Delta Island, Central Lake.
Sephiroth hovered in the sky, looking down at the stunned Bullet below with amused condescension. His lips curled in playful mockery as he called out:
"Oh? Roger's One Piece is actually an Eternal Pose? And the direction it points... could that be Laugh Tale?"
Silence.
Bullet snapped the treasure chest shut with a sharp 'clack', gripping it tight in his massive fist. His thick skull buzzed with confusion.
That bastard Buena Festa had sworn up and down he'd use an Eternal Pose to Laugh Tale as the tournament prize—bait to make pirates tear each other apart. But this? Laugh Tale equaling Marineford? What kind of sick joke was this?
Though they were collaborators, neither pirate trusted the other as far as they could throw them. Festa had never let Bullet actually see the supposed Laugh Tale Eternal Pose. For all Bullet knew, the whole thing might be one big lie.
Now, staring at the Marineford-bearing compass in his hands, Bullet's first thought was that Festa had played him.
Not that it mattered much. His real goal was proving his strength surpassed Roger's by crushing the world's strongest fighters. Whether this compass pointed to the end of the Grand Line or Marineford's execution platform made no difference.
As long as he kept his mouth shut, nobody would know he'd been duped. Poker face engaged.
"That's right!" Bullet boomed, arrogance undimmed by his private doubts. "This is the real deal—Laugh Tale's Eternal Pose. Want it? Beat me first!"
Sephiroth threw back his head and laughed, the sound rich with derision. "You expect us to take your word for it? That could be any random compass you're waving around."
Bullet's manic grin faltered for half a heartbeat. His grip on the chest trembled almost imperceptibly before he snarled, "Believe whatever the hell you want!"
BOOM—
A tsunami of Conqueror's Haki exploded from Bullet, washing over the entire island. Pirates fleeing the arena collapsed mid-stride, eyes rolling back as they hit the dirt. Only a handful remained standing under the crushing pressure.
Sephiroth didn't even blink. "An ant challenging the sun?" he sneered.
Then his own Haki detonated like a collapsing star. The sheer force of it sent Bullet's energy recoiling back upon itself. No matter how Bullet strained, he couldn't push forward against that overwhelming tide.
The sky split open in a spiraling vortex. The ground quaked violently. Towering waves erupted across Central Lake's surface as if the sea itself was trying to escape.
Thud. Thud. Thud—
Most pirates who'd withstood Bullet's assault now joined their unconscious comrades in the dirt. Barely a dozen remained conscious—several too paralyzed by fear to stand.
By the lakeshore...
Bonney, who was originally planning to just be a spectator and watch the show, was affected by Sephiroth's full-power Conqueror's Haki. Her eyes rolled back, she exited her transformation state, turning from an adult woman into a little girl, and her body swayed as she was about to fall to the ground.
Kuma, who was beside her, was startled and quickly reached out to hold her, preventing her face from having an intimate, zero-distance encounter with the ground.
"No! This place is too dangerous, I have to take Bonney away first."
Kuma looked up at the powerful, god-like silver-haired young man above the sky, and immediately used his Devil Fruit ability to fly off the island with Bonney, heading towards the Marine warship fleet.
On the other side, Zoro and Sanji finally fished their Captain, who had fallen into the lake water, out and brought him to the lake shore.
Luffy propped his hands on the ground and coughed repeatedly. Only after spitting out a large mouthful of seawater did he gasp and say:
"Cough, cough-! That was close, I thought I was going to die!"
Seeing this scene, Sanji wiped the seawater from his face and mercilessly complained to his Captain:
"Can't your Gear Four fly? Seriously..."
"Yeah! You can clearly fly, so how did you fall into the water?" Zoro muttered to himself.
Luffy scratched his head, a little embarrassed, and said, "I forgot in the heat of the moment."
Sanji: "..."
Zoro: "..."
This Captain is good in every way, except he's missing a brain! (Both thought)
In mid-air, Marco, who had transformed into his human-beast form, grabbed Ace's shoulders and slowly descended beside the three of them.
Ace looked at Bullet in the distance and sighed helplessly:
"Ah! We didn't wait for Blackbeard Teach, but instead, such a troublesome guy appeared..."
Franky surfaced from the lake water, quickly climbed onto the lake shore, and hurried to the side of the five people. He pointed at the Thousand Sunny in the distance and said:
"This is bad! Usopp and Chopper have already fainted. We need to quickly take them away, and the Thousand Sunny needs to be sailed away too. When those two monsters start fighting, our ship will probably get caught in the crossfire."
As soon as Franky finished speaking, Bullet in the distance immediately retracted his Conqueror's Haki, no longer bringing shame upon himself. Instead, he roared in anger and directly plunged one hand into the ground beneath his feet.
The next moment. Splash-!
A dark purple submarine battleship, entirely made of metal, broke through the soil beneath Bullet's feet and surfaced from the depths of the lake bottom.
Bullet looked up at the silver-haired young man standing above the sky, radiating boundless power, and said with a sinister smile:
"Hmph! Your Conqueror's Haki is indeed stronger than mine, but this Caterbot ship beneath my feet is filled with various weapons and iron pieces. Combined with my Devil Fruit ability, it will unleash extremely powerful combat strength. I don't believe you can do anything to me... Combined Armament!"
Streams of purple crystal-like substance rapidly surged from Bullet's body, merging with the submarine battleship beneath his feet and beginning to change its external form.
However...
Above the sky, Sephiroth's figure turned into an afterimage, trailing circles of white sonic booms, and rapidly swooped down.
Swish-!
A flash of crimson light, the butcher knife was drawn.
The pitch-black blade, wreathed in dark red lightning, directly slashed at the unprepared Bullet, interrupting the process of merging with the submarine battleship, and sent his entire body flying out.
With a "Boom-!", he crashed into a large mountain several hundred meters away.
Immediately after...
"Idiot! You said all that, and you still thought I'd give you time to merge?"
The words Sephiroth spoke above the sky, due to the slow speed of sound propagation, only just reached the ears of those present.