Gern Reginald Sigmar's pupils shrank to pinpoints.
At this very moment, his blade was being pressed down—deadlocked—by Roger's Ace.
This was not a technical parry.Not a clever redirection of force.
It was the most naked, brutal form of domination—
Pure power suppression.
"Ka… kk—krrrk..."The edge of the black blade Eight Desolations let out a strained, tortured cry under the overwhelming pressure.
The blade's high-frequency vibrations—once violent enough to tear space apart—stalled, freezing in an eerie state of stagnation.
As though before that absolute Haki,any power that was not Haki itself was rendered meaningless.
"You—when did you!?"Gern's breathing hitched.
Roger's bloodstained lips suddenly curled upward into a feral grin—a smile that reminded Gern of a cornered beast driven into madness.
"That punch of yours really did catch me off guard, I'll give you that, but..."Blood dripped from Roger's chin—only to be instantly evaporated midair by his boiling Haki.
"I've been fighting that bastard Garp for half my life!!"
Conqueror's lightning exploded within Roger's eyes as he stepped forward.
Just that single step—
The island's crust collapsed with a deafening roar!
"Look carefully, Gern..."
"This—this is the caliber of a king!!!"
Roger unleashed his strength.
A tidal wave of Haki erupted from his body, and Gern felt an irresistible, crushing force surge through his blade.He was driven backward dozens of meters, his feet carving two deep trenches through the earth.
Before he could stabilize himself—
Roger vanished.
"Divine—Departure!"
The low voice detonated beside Gern's ear.
In the next instant, a crimson slash cleaved through heaven and earth!
Gern hastily raised his blade to block—
And realized, at the moment of contact, that he had made a fatal mistake.
The power of this strike far exceeded anything he had anticipated.
A rushed block—
wasn't enough.
"BOOM!!"
The thought had barely formed when Gern's body was blasted away like a cannonball, smashing straight through three rocky peaks before finally coming to a halt.
"Kh—!"Dropping to one knee, Gern spat out a mouthful of blood.
Before he could even wipe the crimson from his lips, the sunlight above him was suddenly swallowed by shadow.
He looked up.
Against the blazing sun, Roger's figure became a jet-black silhouette.
"CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!"
Slashes poured down like a collapsing galaxy!
Every strike Roger delivered carried the might to split heaven and earth.The paths traced by his blade lingered in the air as dark-red afterimages that refused to fade.
Under the storm of blows, Eight Desolations shuddered violently, wailing in protest—as if it might disintegrate at any second.
The two figures became streaks of crimson and violet lightning across the shattered land.Each collision triggered explosions that shook the sky.
The island beneath them had long since reached its limit.
Colossal裂 spread like spiderwebs, and the entire landmass was visibly tearing itself apart!
"Just like I said from the very beginning..."Roger suddenly disengaged, skidding backward and carving twin trenches into the fractured ground.
"Gern!"
He gripped Ace with both hands and raised it high overhead.Every muscle in his body tightened like a bowstring drawn to its limit.
"This is still not your era!!!"
The instant his words fell—
Conqueror's lightning went berserk around him.Dark-red thunder surged straight into the heavens, dyeing the entire sky the color of blood.
On Ace's blade, golden radiance intertwined with black-red lightning.The pressure was suffocating.Even the air around the blade warped from the heat.
Gern's pupils contracted violently.
This strike—
could not be avoided.
"Wild Sovereign Soul!!!"
The moment Roger brought his blade down—
The world lost all color.
A golden slash howled forth, piercing heaven and earth.Wherever it passed, space shattered inch by inch, releasing shrill, glass-like screams.
The air before the slash was completely evacuated, forming a vacuum corridor—even light itself twisted under its influence!
At the instant Eight Desolations made contact, it let out a piercing scream of agony.Spiderweb cracks exploded across the blade.
Then—
The slash cut through flesh and bone.
Blood bloomed across Gern's chest like a crimson rose, beautiful and cruel.
The slash did not stop there.
It cleaved Gern—and the entire island—clean in two!
A massive fissure ripped from the battlefield all the way to the coastline.Seawater roared as it flooded into the bottomless chasm.
Gern's body was hurled away by the impact, falling like a meteor toward the raging ocean.
In the final instant before consciousness slipped away—
The only thing reflected in his visionwas Roger's solitary back, standing tall upon the broken land.
