“Just as I wished!”

Oden’s blood-stained mouth curled into a wild, frenzied smile. Blood dripped from his body onto the ground, and the muscles in his arms bulged, veins protruding like enraged dragons.

Enma and ame no habakiri hummed and trembled in his hands, the crimson-black Haoshoku lightning on their blades growing even more violent.

Gern stared with cold eyes, the wound on his chest still seeping blood, but black blade eight desolations trembled violently in his hand, purple-white destructive energy coiling around the blade like a living thing.

Oden’s wild figure was reflected in his pupils, and Observation Haki had long since enveloped him, sensing every tremor in the air.

“Boom!!” The two figures vanished simultaneously, moving so fast that they left afterimages in the air.

When their figures reappeared, “Clang!!” The moment their blades collided, the entire Deserted Island trembled violently.

Centered around the two, the ground with a diameter of several hundred meters collapsed, and spiderweb-like cracks spread wildly.

Seawater gushed out of the cracks, only to be vaporized into white mist the instant it came into contact with high-frequency vibrating particles.

The clouds in the sky were forcibly torn open by the Haki shockwave, creating a massive gap, and sunlight pierced through like a sharp sword.

“Hahaha! How exhilarating!” Oden laughed wildly, his arm muscles bulging, his two swords slashing out like a fierce storm.

“How is it that I’ve only just learned of a man with your strength?!” A crimson-black slashing storm swept forth, each blade light carrying Conqueror's Haki powerful enough to tear apart the earth.

Gern’s eyes narrowed. black blade eight desolations spun in his hand as he reversed his grip and pulled the blade horizontally.

Where the blade passed, eight parallel spatial cracks were left behind. The cracks gnashed like fangs, pulling the enemy into a vibrating domain.

Immediately after, he raised his left hand again, “Heaven Quake: Thousand Light Wheel!” Hundreds of high-frequency shock bombs burst from the blade, colliding with Oden’s slashes in the air.

“Boom boom boom!!” Continuous explosions completely overturned the ground within a thousand meters, turning shattered rocks into fine powder, which then floated in the air due to the shockwave.

“Oh oh oh!” Oden’s figure shouted as he charged out of the smoke and dust, his two swords crossing as he slashed.

“Paradise White Waterfall!” This strike was as fast as lightning, a crimson-black thin line flashing across the air.

But this time, Gern’s Observation Haki once again saw the future and he dodged sideways at the last moment.

In an instant, the blade grazed his shoulder, drawing a string of blood drops.

Immediately, Gern spun around, appearing above Oden, his left fist wrapped in high-frequency vibrating particles, fiercely slamming into Oden’s back.

“Black Tremor: Star Piercer!”

“Bang!!” With a dull thud, Oden was sent back dozens of meters by the punch, but he twisted his body in mid-air, his feet plowing two deep furrows into the ground.

After stabilizing himself, the smile on his lips grew even more ferocious, “That’s it! Again!!”

At this moment, Gern’s strength level was not much different from Oden’s; neither could defeat the other with a single strike!

Therefore, this was also the first time Oden had enjoyed a fight so thoroughly.

And Gern could clearly feel that as long as he could defeat Kozuki Oden by himself, his strength would undoubtedly reach the Admiral level!

Because this was also the first time he had faced such a powerful opponent in a deathmatch without any outside help!

For a time, the fighting styles of the two were completely different:

Oden was a pure Two-Sword Style swordsman, every move embodying the pinnacle of swordsmanship.

His slashes roared like enraged dragons, and where his blades passed, the earth split into abysses.

As his two swords swung, crimson-black lightning poured down like a storm.

Gern, on the other hand, was a perfect combination of sword, Devil Fruit, and martial arts.

black blade eight desolations, imbued with destructive energy, shattered space with a single cleave.

Vibrating particles compressed into his fist, a single punch could collapse mountains.

Elementalization and instantaneous movement combined with high-frequency shock attacks made him impossible to defend against.

The entire Deserted Island was already unrecognizable from their battle, its surface covered with giant craters hundreds of meters in diameter, with the deepest cracks reaching the seabed.

The surrounding sea churned with tsunamis dozens of meters high, wave after wave crashing into the distant Marine warships, pushing them further and further away.

