"Hey, hey..." Thinking of this, Logot's offensive suddenly paused, and a look of mockery appeared in his eyes.
"You kid... Could it be that you don't know swordsmanship at all?"
"Heh." Gern didn't answer but instead took a slight breath.
Logot was not wrong; since acquiring the Tremor-Tremor Fruit, Gern had not undergone any proper training.
Before he acquired the Devil Fruit ability, he was just a logistics soldier with a bit more strength.
After acquiring the Devil Fruit, he underwent a year of development, only relying on the Devil Fruit to forcibly increase his combat power.
However, when facing truly experienced powerhouses, it was still very easy for the opponent to see through him.
Therefore, Gern would carefully study his opponent's intelligence before each move.
After all, without a system, he only had one life!
"Ha! Indeed!" Logot laughed loudly, "Holding a good blade but only knowing how to hack wildly, what a waste of natural resources!"
He lifted his spear, shaking off Gern's blade, and the spear tip thrust directly at his throat, "blood beak-Throat Pierce!"
Gern hastily turned sideways, the spear tip grazing his neck, drawing a thread of blood.
At the same time, he took the opportunity to widen the distance, his eyes solemn, as lacking expression and combat experience was indeed his shortcoming.
But now it seemed he had figured out the true intelligence of this guy in front of him.
He was another pirate without any trump cards, and his Armament Haki was only at a basic level, so he could be dealt with easily...
"What? Giving up already?" Noticing Gern's pause, Logot flicked the blood off his spear and sneered.
"A guy who relies on his Devil Fruit and famous blade to show off, once his true nature is seen through... only despair remains!"
After a moment of silence, Gern, who had seen through the person in front of him, slowly curled his lips into a dangerous arc.
"You're right..." He gripped black blade eight desolations in a reverse grip, and the dark red cracks on the blade glowed with a dazzling crimson light under the reflection of the sunlight.
"I am indeed not a Sword Master."
The blade was humming.
That was not the tremor of metal, but the wailing of space.
"But..." Gern's left hand slowly stroked the spine of the blade. In an instant, billions of vibration particles crazily compressed, collapsed, and re-compressed on the blade!
The air around the blade twisted into a spiral-shaped vacuum zone.
"Your Haki..." Gern suddenly looked up, "Doesn't seem to be very proficient either!"
The blade fell.
The world lost its sound in that instant.
With black blade eight desolations as the origin, the ground of the entire port rolled back with a roar as if it were a carpet being lifted!
Hundreds of tons of rock were shattered into dust the moment they ascended, the seawater was torn into cubic crystals, and the air shattered like glass into pieces!
"Whitebeard..." Looking at this scene, which was like a natural disaster, Logot's face drastically changed, and his pupils contracted sharply.
This world-destroying scene finally awakened a dusty memory; he finally remembered whose ability Gern's was very similar to.
"Damn it, what kind of Devil Fruit did you eat?!"
Logot instantly covered his hands with Armament Haki; this was the limit of what he could do.
"I don't know, but I know that the destructive power and might of my Devil Fruit ability are... terrifyingly strong."
Gern slightly bent his knees, the vibration particles on the blade already compressed to the extreme, and the surrounding space began to twist and deform.
Strong enough to allow me to briefly ignore..." He curled his lips into a wild arc, "Or even crush..."
The ground beneath his feet collapsed with a roar, "The so-called gap!!!"
As soon as the words fell, Gern's figure blurred in the distorted space, only the Black Blade, emitting destructive fluctuations, remained clearly visible.
"Sky Tremor-Space Split!!" The moment Black Blade slashed out, the entire space shattered like a mirror!
A vibration slash, piercing through heaven and earth, tore through the sky. Wherever it passed, the vibration turned everything into the most basic shattered particles of dust!
Half of the port's sky, along with the coastline, was neatly cut by a hundred-meter-long crack, like a god's fingernail scratching the canvas named 'World.'
Logot's vision suddenly twisted. He instinctively raised his arms to block, but in the next moment, he felt an unprecedented impact.
His Armament Haki, upon contact with the vibrating slash, shattered and disintegrated like fragile ice.
"Crack... Boom!!" In just an instant, Logot's body was swept away by an invisible force. Wherever he passed, the air boomed, and the ground collapsed.
.......
The smoke and dust slowly dispersed over the shattered port.
Gern slowly sheathed his blade. The crimson cracks on black blade eight desolations gradually dimmed, but the surrounding space was still slightly distorted, as if the aftershocks had not subsided.
The port ground had completely collapsed, and seawater poured into the massive rift valley.
"Uh... cough..." Logot opened his mouth wide but could only squeeze out fragmented syllables.
His internal organs had already turned into bloody mud under the shockwave, and both his arms, along with his proud Armament Haki, were severed by a single slash.
Blood gushed from his seven orifices, forming a dark red swamp on the charred ground.
"Your Haki is as thin as paper!" (Unless it's very powerful Haki, it can't resist the power of a Devil Fruit.)
Gern looked down at Logot's dying body, silent for a moment, then bent down to pick up the blood-stained "blood beak" spear.
"'Blood Spear' Logot, with a bounty of sixty-nine million..."
He swung his hand, and the spear pierced through the air, accurately impaling Logot's head, nailing this once infamous pirate beneath his own flag.
The sea breeze wailed as it swept over the ruins, carrying away the last trace of blood.
"Ha... ha..." After confirming that Logot had completely died, Gern finally couldn't support himself and fell heavily to the ground.
His chest heaved violently, and sweat mixed with blood soaked his torn clothes.
That last attack was his trump card, developed by combining black blade eight desolations and the Tremor-Tremor Fruit.
It involved wrapping extremely compressed vibration particles around the Supreme Grade Great Blade, unleashing not just sharpness, but also the tremor of space!
The power was astonishing, but the cost was equally heavy.
At this moment, he found it difficult to even lift a finger, his entire body's muscles felt as if thousands of steel needles were repeatedly piercing them, and even breathing brought a burning pain.
"A sixty-nine million opponent... pushed me to this extent..."
The dazzling sunlight shone on his face. Gern squinted and touched the thread of blood seeping from the small wound on his neck.
"I... am still too weak."
.......
After a long while, Gern, having recovered slightly, was sitting on a piece of shattered rock, slowly wrapping black blade eight desolations with the white bandage he carried with him...
In the distance, a Marine warship slowly approached. Marine soldiers stood on the deck, looking with awe at the sole figure in the ruins of the port.
"Gern Warrant Officer won!" Cheers echoed over the sea, but there was no joy on Gern's face.
He looked up at the sky and murmured softly, Logot's words echoing in his mind:
Haki—is the proof of a strong person.