The sea breeze, laden with the smell of gunpowder, swirled above the circular lake.

Gern's right sleeve was already shredded, and his exposed skin was covered in pale cracks.

With each breath, these cracks would slightly open and close, as if they could shatter at any moment, yet they were a symbol of Heaven Quake!

Gern smiled and slowly raised his left hand, and as his palm faced upwards, his five finger joints gathered power, clenched, and exploded with a “crackle” sound.

“Heaven Quake: White Vortex!!”

“Boom—!!” The ground of the entire Deserted Island twisted and wrinkled like a towel squeezed by a giant.

Countless pale light pillars, over ten meters in diameter, erupted from the ground, instantly vaporizing rocks from a material level wherever they passed.

“This destructive power is too much! You bastard.” Roger’s figure rapidly weaved between the light pillars.

Every swing of Ace accurately split the core of the shockwave, and the moment the dark red blade light collided with the pale energy,

The exploding shockwaves tore his cloak into rags, and his exposed back was already covered with fine blood marks.

“Is that so? Too bad, it’s not over yet!” Gern laughed, deliberately letting his right hand drop to his side.

The cracks on that arm had already spread to his shoulder blade, but his trembling fingertips were still condensing vibration particles.

As he slammed both hands onto the ground, the moment his palms touched the soil, a visible pale ripple spread out from him as its center.

“Heaven Tremor - Earth Rumble Kagura!!!”

The earth was like a blanket lifted by an invisible giant hand; tens of thousands of tons of rock layers were thrown high into the sky by the shockwaves, and the high-frequency vibrations entanglement the surface of the giant rocks made them glow with a dark red aura, like red-hot iron blocks.

Roger’s pupils suddenly constricted, his eardrums buzzing from the pressure of the shockwaves, but he instead grinned.

“Using my God Avoidance as a springboard... and now using the entire island as a weapon?”

He suddenly plunged Ace into the ground, and the Armament Haki wrapped around his fists flowed like liquid, forming spiral spikes of dark red Ryuo at his knuckles.

“Bone Breaker: Soaring!”

Two torrent-like fist energies shot into the sky, and all the giant rocks rushing towards him exploded, their flames forming a continuous crimson sky.

The aftermath even directly pierced through the clouds above, tearing a huge gap in the sky, and sunlight poured down like a waterfall.

But, at this very moment, Gern’s figure had vanished from its original spot.

“Up there!” Roger suddenly looked up, purple afterimages still lingering on his retina, but his Observation Haki was wildly alarming him.

High above, the black blade eight desolations, held in Gern’s hands, was no longer a weapon, but a “spatial fault” enveloped in pale energy.

The light around the blade twisted into a vortex, and the high-frequency vibrations made the atmosphere wail as if on the verge of collapse.

His diving trajectory dragged a vacuum tunnel through the air; before the blade even arrived, the ground beneath Roger’s feet had already automatically split into a spiderweb of cracks.

“Heaven Quake: Eight Desolations… Split!!!”

“Clang!!!” Roger’s ankles were completely submerged in the rock layer as he hastily blocked this attack.

But the vibration frequency contained in this strike was far beyond anything before, and whether it was the influence of vibrating space or something else,

Ace’s blade was actually starting to bend at this moment!!

“Crack!” Amidst a crisp shattering sound, Roger was directly cleaved into the ground by this strike, and the ground within a thousand-meter radius collapsed radially.

But before the dust could even rise,

“Divine Wrath!!!” Dark red streams of light shot out from the ground, and the Haki wrapped around Ace’s blade was now as solid as blood plasma.

As it cut through the air, it brought not the sound of wind, but a shriek like millions of wailing souls.

The moment Gern blocked with his blade, sparks flew from the edge of the black blade eight desolations, and the powerful impact sent him directly crashing through three rock mountains.

“Ha… Hahaha…” Amidst the shattered rocks of the mountain, Gern coughed up blood, kneeling on one knee, his eyes fixed on Roger, his blade-wielding hand trembling with excitement.

“This is it… This is worthy of the Pirate King’s title!”

Roger slowly approached, his upper garment also already shredded, and on his exposed chest, Ace was still swept to his side.

“Your growth rate is terrifying! Heaven Quake.”

“Is that so?” Gern slowly straightened up, and the blade of the black blade eight desolations suddenly burst into dazzling white light.

Centered around him, space began to twist and crack, and countless pale spatial cracks spread outwards like a spiderweb.

A teeth-grinding “cracking” sound echoed in the air, as if the entire world was on the verge of collapse under this one strike.

