Gern's pupils suddenly constricted to pinpricks.
His blade was now firmly suppressed by Roger's Ace.
It wasn't a skillful parry, nor a clever deflection of force, but the purest power suppression!
"Clank, clank, clank..." The edge of black blade eight desolations let out a groan of distress under the terrifying pressure.
The high-frequency vibrating blade actually showed a strange stagnation at this moment.
It was as if, in the face of that absolute Haoshoku, any other power was useless.
"You, when!?" Gern's breathing hitched.
Blood-stained Roger's mouth suddenly curved into a wild smile, a smile that reminded Gern of a fierce beast cornered.
"That punch of yours just now certainly surprised me, but..." Blood dripped from Roger's chin, yet it was evaporated by the boiling Haoshoku mid-air.
"I've been fighting that bastard Garp for half my life!!!" Haoshoku lightning exploded in Roger's eyes, and he suddenly took a step forward.
With this step, the entire island's crust collapsed!
"See clearly, Gern..."
"This is... the King's magnanimity!!!"
Roger suddenly exerted force, and a Haoshoku torrent erupted from him!
Gern felt an irresistible immense force coming from the blade, and he was actually forced back dozens of meters, his feet plowing two deep furrows in the ground.
Before he could steady himself, Roger's figure had already disappeared.
"God—Avoidance!" A low voice boomed in Gern's ear, and the next second, a red slash streaked across the sky and earth!
The moment Gern hastily parried with his blade, he realized it was a fatal mistake upon contact.
The power of this slash far exceeded imagination; a hasty parry... couldn't stop it!
"Bang!!!" The thought had just formed when Gern was sent flying like a cannonball, crashing through three rock peaks before finally stopping.
"Ugh!" Gern, kneeling on one knee, spat out a mouthful of blood, and before he could wipe the blood from his mouth, the sunlight above him was suddenly obscured by a shadow.
Looking up, Roger's figure became a dark silhouette against the scorching sun.
"Clang! Clang! Clang!" Slashes rained down like a galaxy pouring forth!
Every one of Roger's slashes carried the might of creation, and the trajectory of his blade left a lingering dark red afterimage in the air.
Gern's black blade eight desolations trembled violently under the storm of slashes, the blade wailing as if it would fall apart the next second.
The figures of the two transformed into red and purple lightning on the shattered earth, each collision triggering an earth-shattering explosion.
The island beneath their feet had long been unable to bear the strain; huge cracks spread like a spiderweb, and the entire island was visibly disintegrating!
"Just as I said from the beginning..." Roger suddenly pulled back, his feet plowing two deep furrows in the cracked ground.
"Gern!" He gripped his blade with both hands, raising it above his head, his entire body tensed like a fully drawn bowstring.
"Now is not your era!!!"
Before his words finished, Haoshoku lightning wildly danced around him, and dark red lightning shot straight into the sky, dyeing the entire sky a blood-like color.
On Ace's blade, golden light intertwined with black and red lightning, emitting a suffocating sense of oppression, and the air around the blade was distorted by the high temperature.
Gern's pupils suddenly constricted.
This slash was unavoidable!
"Desolate Divine Soul!!!"
The moment Roger's blade struck down, the world lost its color!
A golden slash that pierced through heaven and earth roared out, and wherever it passed, space shattered inch by inch, emitting a harsh sound like breaking glass.
The air in front of the slash was completely drawn away, forming a vacuum channel, and even light was distorted at this moment!
Gern's black blade eight desolations let out a piercing wail the instant it made contact, and the blade was instantly covered in spiderweb-like cracks.
Immediately after,
The slash penetrated his body!!
Blood bloomed like a rose, a tragic and beautiful blood flower exploding on Gern's chest.
The slash's momentum did not diminish, directly splitting Gern and the entire island in two!
A huge crack extended from the center of the battlefield to the coast, and seawater poured wildly into the bottomless chasm, creating a deafening roar.
Gern's body was sent flying by the impact, plummeting into the surging sea like a meteorite.
In the last moments before losing consciousness, Gern's vision only held Roger's solitary back, standing on the shattered earth.
The setting sun, like blood, stretched his figure long and lonely.
The Pirate King was, after all, the Pirate King.
........
