Boom!
A duel between two top-tier great swordsmen was no less than a clash between two Emperors.
Their very first exchange alone caused a massive shockwave.
The collision between those two equally ferocious flying slashes made the huge Thriller Bark itself tremble.
The ground split open with one terrifying, jagged sword mark after another.
The invisible blast swept toward Rowan's group like a tsunami, but as it neared them, it was blocked by a series of hexagonal magic shields.
It was defensive magic cast by Serie.
As one of the strongest beings in the world of Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, there were very few people who could break through her defenses.
Shimotsuki Ryuma and Dracule Mihawk exchanged a glance and shifted the battlefield at the same time.
Their surging sword attacks flew out like they cost nothing at all, splitting forests, tearing open the earth, and even casually slicing a distant castle in half with a single slash.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa… that's way too ridiculous."
Nami couldn't help blurting out in shock. She had only just stepped out of the East Blue and barely gotten the chance to properly see the world, and now she was already witnessing a fight between its very strongest.
Her entire worldview was being rewritten.
She had thought the Arlong Pirates were already strong, but now it was obvious that in front of monsters like these, Arlong's crew didn't amount to a fart.
Tobirama nodded. A fight between two swordsmen at this level really was outrageous.
Even at his peak, he had never possessed this kind of destructive power.
Mountains split. Seas parted. Nothing was beyond the reach of their blades.
Compared to them, the swordsmen of the Land of Iron in the Naruto world were like ants next to elephants.
This kind of combat strength far surpassed that of ordinary Kage.
Neither he nor Hiruzen had ever reached this level.
Even with the Flying Thunder God, his odds of defeating a swordsman like this would still be slim.
In Tobirama's memory, only his elder brother and Madara Uchiha could suppress monsters of this caliber.
But then, as he looked at his brother, Tobirama suddenly realized the cracks on Hashirama's body were gone. His complexion was lively and healthy, and his entire body radiated a vitality he had never seen before.
That was no Edo Tensei body.
It was the body of a living man.
"Brother, don't tell me you…"
Hashirama nodded. "Not long ago, Lord Rowan took the power of the Revive-Revive Fruit and brought me back to life."
Tobirama was stunned. He turned to look at Rowan.
Rowan stepped over, patted Tobirama on the shoulder, and let the power of Yomi flow through him.
Yin and Yang reversed. Death turned to life.
In just a few seconds, Tobirama Senju was fully revived.
Tobirama looked at his living body, pressed a hand to his beating heart, and couldn't help sucking in a sharp breath.
He was alive again.
He really had come back to life.
It was unbelievable.
Serie looked at Rowan curiously. "How did you do that?"
When she had first met him, he definitely hadn't possessed this ability. So how was he reviving the dead now?
Rowan said, "Do you remember the Shinigami from the Naruto world?"
"You mean the one summoned by the Dead Demon Consuming Seal?" Of course Serie remembered that thing.
"That's right." Rowan nodded. "I devoured it and gained the power of the Shinigami. Not long ago, I found Brook and took the power of the Revive-Revive Fruit from him."
"Once the Shinigami's power fused with the Revive-Revive Fruit, it became more complete."
"And as a result, I gained the power to bring the dead back to life."
Serie understood immediately. So that was how it worked. The Shinigami alone couldn't resurrect the dead, and the Revive-Revive Fruit alone couldn't either. But when the two were combined, they underwent a qualitative change.
Without question, this was a miracle born from the collision of two worlds.
"Are there limitations to this resurrection?" Serie asked.
"Yes." Rowan nodded. "This kind of revival requires an intact body. If all that's left is a skeleton, then all I can do is revive the skeleton, like Brook."
Hearing that, Serie immediately gave up on the idea of reviving Flamme.
Flamme had been the very first human student she took in a thousand years ago.
Even now, Serie had never forgotten her. If she could have brought her back, it might have been a wonderful thing.
But a thousand years was simply too long.
Flamme's body had long since withered away and become bones.
No—not even that. After a thousand years, even those bones might already have decayed and weathered into dust.
Bringing that student back was simply too difficult.
And even if Flamme's bones had somehow remained, Serie believed with absolute certainty that her student would never accept being revived as a skeleton.
That was just the kind of person Flamme had been.
So it was better not to disturb her peace.
Once she reached that conclusion, Serie felt a little more at ease, though out of curiosity she still asked, "Can I examine the power of the Revive-Revive Fruit?"
"Of course."
Rowan split off a portion of the power of Yomi and handed it to Serie.
Serie received that portion of power and began studying it in silence.
Meanwhile, Mihawk and Ryuma's battle was still going strong.
Rowan estimated that the fight probably wouldn't end anytime soon. After all, in the world of One Piece, battles between true top-tier fighters tended to last an absurdly long time.
The most obvious example was the duel between Akainu and Aokiji for the position of Fleet Admiral on Punk Hazard.
That battle lasted nearly ten days and ten nights and permanently changed the weather of the entire island.
In the end, it concluded with Aokiji losing a leg and Akainu winning.
So even if Mihawk and Ryuma didn't fight for ten days and ten nights, they could easily go at it for a full day and night, or at the very least for several hours.
One of them was overflowing with stamina, and the other was an Edo body that knew no fatigue.
Naturally, the battle was going to last.
Taking advantage of that, Rowan went to find the user of the Ghost-Ghost Fruit, the ghost princess Perona.
When Rowan released his Conqueror's Haki earlier, Perona had been knocked unconscious and still hadn't woken up.
And when she fainted, she had been in the bath.
Luckily, Perona hadn't been soaking in a bathtub. She had been showering while sitting under running water.
If she'd been in a tub, she might have drowned by now.
Even so, she still couldn't escape disaster, because Rowan had set his sights on the Ghost-Ghost Fruit.
This fruit could create all kinds of ghosts and control them.
Rowan felt it matched his Shinigami power extremely well, so he planned to take Perona's Ghost-Ghost Fruit.
As for how to take it, the method was simple.
Rowan summoned the phantom of the Shinigami, pulled Perona's soul out of her body, and with a swing of his blade severed the connection between her body and soul.
At the same time, he severed her life as well.