edward Newgate!!"
Kael didn't hesitate. If the Celestial Spirit King was willing to treat this as a formal "test," then Kael would answer it like a warrior. The Spirit King wasn't someone to take lightly—by reputation alone, he was a calamity-class existence.
Blinding light flared.
Kael's frame expanded into a towering mountain of muscle. The Whitebeard coat settled over his shoulders. The crescent mustache formed beneath his nose like a declaration of war. Murakumogiri appeared in his grasp, radiating weight and authority.
And for a moment, the scene became almost absurd.
Two titans with legendary mustaches faced each other—one sweeping upward like a celestial crescent, one curving downward like a monstrous crescent of the sea.
The Celestial Spirit King blinked, momentarily distracted. It wasn't often a human's facial hair could compete with the ruler of the stars.
Kael rolled his shoulders once, setting his stance.
"Celestial Spirit King… let's begin."
Excitement flashed in his eyes—not arrogance, but instinct. The competitive spark that civilization buried returned the moment the battlefield was drawn. Kael lived for this feeling: a clean contest of strength, no politics, no speeches, no rules except survival and will.
The King's gaze sharpened in return.
He understood Kael's intent—and, strangely, he respected it. He, too, had been frustrated by Leo's fate and by the cruelty of the woman who had once held his key. But as King, he was bound to law.
This duel was both a lesson… and a loophole.
Still, as Kael's aura rose, the Spirit King realized he couldn't afford even a flicker of carelessness.
Whoosh!
The Celestial Spirit King drew his massive, star-forged sword. The air around the blade seemed to glitter, as if the night sky itself had been condensed into steel.
"HAAAH—!"
Kael launched upward, the ground detonating beneath his feet. In the same instant, he activated all three forms of Haki. Murakumogiri's edge turned obsidian-black under Armament. And along the blade, thin threads of red lightning crawled and snapped—Conqueror's Haki, a king's pressure given form.
Kael swung downward with the force of a collapsing world.
The Celestial Spirit King met it head-on, raising his sword with both hands.
BOOM———!!
The collision detonated into a shockwave so violent it shredded trees, scoured the mountainside, and flattened the earth for hundreds of yards.
"Uwaaah!"
Lucy, Loke, and Virgo were nearly thrown off their feet. Lucy clung to the rock face with shaking hands, eyes wide as she fought to breathe through the crushing pressure.
The Celestial Spirit King's boots carved trenches through the dirt—forced back several meters by Kael's momentum.
"The King… was pushed back?!"
Loke whispered, voice cracking.
"Unthinkable…"
Virgo's eyes widened, the first real emotion she'd shown.
The Spirit King himself stared for the briefest instant—genuinely startled. This wasn't merely magic. It wasn't a spell. It wasn't technique. It was pure dominance—physical force layered with an invisible will that demanded submission.
The King's mouth curled.
"Good,"
he rumbled, eyes bright with something ancient and feral.
"Refreshing. Again!"
The two titans crashed together again and again. Each strike birthed a stormfront of pressure. The mountain became fragile, cratering with every step as if the land had turned to wet clay under the weight of their existence.
Loke's throat went dry.
"He's… suppressing the King."
It was undeniable. Kael was dictating the tempo. The Spirit King was responding—matching, adjusting, compensating—while Kael advanced.
BOOM———!!
They traded one final explosive clash and leapt apart, creating distance. Dust rolled between them like fog.
"Haha!"
the Spirit King laughed, booming and delighted.
"I haven't been pushed like this in centuries."
"Gurarararara!"
Kael laughed in Whitebeard's voice—low, wild, and fearless.
"Testing strength is fine… but now I'll show you what I'm really capable of."
The Spirit King's expression became solemn.
"Indeed,"
he said, lifting his sword.
"Let us finish this."
Buzz————!
Kael gripped Murakumogiri with both hands. A translucent spherical halo of vibration formed around the blade—white mist curling like breath in winter. Space distorted. Hairline fractures webbed across the air itself as the Tremor-Tremor Fruit's power climbed toward its peak.
The Spirit King raised his star-sword high. Starlight condensed along the edge, cold and merciless, as if a thousand meteors had been crushed down into a single line.
"METEOR BLADE!"
He swung.
A colossal wave of stellar energy tore forward, carving a trench through the mountain as if the earth were paper.
Kael's eyes narrowed.
"BREAK FOR ME—!"
He swung Murakumogiri in a savage arc—tremor-force, flying slash, Haki, all fused into one overwhelming strike.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!!
The world turned white. The collision's brilliance swallowed the valley. The shockwave dwarfed everything before it?—not ripples now, but a tidal rupture. The mountains screamed. The ground groaned as if being folded inside out.
"AAAAH!"
Lucy and Loke huddled together, shielding their faces. Virgo braced herself, ropes snapping tight as the wind tried to peel her from the ground.
This was beyond war magic. Beyond Wizard Saint spectacle. This was something that belonged in myths.
Slowly, the light faded. Dust drifted down like ash. A massive jagged canyon now split the battlefield—an open wound across the land.
Lucy's eyes searched through the haze, desperate. Loke's breath hitched, terrified of what he'd see.
Then Kael emerged, standing tall. Unharmed.
Loke exhaled, shaky and relieved. Lucy swallowed hard, chest tight, unable to even speak.
They looked to the other side.
The Celestial Spirit King stood motionless, sword still raised. He looked uninjured.
Lucy's voice came out small.
"Is it… a draw?"
Loke whispered, almost reverent.
"Kael matched… the King…"
Then—
Crack.
Bang————!
Fine spiderweb fractures spread across the Spirit King's sword. In the next heartbeat, the blade shattered into a thousand starlit shards that rained down like broken constellations.
The cracking didn't stop. It raced up his armored arms, split across his chestplate, and crawled over his entire set of legendary armor—until it crumbled away in heavy fragments, falling to the ground with thunderous impacts.
Loke went rigid.
"His… armor…"
The Spirit King stared down at his broken weapon, then lifted his gaze to Kael. The challenge in his eyes was gone. What remained was admiration—deep, absolute, and strangely warm.
"Beautifully done,"
the Spirit King said, smiling with the dignity of a monarch who could accept defeat.
"It is my loss."