The powerful fighters locked in brutal combat, no matter which side they were on, instantly stopped moving as if completely frozen in place.
Everyone stared in pure shock toward the center of the massive Haki explosion.
"Gurarararara!" Whitebeard's booming laughter was the first thing to break the heavy silence.
The deep wrinkles at the corners of his eyes smoothed out in pure joy, his eyes shining with excitement as he locked his stare onto Ron.
A deeply proud smile curled on his lips.
"Good kid! You have been hiding this from me!"
"After I finish crushing Kaido, I'm definitely going to have a proper fight with you!"
As he spoke, his heavy fingers rubbed the long handle of Murakumogiri without him even realizing it, already itching to battle Ron all over again.
Deep inside his chest, a fighting spirit that had been asleep for years was now burning like a wildfire.
The young man he had always viewed as his successor actually held such terrifying hidden potential!
He secretly congratulated himself, knowing his choice to trust Ron had been completely right.
Meanwhile, Kaido's Dragon pupils shrank sharply, his dark blue scales rising slightly in pure shock.
He stared hard at the tall, straight figure standing in the distance, his eyes flashing with a messy mix of total disbelief and boiling fury.
The corner of his mouth twitched out of control as he growled under his breath, "What kind of sick joke is this...? This brat actually..."
During their past fights, Ron had never once shown even a spark of Conqueror's Haki.
How could he suddenly pull out such an incredibly rare, terrifying power?
The realization only threw more fuel onto Kaido's raging fire.
"Damn it... Has he been toying with me this entire time?!" Kaido snarled through gritted teeth.
Just as he was distracted by the massive shock, Whitebeard's Murakumogiri came whistling toward his head, packed tight with the world-breaking power of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit.
"This is not a good time to lose focus, Kaido!" Whitebeard's roar snapped Kaido right back to reality.
In a blind panic, Kaido barely managed to raise his spiked club to block the heavy swing.
With a deafening BOOM, the massive impact sent Kaido flying backward for dozens of meters, his heavy feet carving a deep, ugly trench into the dirt and kicking up a thick cloud of dust.
..
Over where the Calamities were fighting, a heavy suffocating pressure fell over the area.
On King's face, his normally perfect black mask now had a thin but very noticeable crack running right across it.
Through that crack, his deep eyes were filled with total, absolute disbelief, looking as if he had just witnessed the most impossible magic trick in the world.
"How... How is this possible? Ron... actually has Conqueror's Haki?!!!"
He mechanically raised his sword to block Vista's sharp, heavy slash.
Even though his muscle memory was perfect, his mind was no longer focused on the life-or-death sword fight at all.
Inside his head, memories played backward like an old movie reel as scenes of Ron's past battles flashed through his mind again and again.
He replayed every single frame.
Those seemingly normal combat moves now looked totally different, carrying a heavy, hidden meaning now that he knew Ron had Conqueror's Haki.
Had Ron been purposely holding back his true strength in every single fight they ever had? Was that why he always looked so perfectly calm?
As this thought crossed his mind, a complicated mix of emotions boiled up inside King—shock at Ron's hidden, terrifying power, and deep frustration at his own failure to see the truth.
Queen's massive, round body stood completely frozen in place as if he had been hit by a paralyzing spell, totally unable to move a muscle.
He even forgot to dodge Marco's fist, which was wrapped in boiling, dripping magma. He looked like his brain had just completely shut down.
"Hey now... This joke has gone way too far, right?" His tiny, beady eyes stretched so wide they looked like they were going to pop right out of his skull, while drops of cold sweat rolled down his fat cheeks.
His normally terrifying mechanical arm hung totally limp, the heavy cannon barrel pointing at the dirt, and his usual cocky, annoying grin had vanished without a single trace.
It was only when the boiling magma actually burned his skin, the sharp, searing pain washing over him like a wave of fire, that he finally let out a high-pitched scream.
It was as if he had been violently yanked back to reality from his total shock, and he scrambled wildly to rejoin the chaotic fight.
"Damn it, you dead bird, you actually sucker-punched me!"
Jack's reaction was even more extreme.
He completely dropped his massive Mammoth form and shifted right back into his normal human body.
His rough brutal face was now packed with pure terror and his thick tree-trunk arms shook totally out of control, looking as if he could barely hold his own weight up.
Remembering all the times he had purposely picked fights with Ron, each memory flashed through his mind like a horror movie.
Every single time he had acted cocky, every single time he had talked down to him—it all turned into a massive, crushing wave of dread that wrapped around his body like a freezing snake.
"That bastard... he was never actually trying this whole time..."
Things were just as messy over with the Tobi Roppo.
Black Maria's fancy smoking pipe clattered to the dirt with a sharp clink, the sound echoing loudly across the sudden quiet of their battlefield.
Her naturally beautiful smile was now completely frozen on her face, her eyes showing raw, unfiltered shock.
"This crushing pressure..." she whispered softly, her voice so quiet that only she could hear it.
Without her even realizing it, the thick spider webs she controlled slowly pulled back.
The deadly traps she had set up for attack and defense suddenly seemed totally pointless against this kind of power.
Ulti's furious screaming, which had been booming like a loud bell just seconds ago, instantly stopped dead.
It looked like someone had suddenly grabbed her right by the throat—her mouth hung open, but she could not force a single word out to save her life.
A quick flash of pure panic appeared in her normally wild eyes.
Her body shook slightly, clearly terrified by the massive wave of Conqueror's Haki Ron had just unleashed.
"Pay-Pay... that Ron guy actually has Conqueror's Haki!"
"...I... cough... I saw it!"
But out of everyone on the battlefield, the most shocked person was easily Crocodile.