“Actually…” Gern’s lips curved into a dangerous arc, “There’s something even more terrifying!”

Before his words finished, the black blade eight desolations suddenly transformed into a stream of light and shot out!

Roger, relying on his honed combat instincts, dodged to the side, but his pupils constricted the moment the blade grazed him—Gern’s figure had already vanished!

When Roger’s Observation Haki finally captured Gern, the man was already within reach!

His right fist was wrapped in deep Ryuo Haki, and countless vibration particles at the knuckle were wildly compressing and collapsing, forming a terrifying energy core like a miniature black hole.

“Black Tremor: Star Piercer!!”

“Boom!!!” This sudden straight punch landed squarely on Roger’s chest.

The moment the fist energy penetrated his body, Roger’s chest visibly collapsed, and a mouthful of blood gushed out.

Even more terrifying, the residual fist energy formed a cylindrical shockwave zone a thousand meters in diameter behind him, where the air was completely sucked dry, and even light was distorted!

Roger’s body flew backward like a broken kite, but was intercepted mid-air by an even faster figure.

“I found your weakness!” Gern’s Quake Flash pursuit was faster than thought; at this moment, he appeared above him, his right leg raised high.

The black and red Haki wrapped around his heel and the pale shockwaves formed a jagged energy blade.

“Black Tremor: Road Breaker Kick!!” The moment he brought his leg down, the entire sky was torn apart by the shockwave!

The fan-shaped expanding shockwave split the clouds in two, and the sea below was pressed into a huge depression several kilometers in diameter.

Roger’s body slammed into the ground like a meteorite, and the moment of impact,

“Boom! Boom! Boom!!!” The landmass within a hundred-mile radius instantly fractured!

The impact center directly sank to form a basin, and the rock layers at the edges warped upwards under immense pressure, forming a new ring of mountains.

The air blast from the shockwave pushed hundreds of tons of seawater afar, creating a tsunami tens of meters high along the coastline.

But Gern’s killing move had only just begun!

As he fell, he violently shook his right arm, his five fingers splayed like hooks, and the black blade eight desolations in the distance seemed to sense its master’s call.

The blade vibrated intensely, tearing through the air, leaving a pale vacuum trail as it flew back.

Then, the moment his left hand stroked the blade’s spine, the purplish-black Haoshoku, like a living venomous snake,

Wrapped around his fingertips, intensely colliding with the blade’s inherent vibration particles, erupting in dazzling dark purple electrical sparks.

An even more chilling transformation was occurring.

Hundreds of millions of vibration particles were wildly collapsing on the blade, each compression distorting the surrounding light, as if even “light” itself was being swallowed by this terrifying energy.

The low “humming” gradually rose, finally turning into a shriek sharp enough to pierce eardrums, and everything around Gern silently disintegrated into dust.

Not shattering, but being vibrated apart from a molecular level!

“Heaven Quake…”

Gern raised his blade overhead in the most primitive overhead stance, a basic movement that, in his hands, felt like a ritual of creation.

The moment the blade slashed down—“CRACK!!!”

A pitch-black spatial rift spread with the blade’s light, like a god using an ink-dipped brush to forcefully draw a stroke across the canvas of the world.

Wherever the rift passed, the concept of material existence was temporarily erased.

Rock, air, even light, disintegrated before this “Void Mark.”

“Space Split!!!”

From the point of the slash, a spiderweb of pale cracks instantly covered the entire island, and destructive light surged within each fissure.

The distant sea surface suddenly rose into giant waves tens of meters high, not pushed by a shockwave, but because the spatial structure of that sea area was vibrating, twisting, and folding!

In this apocalyptic scene, only Gern’s figure, standing with his blade, was clearly visible.

His pupils reflected the shattered world, but a nearly devout smile curved his lips.

This was the highest praise for “destruction,” exclusive to peak powerhouses!

However…

“Sorry, I think I… saw an incredible future before you even made your move!”

As the light faded, Roger, holding his blade with both hands, parried this world-ending strike, and the red light flickering in his pupils left a burning afterimage in Gern’s Observation Haki vision.

The moment the two famous blades clashed, the surging energy turbulence pushed all the water from the circular lake into the sky, and the suspended water curtain reflected millions of shattered combat afterimages.

The Haoshoku of both men erupted completely at this moment!

Dark red and pale lightning intertwined, dyeing the entire sky a bizarre dual color.

The sea roared, the earth trembled.

And the gears of the era, at this moment, let out a deafening roar!