Gern suddenly opened his eyes, his pupils devoid of any emotion, containing only an absolute will for destruction.
The ultimate control he possessed since the awakening of Heaven Quake allowed all his moves to exert an even stronger effect than before!
Thus, Gern brought his palms, which had been hovering up and down at his chest, together with a forceful clap!
"Sky Quake · Spatial Collapse."
There was no earth-shshattering explosion, but rather a deeper, soul-shaking sound of shattering!
"Crack—Bzzzz!!!"
Centered on Gern's palms, an indescribable transparent shockwave instantly expanded spherically, sweeping over everything within a thousand-meter radius!
Space itself was detonated!
Vision completely lost its meaning.
The ice plain beneath his feet was no longer just cracking, but directly disintegrated into countless disconnected, giant fragments with sharp edges.
Like a shattered mirror, between the fragments were bottomless, pitch-black spatial crack!
The air was no longer a gas; it first solidified, then "shattered" like glass with a clatter, forming countless deadly air fragments reflecting distorted light, suspended in every corner!
Kuzan's elementalization was forcibly interrupted the moment it came into contact with that transparent shockwave!
He felt as if his body and consciousness were also about to be dismantled into their most basic particles along with this space.
Ice crystals shattered inch by inch, not from being vibrated apart, but because their 'structure' was collapsing.
Immediately after, he grunted, and the blood that spilled from his mouth was instantly vibrated into a mist by an invisible force.
The entire world seemed to transform into a broken kaleidoscope; all matter, energy, and even light lost their original order, plunging into complete chaos and collapse!
Gern stood at the center of this shattered domain, his black hair wildly dancing, his body wreathed in pitch-black Haoshoku lightning, like a god wielding collapse.
In this domain where the very structure of space was wailing and shattering, conventional evasion and defense lost all meaning.
Kuzan's pupils reflected the horrifying scene of the entire world shattering into billions of mirror shards.
His body was being torn apart by an invisible force of disintegration, and his ice crystal skin let out groans of unbearable strain.
If he couldn't elementalize to escape, then.......
"Absolute Zero · Sealing Barrier!"
Kuzan abandoned all thoughts of movement and attack, unleashing the power of his Ice-Ice Fruit with his entire will, holding nothing back!
His arms suddenly crossed in front of him, no longer releasing freezing air outwards, but inwards, compressing it to his own limit!
In an instant, a layer of extremely deep, almost light-devouring, ethereal blue ice crystals instantly covered his entire body, pushing the concept of "freezing" to its absolute limit, forming an absolute defensive barrier that attempted to completely "freeze" his own time, energy, and even existence!
The terrifying power of Sky Quake · Spatial Collapse swept over, frantically tearing and shaking this final bastion of ice.
"Crack! Crack!" The surface of the ethereal blue ice crystals instantly erupted with countless cracks.
Shattered ice shards peeled away from him like a blizzard caught in a gale, only to be swallowed by spatial crack the moment they detached.
Kuzan grunted, blood seeping from his clenched teeth, immediately freezing into crimson icicles.
At the same time, the "ground" beneath him had long vanished, and he floated amidst the shattered spatial fragments, relying entirely on this layer of absolute freezing to contend with the entire collapsing space.
Every second felt as long as a century; his Haki and stamina were being consumed at an unprecedented rate.
But the essence of "freezing" is precisely to stop movement and to silence energy!
The essence of Gern's "Spatial Collapse" technique was to induce high-frequency, violent vibrations in the spatial structure, thereby causing collapse.
And Kuzan's desperate, absolute defense was trying to counter that ultimate "motion" with ultimate "stillness"!
Indeed, when that omnipresent, tearing shockwave contacted the layer of ethereal blue solid ice, though still fierce, its destructive transmission actually showed a hint of stagnation!
The extreme cold not only froze matter but even began to slow down the energy transmission of the spatial shockwave itself!
"Ugh, ah, ah!" Kuzan let out a deep roar, seizing this fleeting opportunity to unleash his final burst of power!
"Ice Age · Coffin!"
Instead of spreading outwards, the ethereal blue absolute freezing air expanded sharply by a mere meter, centered on himself, forming an incredibly thick, oval-shaped ice coffin that completely enveloped him!
The moment the ice coffin formed, the destructive shockwaves from outside seemed to be temporarily isolated.
Inside the ice coffin was a realm of absolute stillness, where even atomic motion had nearly ceased.
"Boom!!!" The final energy of Spatial Collapse completely erupted, blasting the massive ice coffin away like a meteor, its surface covered in terrifying cracks, tumbling and crashing through countless floating spatial fragments.
It finally landed heavily on a large ice plain fragment, not yet fully collapsed, a thousand meters away, creating a bottomless crater.
"Crack......." On the surface of the ice coffin, a crack spread, and then a hand suddenly broke through!
Kuzan struggled to pry open the shattered ice coffin and staggered to his feet.
He was in a disheveled state, with fresh blood at the corner of his mouth.
His breath carried a distinct white frost, clearly indicating the immense toll his desperate defense had taken on him.
Kuzan then looked up at Gern, who was still standing in the air in the distance, his eyes showing no retreat, but rather burning with an even colder fighting spirit.
"To be able to shatter even space... that's truly an exaggerated ability."
He panted, slowly raising his right hand, and extreme freezing air once again began to condense, his voice hoarse but clear.
"But......."
"It seems that 'Absolute Zero,' which can freeze time, isn't ineffective against you after all... Gern."
"I didn't expect it either......." Gern also panted, smiling, "You've also developed your Devil Fruit ability to this extent, Kuzan!"