At the same time, the clouds in the sky were completely cleared, and sunlight shone directly down, forming an eerie rainbow halo in the rising steam.

..........

“Sorry, Marine, I need to finish you off!!!!” Oden’s roar, his hair disheveled, shattered the sky full of dust.

His feet sank into the crumbling earth, his waist arched back like a taut bowstring, as ame no habakiri and Enma crossed behind him in a crucifix shape.

Crimson-red, blood-like Conqueror's Haki surged from the tsuba, coiling and rotating along the blades, condensing into two eerie, scarlet orbs at the tips.

His entire muscle fibers emitted unbearable tearing sounds, and fragments of his kimono turned to dust in the torrent of Haki, leaving his upper body completely bare!

“You’re not worthy to say such a thing!!” Gern’s pupils suddenly contracted.

black blade eight desolations vibrated joyfully in his palm. The dark red patterns on the tsuba actually writhed like living things, instantly transforming into purple-black, grotesque veins.

The blade of black blade eight desolations wildly and autonomously guided the boiling Conqueror's Haki within Gern’s body, dark purple lightning and pale shockwaves intertwining in a spiral along the edge.

“Buzz buzz buzz!” The low-frequency hum suddenly escalated into a piercing shriek.

The space around the blade began to crack extensively, each pulsating dark purple electric spark tearing open spiderweb-like black fissures in the void.

Gern gripped the hilt with both hands, the veins on the back of his hands bulging like coiled dragons, and slowly raised black blade eight desolations above his head, assuming the most basic yet most lethal overhead stance.

“Oden Two-Sword Style: Paradise Ten Fists!!!”

“Sky Tremor-Space Split!!!” Both figures charged forward simultaneously.

Oden’s two swords traced a perfect blood-red cross in front of him. The cross led, followed by the man, like a meteor streaking across the sky.

After unleashing an extremely fast cross-slash, the man followed closely behind, and where he passed, even light was severed, leaving two pitch-black vacuum trails.

Gern’s Black Blade, on the other hand, chopped straight down. Before the blade even arrived, the air within a hundred meters ahead had already been crushed by high-frequency vibrations.

The moment the three blades collided—

“Clang!!!”

A brilliant white light erupted at the point of impact.

Time seemed to freeze at this moment. The Deserted Island’s surface, centered around the two, rose in concentric circles, tens of thousands of tons of rock layers being hurled high into the sky by the shockwave.

The sea first formed a giant crater a thousand meters in diameter, then unleashed a ring-shaped tsunami several hundred meters high.

“Crack... crackle...” Amidst the teeth-grinding sound of shattering space, the scarlet orbs on Oden’s two swords fiercely wrestled with the purple-white energy of Gern’s blade.

A pitch-black spherical void appeared at the center of the collision, swallowing all surrounding light, dust, and even sound.

The Conqueror's Haki of the two erupted in crimson-black and dark purple sparks at the point of confrontation. Every spark that fell to the ground blasted out a crater ten meters in diameter.

“Haaah!!” Oden’s forehead veins bulged, and the muscle fibers in his arms continuously tore, yet were forcibly stimulated by Haki to continue exerting force, his two swords pressing inch by inch towards Gern’s throat.

Gern’s tiger’s mouth was split open, blood dripping from the hilt onto the trembling blade, instantly vaporizing into a bloody mist.

At the same time, he could clearly feel black blade eight desolations’s hum becoming more joyful.

“Boom!!!” The second wave of impact erupted.

Oden’s left sword suddenly changed its move, ame no habakiri slashing upwards from below towards Gern’s jaw.

Gern sharply turned his head, the blade grazing him.

Simultaneously, his left fist, wrapped in compressed shockwaves, slammed fiercely into Oden’s abdomen.

“Pfft!” The blood mist Oden spat out was atomized into a fine vapor before it even hit the ground.

But his Enma blade suddenly extended three inches, its crimson-black Haki solidifying into a materialized blade aura, piercing Gern’s right shoulder.

Both men retreated violently amidst flying blood, each plowing a hundred-meter-long trench in the ground.

When the smoke and dust finally cleared, the entire Deserted Island had been split in two along its central axis.