The setting sun burned crimson, stretching that figure long and lonely.
The Pirate King…was still the Pirate King.
...
Moments later.
Roger knelt on one knee atop a protruding reef, his right hand clutching his chest.Dark-red blood seeped relentlessly between his fingers.
He coughed violently.Every breath carried the metallic taste of iron.
"Kh… cough… cough..."
"It's finally over. If you manage to live… heh..."He stared at the gradually calming sea, a complex emotion flashing through his eyes.
The ferocity of that battle had exceeded all expectations.Even for him, he had just gone all out.
"Time to go..."Roger pushed himself up—
But the instant he turned—
"Humm—"
A bizarre vibration rose from the depths of the sea.
The surface of the entire ocean began to tremble unnaturally.
A bead of sweat slid from Roger's forehead—and froze in midair.
"…What is this?"His pupils shrank as he stared at the impossible sight.
The sea was trembling.
Not waves—but something deeper, more fundamental—
As if the ocean itself had become a drumhead, plucked by an invisible hand.
The reef beneath Roger's feet silently crumbled.Yet the fragments did not fall—
They floated upward, defying gravity.
Crack.
A crisp sound rang out.
Roger snapped his head up.
Pale裂 had appeared across the space above the sea.
"BOOOOOOM—!!!!"
"CRACK, CRACK-CRACK!!"
A vacuum cylinder ten meters wide suddenly exploded upward from the ocean.Then—the vacuum field expanded at a hundred times its original speed.
Seawater was forcibly "shaken" into a more fundamental particle state by power that transcended physical law.
The ocean became a hazy sea of mist.
The ancient seabed—untouched by sunlight for tens of thousands of years—was laid bare.
And worse—
Within this waterless abyss, space itself began to fracture with countless pale裂!
Hundreds of meters.Thousands.Tens of thousands!!
As though an invisible giant hand had scooped out the entire sea.
The ocean was completely forced aside by overwhelming震动, leaving behind a bottomless void.
Even more terrifying—
The edges of this void were somehow stabilized.The surrounding seawater, no matter how violently it surged, could not flow back in.
It was as if a ten-thousand-meter-wide domain—one that would never be flooded—had been carved directly into the ocean.
"How is this possible..."Roger's cloak snapped violently in the raging air currents.
For the first time, genuine shock appeared on his face.
"ROGER——!!!!"
A roar erupted like the bellow of an abyssal beast.The soundwaves made the seawater at the edge of the vacuum domain boil violently.
Then—
From the deepest point of that empty abyss,a black silhouette slowly rose.
Cracks exploded outward from that figure as the center, instantly covering every inch of space around it.
Within every裂 flowed pale energy vibrating at extreme frequency.
Where it passed—
The clouds were shaken into shredded wisps.Sunlight refracted through the broken space, bending into warped bands.
The sea surface froze into an eerie crystalline state.Waves remained suspended mid-splash, locked in time.
The seabed buckled and writhed like clay kneaded by an unseen hand,rising into震动 mountain ranges thousands of meters tall!
Roger stood atop one of these newly risen peaks, staring at the apocalyptic sight reflected in his pupils.
The physical laws of the entire world were collapsing and rebuilding around Gern.
"Devil Fruit awakening..."Roger's muscles tensed instinctively."A Logia—how could this even be…?"
"Where do you think you're going?"Gern floated into the air, his scar-riddled, powerful body fully exposed.
He casually held Eight Desolations in his right hand.Then slowly raised his left palm upward.
All the pale裂 within this space flared with blinding light.
Countless fragments of space began to rotate around him, forming a pale star-ring with a diameter of ten thousand meters.
Then—
He clenched his fist.
The star-ring collapsed inward.
All shattered space compressed at once.
For 0.5 seconds, the world froze.
Birds became silhouettes.The blood Roger coughed up hovered before his lips.Even the wind stiffened into unmoving silk.
Then—
BOOOOOOM!!!!
In one-thousandth of a second, the seawater across ten thousand miles was shaken into mist—and in the next instant, reassembled into countless colossal blades of water.
Sky.Sea.Air.
Everything became a medium for his震动.
Everything within this domain—every aspect of the "world" itself—became his weapon.
Gern stood at the center,like a god presiding over collapse and vibration.
"This battle—isn't over yet."