"Finally serious, are we?" Gern's lips curved upwards, and the bandages on his Black Blade began to tear apart.

"Now this is more like it! Roger!!!!"

Their Conqueror's Haki collided in the air, and the entire Deserted Island began to tremble violently.

Giant waves dozens of meters high rose from the distant sea, and a rift was forcibly torn open in the clouds in the sky.

But in the center of the storm, Gern's lips curled into a triumphant smile.

This was exactly what he wanted.

A Pirate King giving his all, not a dying man with a death wish.

Dangerous purple light flickered in Gern's pupils.

"As for what you said..." The blade of black blade eight desolations began to vibrate at high frequency, tweet like a thunderbird.

Where the blade passed, it left solidified vacuum trails, and pale cracks spread from the blade to the surrounding space.

It was as if the entire world became fragile under this single slash.

"Regret?" Gern suddenly burst into wild laughter, and the Black Blade erupted with an even more dazzling white light, "Hahahahaha!"

He took a sudden step forward, and the ground beneath his feet shattered like glass.

Purple-black Haoshoku lightning arcs wildly danced around him, and each step he took caused a shockwave with a radius of a hundred meters.

The air was squeezed out into visible ripples, and fine, pale cracks spread like a spiderweb in the void.

"From the moment I sought you out alone, those two words lost all meaning!"

Gern lunged forward, his figure suddenly blurring, like a comet wrapped in white light, appearing before Roger in the next instant.

black blade eight desolations cut a perfect arc, and the space it passed through shattered like a mirror.

Facing Gern's space-tearing slash, Roger's wrist suddenly twisted, and Ace's blade cut a dark red lightning bolt through the air.

Haoshoku lightning arcs danced on the blade's edge, illuminating the sudden, unconscious grin on his lips.

"What an infuriating fellow."

But even so, on this raging sea, in this legendary era where heroes rise...

Only this man before him, Gern Reginald Sigma, has grown so brilliantly that one cannot look away!

Undoubtedly, in this era,

He, Gern Reginald Sigma,

Is the most dazzling new star on this great sea!!!

"Sky Tremor · Shattered Realm!!!"

Roger's pupils reflected the incoming white light of death.

The Haki coiling around Ace's blade suddenly surged, and the materialized dark red lightning of Conqueror's Haki formed a rotating black hole at the tsuba, with dark red lightning flowing along the blade.

He flipped his wrist, and the blade slashed upwards from below, tearing a dark red crack in space wherever the blade passed.

"Clang!!!" The moment the two blades collided, time seemed to stand still.

Two distinct energy currents, dark red and pale white, formed a clear dividing line at the point of collision.

The dark red Haoshoku lightning and the pale white shattered patterns devoured each other, and the resulting energy turbulence forcibly lowered the ground within a thousand-meter radius by three feet.

"Indeed!" Both of them shouted in unison, their eyes burning with the same fervent fighting spirit.

"Your terminal illness truly doesn't affect your strength!" Gern's tiger's mouth seeped blood, but he laughed even more wildly: "Roger!"

"You've gotten stronger by more than one level!" Roger's lips also curved into a long-lost arrogant smile: "Gern!"

As both exerted force simultaneously, the collision point first collapsed into an absolute dark singularity, as the energy at the point of engagement reached its critical point.

Then a dazzling white light flashed, followed by a deafening explosion.

The shockwave expanded spherically, pushing both of them back.

"In that case..." Roger shook his numb arm.

The weariness in his eyes vanished, replaced by the sharpness of the Pirate King who once dominated the seas.

"Let this, the final battle of my life, be even more intense!"

"As you wish!" Gern violently plunged his Black Blade into the ground, his hands forming claws and converging at his chest.

Countless pale white light points emerged from the void, coalescing in his palms into a dazzling, irregularly undulating white sphere.

And when the energy reached its limit, he violently tore his arms apart—"Heaven Quake · Heavenly Prison Gate!!!"

Twelve huge white light rings suddenly appeared above the entire Deserted Island, arranged in a circle.

From each light ring descended a pale white light pillar a hundred meters in diameter, enveloping the island in a destructive shockwave matrix.

Facing this scene, like a divine punishment, Roger's pupils vibrated intensely, then burst into hearty laughter.

"Hahaha! You fellow... you're truly terrifying!" He slammed his foot down, and the ground exploded into a crater tens of meters in diameter under the reactive force.

The Haki on Ace's blade condensed to the extreme, and the blade was completely enveloped in dark red lightning.

"God Avoidance!!!" The moment this slash was delivered, space was cleanly cut open.

Wherever the dark red blade light passed, even the descending pale white light pillars were split in two.

Gern, however, did not dodge, clenching his left hand into a fist, wrapping the extremely compressed shockwave around his fist.

The entire arm showed pale white cracks, as if it could shatter at any moment.

"Supreme Ripple Fist!!!"

Fist and blade collided again, and this time the impact directly blasted a thousand-meter-diameter crater in the center of the island.

Seawater poured in, instantly forming a circular lake.

When the smoke and dust cleared, the two faced each other across the lake.

..........

Immediately after, Gern's pupils suddenly contracted, and in his vision, Roger's blade had turned into a dark red afterimage.

"Faster than Rayleigh!!"

"Once a fight begins, it won't stop easily, kid."

Gern heard the screech of air being cut, and his skin could even feel the boiling Haoshoku on Ace's blade!

