The sea churned violently in the aftermath of the Conqueror's Haki collision, with waves crashing down like a torrential downpour.
Gern stood at the bow of the Marine ship, his cloak flapping wildly in the gale, his gaze fixed intently on the front.
Suddenly, Roger's Conqueror's Haki abruptly receded.
"Hm?" Gern frowned slightly, his Observation Haki sensing another, slightly inferior but far more ferocious, aura rapidly approaching.
A white wave exploded on the distant sea, and a towering, iron-like figure charged straight ahead, leaving a trail of bursting spray on the water.
"Marine!" Bullet's roar thundered like lightning, his bulging muscles gleaming with a bronze luster in the sunlight.
"Come fight!"
"Douglas Bullet." Gern's pupils contracted slightly.
The man known as "Devil's Heir Barrett" now attacked like a cannonball, his body enveloped in a furious Haki.
His eyes burned with battle intent, like a caged beast unleashed, charging directly at Gern.
"If this were before I challenged Kozuki Oden, you might have been a formidable opponent." Gern's eyes darkened, but a cold sneer played on his lips.
"But now, heh."
Gern didn't hesitate; his figure blurred instantly, activating "Quake Flash" in a flash.
His figure became indistinct on the spot, high-frequency vibrating particles allowing his body to enter a molecular-state quantum flow tunneling space.
In an instant, Gern's presence vanished into thin air from the Observation Haki senses of all the strong individuals present.
Then, in the next second, he appeared directly in front of Bullet.
"What's going on?" Facing Gern, who had appeared before him without warning, Bullet's pupils trembled, and he was clearly stunned, so much so that he didn't even have time to adjust his posture.
He had completely underestimated Gern's speed; his Observation Haki seemed to have failed him.
But by this time, Gern had already reached directly in front of Bullet, his right fist enveloped in a dark-red flowing Armament Haki like molten lava.
Vibrating particles furiously collapsed at the peak of his fist, condensing into a needle-sharp point.
"I'm sorry..." Gern's voice was low and cold, "Douglas Bullet."
Before he finished speaking, his fist violently swung out, space shattering inch by inch before the punch, and a ear-splitting high-frequency shriek tore through the air.
"Please, just be a good backdrop..."
Bullet felt his vision go black as Gern's fist rapidly expanded in his sight, a golden-red arc of Conqueror's Haki, entwined with dark-purple lightning, pouring out like a torrent.
His Armament Haki had not yet fully covered his body when Gern's fist slammed into his chest.
"Black Quake: God-Slaying Nail!"
The moment the fist touched his chest, time seemed to stand still.
In Bullet's wide eyes, the terrifying sight of space shattering like glass was reflected.
High-frequency vibration waves penetrated his Armament Haki defense, directly acting on every inch of his muscle fibers.
"Crack!" The bone-chilling sound of bones breaking echoed across the sea.
Bullet's proud iron body cracked like fragile porcelain, forming a spiderweb of fissures.
The violent shockwaves pierced through Bullet's body like sharp blades.
His muscles, bones, and internal organs were torn apart by the high-frequency vibrations in an instant.
In just a moment, his body twisted into an unnatural posture in the air, flying backward like an anvil struck by an invisible giant hammer.
"Boom!" A visible ripple of shockwaves spread out, and the sea was forcibly pressed down into a huge depression.
Bullet's body flew backward like a broken kite, tracing the trajectory of a meteor, and heavily crashed into the sea two nautical miles away from the Oro Jackson.
"Bang!" A hundred-meter-high giant wave surged into the sky, and seawater poured down like a torrential rain.
The Oro Jackson shook violently, and the crew members on deck grabbed onto anything fixed nearby, their faces pale.
On the Marine ship's deck, Tesoro's golden pocket watch fell to the ground with a "clatter."
He mechanically turned his head; at the bow of the Marine ship, Gern slowly retracted his fist, the pale particles swirling around his fist dissipating.
His cloak billowed in the lingering shockwave, the black-bordered characters for 'Justice' gleaming coldly in the sunlight.
"This...is this the strength of that man?" Tesoro's throat tightened.
..........
On the other side, the roar of the tearing sea still reverberated between heaven and earth.
The hundred-meter-high towering waves cascaded down like a collapsing sky, churning the entire sea upside down.
On the deck of the Oro Jackson, Buggy's shriek almost pierced the stagnant air; he opened his mouth exaggeratedly, his entire body splitting apart.
"You're kidding, right?! That monster Bullet, who just clashed with Rayleigh...was taken out with one punch...just one punch?!"
"So strong, incomparably strong." Shanks's straw hat was blown away by the violent air current, revealing his eyes wide with shock.
He instinctively reached out to grab something but only caught a handful of cold splashing seawater, the droplets between his fingers refracting dazzling light in the sunlight.
"Whoa, whoa..." Jabba's brows were tightly furrowed, fine beads of sweat seeping from his temples, his voice carrying an unprecedented solemnity.
"This joke has gone too far...That's Bullet, not Buggy!"
"Did you see it clearly, Roger?"
Rayleigh's glasses cracked with a "clack" during the violent shaking, and he stared intently at the distant battlefield.
"How did he suddenly appear in front of Bullet just now...?"
In response to Rayleigh's words, Roger's signature smile vanished completely for the first time.
He pressed Ace's hand, his veins bulging, and the golden-red arcs of residual Conqueror's Haki crackled around him, scorching the surrounding air into distortion.
"Everyone listen..." Roger looked sideways, his eyes sharp as knives, his voice low and cold.
"From now on, besides me and Rayleigh, no one is allowed to act without permission!"
Rayleigh's pupils constricted upon hearing this, and his eyes behind the lenses showed an expression of disbelief: "Wait, Roger...Are you saying even you...?"
"That's right." Roger slowly nodded, the air pressure around him suddenly dropping, "I completely failed to perceive that guy's movement trajectory.
In other words..." He paused for a moment, his voice filled with unprecedented solemnity.
"Even with my Observation Haki, I completely failed to predict his movements in that instant.
Or rather, if I had been the one charging on the sea just now, and with my previous mindset of underestimating him..."
A deathly silence fell over the deck, with only the sound of waves crashing against the ship echoing.
"Perhaps..." Roger's final words were like a heavy hammer striking everyone's hearts.
"The one who would have fallen into the sea right now would be me."