A moment later, Roger knelt on a protruding reef, his right hand pressed tightly against his chest, dark red blood continuously seeping between his fingers.
He coughed violently, each breath carrying a metallic, rusty smell, and the bloodstains at the corners of his mouth were particularly striking on his pale face.
"Cough... cough cough..."
"It's finally over. If you can survive, haha..." He looked at the gradually calming sea, a complex emotion flashing in his pupils.
The ferocity of this battle far exceeded imagination; even he had just displayed his full power.
"Time to go..." Roger slowly stood up, supporting himself on his knees, but just as he turned around—
"Om—" A strange vibration suddenly came from the seabed, and the surface of the entire sea began to tremble unnaturally.
Immediately after, a bead of sweat slid from his forehead, but it hovered in mid-air.
"This is..." Looking at this miraculous scene, Roger's pupils suddenly constricted.
The sea surface began to tremble.
It wasn't waves, but a more fundamental "trembling"—as if the ocean had become a drum membrane plucked by an invisible hand.
The reef beneath Roger's feet silently pulverized, but the debris didn't fall; instead, it floated upwards against gravity.
Crack.
A crisp sound.
Roger suddenly looked up, only to see pale white cracks appearing in the space of the entire sea area.
"Boom—!!!!"
"Crack, crack crack!!!"
The sea surface suddenly exploded into a ten-meter-diameter cylindrical vacuum, and then the vacuum domain suddenly expanded at a hundred times the speed.
The seawater was forcibly "vibrated" into a more fundamental particle state by a power transcending physical laws.
It transformed into a misty sea, revealing the seabed rock bed that had not seen the light of day for tens of thousands of years.
Even more terrifying, in this waterless abyss, the entire space began to show dense pale white cracks!
Hundreds of meters, thousands of meters, tens of thousands of meters!!
It was as if an invisible giant hand had forcibly "dug out" the entire sea area; the seawater was completely pushed away by the terrifying vibration force, forming a huge, bottomless void.
Even more horrifying, the edges of this void seemed to be fixed by some power, and the surging seawater could not pour back in.
It was like an "area" tens of thousands of meters wide that would never take in water, created out of thin air in the middle of the ocean!
"How is this possible..." Roger's clothes flapped wildly in the violent airflow, and for the first time, a look of shock appeared on his face.
"Roger—!!!!"
A roar like the bellow of an abyssal beast, its sound waves causing the seawater at the edge of the vacuum domain to boil violently.
Immediately after, in the deepest part of this vacuum abyss, a dark figure slowly ascended.
And the cracks spread wildly centered on this dark figure, instantly covering all the surrounding airspace!
Each crack flowed with high-frequency vibrating pale energy, and wherever it passed—
The clouds in the sky were vibrated into shredded wisps, and sunlight refracted into distorted light bands in the shattered space.
The sea surface solidified into a strange crystalline state, and waves remained frozen mid-air in their splashing form.
The seabed rock layers undulated and deformed like clay kneaded by an invisible giant hand, forming vibration mountains thousands of meters high!
Roger stood on the constantly rising new rock peaks, his pupils reflecting this apocalyptic scene.
The physical rules of the entire world were collapsing and reorganizing around Gern!
"Devil Fruit Awakening..." Roger's muscles instinctively tensed, "How is a Nature Type..."
"Where are you going?" Gern floated into the air, revealing his scarred, muscular body.
black blade eight desolations was casually held in his right hand, then he slowly raised his left hand, palm facing up.
The pale cracks within this space simultaneously lit up with dazzling light, and countless spatial fragments began to revolve around him, forming a pale white star ring tens of thousands of meters in diameter.
Immediately after, he suddenly clenched his fist.
Suddenly, the star ring contracted, and all the shattered space instantly shrank!
In an instant, the world stood still for 0.5 seconds.
Birds froze into silhouettes; the blood bead Roger coughed out hovered at his lips; even the wind became stiff silk.
Then—Boom!!!!
The seawater of ten thousand li of ocean was vibrated into mist in a thousandth of a second, and then immediately reorganized into countless giant water blades.
The sky, the sea, the air—all became his medium of vibration; everything in this domain, the "world," transformed into his weapon!
Gern stood at the center, like a god wielding collapse and vibration.
"This battle isn't over yet!"