In the nick of time, he sharply turned his body, and black blade eight desolations swept upwards close to his left ribs, the moment the tsuba collided with Ace's blade.

Pale white shockwaves and dark red lightning exploded into a circular impact, and sparks flew like a downpour, melting the rocks under their feet into honeycomb-like holes.

"Your 'God Avoidance' can't cut through omnipresent molecules!"

Gern's body reformed from its molecular Quake Flash state, and then his right leg suddenly swept horizontally, his boot heel, wrapped in purple-black Haki, chopping towards Roger's knee like a battle-axe.

"Is that so?" Roger, however, seemed to have anticipated it; he used the reactive force of their blade lock to backflip into the air, and Ace followed with a downward chop, the blade grazing Gern's shoulder.

But the aftershock of Gern's kick still tore a hundred-meter gully in the ground, and the stirred-up debris pierced distant reefs like bullets.

"As expected of Observation Haki at the level of 'hearing all things'..." Gern glanced at the blade wound on his shoulder, but paid it no mind.

Because in this battle, his breathing rhythm was completely undisturbed, but the heart in his chest was beating violently at a frequency unique to combat, and his blood was like boiling magma!!

Suddenly, Gern's left hand formed a claw and grasped at the void, and dazzling white light erupted between his five fingers.

"Heaven Quake · Cleavage!" Five parallel spatial cracks instantly tore through the atmosphere, and shockwaves, like invisible sharp blades, cut towards Roger's landing spot.

Wherever they passed, the earth cracked, and the air was squeezed out into visible vacuum tunnels.

Seeing this, Roger, who had not yet landed, chose to twist his waist, and Ace's blade cut an arc, dark red Haki unfurling like a curtain, completely shattering the shock-slash.

In an instant, the refracted pale white energy plunged diagonally into the sea, instantly turning the waves a thousand meters away into mist.

"Using my 'God Avoidance' as a springboard? Not a bad idea!" Roger slammed his feet onto the ground, which collapsed like tofu under the immense force.

And his figure had transformed into a dark red meteor, the tip of his blade pointing directly at Gern's throat!

"And something you're even more familiar with!" Gern, however, suddenly let go of his Black Blade, crossing his arms over his chest, palms facing outwards.

"Heaven Quake · Mirror Reflection!" A pale white shield made of high-frequency shockwaves appeared out of thin air.

The moment Ace's blade struck the shield, the shield shattered like glass, but the counter-shock force caused Roger's tiger's mouth to split, and blood dripped down the tsuba.

"Got you!" Gern seized the opportunity to lunge forward, his right fist, wrapped in spiral shockwaves, smashing towards Roger's abdomen.

"Black Tremor · Vortex Bone!"

Roger's pupils contracted, but he didn't dodge; instead, he plunged Ace into the ground to gain leverage, and raised his knee to take the punch head-on!

"Bang!" Amidst the muffled thud of flesh colliding with shockwaves, his pant leg instantly shattered, and his calf muscles cramped from overexertion, but Gern's punch was also forcibly halted.

The moment they were locked in a stalemate, Roger suddenly grinned, his blood-stained teeth looking terrifyingly grim in the lightning's glow: "You think... I'd fall for the same move twice?!"

His left hand, not holding the blade, suddenly wrapped in Haoshoku, and delivered a hand-chop towards Gern's neck!

Gern leaned back to dodge, but still had a few strands of hair cut off.

He used the momentum to pull out his blade and backflip, landing on one knee, his left palm pressing against the ground, "Heaven Tremor - Earth Rumble!"

The entire island trembled like a giant drum, countless pale cracks spread from his palm, and the ground beneath Roger's feet suddenly collapsed into an abyss!

"Tsk...!" Roger hastily stepped into the air and leaped, but Gern's Black Blade was already slashing like a shadow, the blade's edge not yet arrived.

Roger's shirt was already torn with several blood marks by invisible spatial cracks!

"Clang!" The moment Ace's blade blocked the Black Blade, Roger suddenly changed his move, the blade sliding down the edge of Eight Desolations, directly slashing at Gern's fingers!

Gern was forced to release his grip and drop the blade, but he used the momentum to spin and deliver a whip kick towards Roger's temple.

Roger ducked to dodge, and with a backhand slash, swept towards Gern's waist and abdomen, but his opponent's Armament Haki-covered palm firmly clamped the blade's edge!

Their noses were almost touching, and their hot, bloody breaths sprayed onto each other's faces.

"Your blade is slow..." Gern gasped with a cold laugh, blood dripping from the wound on his palm, but it was evaporated into blood mist by the shockwaves before it hit the ground.

Roger's breathing was also heavy like a bellows due to his terminal illness, and the sweat on his forehead was steamed into white vapor by Haki before it could even flow down.

Continuous high-intensity Haoshoku clashes, it's impossible for the terminal illness to have no effect!

"You should worry about yourself! You Heaven Quake madman..." Roger suddenly roared, and Ace's blade erupted with its final dark red lightning.

Gern promptly retreated upon seeing this, but the blade still cut through his uniform across his chest, revealing the metallic sheen of his Armament Haki-covered skin beneath.

The two once again created distance, staring at each other across the ravaged battlefield.

The sea breeze carried the scent of gunpowder, Gern licked his parched lips, while Roger shook his numb arm.

The young man who couldn't even withstand a single "God Avoidance" back then was now, surprisingly, able to fight to a temporary draw.