"Cough!" Edward Newgate spat blood onto the ice, his face grim.
Rosen's aerial assault had been a hammer blow of divine retribution. That single punch from above had already shattered his internal defenses. The world's strongest man could barely draw breath, let alone find a moment to recover.
His first step into the frozen battlefield had been slammed into oblivion by Rosen's fist. Now, flipping backward, Newgate gripped his bisento, Murakumogiri, wreathed in crackling Conqueror's Haki and Sphere Tremors. Without hesitation, he swung the weapon in a brutal arc toward his back.
The air screamed.
But before the blade could land, Rosen—perched moments ago in the sea of clouds—dropped like a meteor, appearing instantly behind Newgate.
Rosen clenched his fist. "Second Speed!"
The impact was catastrophic. Where the first punch was heavy, this one was a seismic event. A pillar of black lightning ripped through the sound barrier, shattering the atmosphere and smashing into Murakumogiri.
BOOM!
The ice layer for kilometers around cracked like a spider's web under the pressure. Violent Haki lightning poured into the fissures.
Newgate's feet sank into the cratered ice as the force lifted him off his feet. He flew backward like a ragdoll, blood misting from his lips. Gritting his teeth, he slammed his bisento into the ice to anchor himself, using the recoil to halt his momentum.
He stopped—just in time to see Rosen descending again, fist cocked.
"Third Speed!"
Rosen's fist, wreathed in raging Haki, slammed forward. A tidal wave of Conqueror's Haki rushed at Newgate.
"RAAAAH!" Newgate roared. He abandoned defense, swinging Murakumogiri in a reverse grip, channeling his own tremor power into a desperate counterstrike.
CRACK!
The collision was deafening. Hundreds of fragments of shattered atmosphere rained down like glass. The very space around the two titans warped and twisted.
For two seconds, they were locked in a stalemate of raw power. Then, Newgate's face contorted. His arm trembled violently.
Pfft.
He vomited blood. His strength failed. Rosen's punch propelled him backward, slamming him into a rising column of ice with enough force to create a mushroom cloud of dust.
"Fourth Speed!"
Rosen didn't chase. He stood his ground and delivered a punch from range.
A terrifying shockwave—a celestial river of force—shattered a massive ice pillar and slammed into Newgate before he could recover. The impact dragged him and his bisento a thousand meters across the ice before he finally crashed to a halt.
Newgate struggled to rise, using Murakumogiri as a crutch. He swayed, battered but defiant.
Rosen walked forward, unhurried.
From his body, Armament Haki erupted—a black volcanic surge. It coated him, then shot upward, forming a skeletal giant that scraped the clouds.
Susanoo.
The avatar towered over the battlefield, its shadow swallowing the massive iceberg Newgate leaned against. The sheer pressure of the manifested Haki made every pirate and Marine on the field choke.
Newgate's eyes narrowed. A chill, colder than the ice beneath him, ran down his spine. He had seen this power before, but the scale... it was monstrous.
Rosen stopped three hundred meters away. He raised his fist. Above him, Susanoo mirrored the motion, its colossal fist clenching.
"Come on!" Newgate bellowed, laughing through blood-stained teeth. "ROSEN!"
He launched himself into the air, Murakumogiri glowing with the power of the Quake-Quake Fruit. He was a hawk diving on its prey, his blade turning midnight black with Haki.
At the tip of the bisento, a sphere of destructive energy formed—a fusion of tremor power and Conqueror's Haki that could shatter the seas.
"Susanoo—Evening Elephant—Fifth Speed."
Rosen didn't flinch. His right fist drew back to his waist, then unleashed a strike that defied physics.
Simultaneously, the giant avatar threw the same blow.
A fist of pure destruction rose to meet the descending blade.
They did not collide. They stalemated.
Fist and bisento hovered in the air, separated by five meters of distorted space. The war symphony of the battlefield—the screams, the gunshots, the clashing steel—abruptly vanished.
Absolute silence.
Then, less than three seconds later, the silence broke with a roar that shook the world.
BOOM!
Cracks raced across the ice like black veins, splitting the frozen sea for tens of thousands of meters. Kuzan's artificially frozen battlefield shattered, sending massive chunks of ice tumbling into the churning ocean.
The shockwave rippled outward, turning the sea into a staircase of mountainous waves.
Rosen and Newgate stood at the epicenter of the devastation. The ice around them had been pulverized into dust, leaving them floating on a sea of roiling Haki and destruction.
Newgate coughed, his grip on Murakumogiri slipping. "You... are a monster, Rosen."
Rosen lowered his fist, Susanoo fading into black mist. "The era of pirates ends now, Whitebeard. Justice will prevail."##
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