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Chapter 421: The God Who Ruled the World for Eight Hundred Years Was Beaten Covered in Lumps?
"Did you see that?" Imu gripped Garp by the neck, dragging him through the air at breakneck speed before viciously smashing him into the peak of a mountain.
Boom! The mountain collapsed, sending shattered rocks piercing through the air. Imu hovered above the ruins, her gaze icy. "This is the boundary between so-called 'God' and 'man.' Your laughable techniques are utterly meaningless in the face of absolute power."
Down in the ruins, Garp gasped heavily for air. He was drenched in blood, and the golden sun seal on his body had grown dim. His Sage Body's regeneration simply couldn't keep up with the rate he was taking damage. Yet, he was still smiling. "Bwa... bwahahaha..."
Pushing aside the boulder pinning him down, Garp staggered to his feet. "Boundary? The thing I love doing most in this life..." He snapped his head up. Those normally clouded, elderly eyes suddenly erupted with an unprecedented, piercing light.
His aura had shifted. It was no longer the violent fluctuation of Chakra. Instead, it was a purer, far more condensed... willpower! He slowly shifted into a stance. It wasn't the Taijutsu of the Naruto world. It was the martial arts that he, Monkey D. Garp, had forged over a lifetime of battling across the seas!
"Is dragging you high-and-mighty Celestial bastards back down to earth!"
The ground beneath Garp's feet shattered inch by inch, yet he remained completely still. It was the physical manifestation of power compressed to its absolute limit.
Imu frowned slightly, sensing that something was wrong. The energy radiating from Garp was clearly weakening, yet the sense of danger this old relic gave off was far more intense than before!
"Futile insolence!" Imu refused to drag this out any longer. Bringing both her hands together, a massive energy sphere over ten meters in diameter coalesced between her palms. "Begone!"
Boom! The colossal sphere, carrying an aura that could obliterate anything in its path, plummeted toward Garp.
In that split second, Garp moved.
"Rokushiki Secret Technique..." He didn't dodge the energy sphere. Instead, charging head-on into the blinding light of destruction, he threw the most absolute, peak punch of his entire life.
All of his Haki, all of his Chakra, and all of his life force. In this singular moment, everything was compressed into the edge of this seemingly ordinary fist.
"FIST BONE: GALAXY: DIVINE VACUUM STRIKE!!!"
Dong——————!!!
Time seemed to freeze. Back in the tavern, the wine glass slipped silently from Kaido's grasp.
On the broadcast screen, the massive energy sphere came to a bizarre, stagnant halt the exact instant it collided with Garp's fist. Immediately after...
Crack! A hairline fracture appeared on the sphere. Then a second, and a third...
Boom!!!
The energy sphere was forcefully blown to pieces! From the chaotic maelstrom of scattering energy, a blood-soaked figure burst forth.
Fast! He was too fast! So incredibly fast that even Imu's eyes couldn't track him! Before Imu could even react, that pitch-black, Haki-coated fist was firmly planted right on her forehead!
Bang! A crisp, muffled thud echoed out, exactly like a watermelon being viciously struck by an iron hammer.
The Sovereign of the World, the God who had ruled for eight hundred years, Imu. Under the watchful eyes of everyone present, she had been served a rock-solid, loving knuckle to the head by a bloodied, elderly Marine!
"NGH!!!" Imu let out a muffled groan, her entire body thrown backward from the impact, her aloof expression instantly twisting in agony.
A red, throbbing lump visibly swelled up on her forehead, and a trickle of crimson blood trailed down the bridge of her nose.
Silence. A deathly silence. The wind on the deserted island ceased. The breathing inside the tavern stopped entirely. Everyone was dumbfounded.
A God... bled? The seemingly invincible Imu had her defenses completely broken by a single punch from Garp? While the strike didn't cause much actual damage to someone with Imu's vast life force, the sheer humiliation of it... was off the charts!
"This..." Sengoku's mouth hung wide open, his jaw nearly dislocating. He knew Garp far too well. That punch wasn't meant to kill the enemy. It was thrown purely to humiliate her! It was meant to tell that lofty God: I can still beat you until your head is covered in lumps!
Hovering in midair above the deserted island, Imu touched the massive lump on her forehead and stared at the smear of blood on her fingertips. Her hand was trembling. Not from pain. But from shame. Absolute, unadulterated shame!
She, the majestic Sovereign of the World, had her head knocked by a mere monkey?!
"MONKEY... D... GARP!!!" Imu unleashed a wretched, bloodcurdling roar.
The 'Qi' surrounding her violently spiraled out of control. The once-white aura instantly transformed into a frenzied, dark crimson. The entire island began to disintegrate under the sheer terror of this energy.
"I SHALL ERASE YOU! I WILL SCATTER YOUR VERY ATOMS!!!"
Imu had lost her mind. All she wanted was to grind that grinning old bastard below her down to the atomic level! However, just as she prepared to unleash a forbidden jutsu to vaporize the island and Garp along with it, a lazy voice cut through the chaotic energy field, ringing clearly in both of their ears.
"That's about enough. If you blow up my island, the two of you will only be taking baths in the ocean from now on."
Hum! An invisible ripple instantly swept across the battlefield. The terrifying energy Imu was about to detonate was extinguished in a flash, like a bucket of ice water dumped on a campfire. The Chakra shrouding Garp dissipated right along with it.
A spatial rift tore open. Blake was sitting behind the bar, still holding his coffee cup, looking as though nothing had happened. "Come back. The performance is over."
Garp plopped down onto the dirt, panting heavily. Blood was spurting from all over his body, but his wrinkled face was beaming like a blooming chrysanthemum. "BWAHAHAHAHA! Satisfying! This life of mine was absolutely worth it!"
Up in the air, Imu stared death glares at Garp below, her murderous intent so thick it was nearly tangible. But ultimately, she made no further move to attack. She glanced at the spatial rift, then back down at her fingertips.
Finally, she gave a cold harrumph, adjusting her tattered robes and reassuming her high-and-mighty posture. But that bright red, protruding lump on her forehead couldn't be hidden no matter how hard she tried. It looked overwhelmingly ridiculous.
"Hmph." Sweeping her sleeves, Imu flew into the spatial rift first.
This 'Battle of God and Man' that was worthy of going down in history had officially come to an end, capped off by Imu's absolute supremacy in power, and Garp's single 'Fist of Love: Knuckle.' It was a phenomenally absurd conclusion.
The spatial vortex slowly swirled. The God who had ruled the world for eight centuries and lived entirely within the shadows of legend was now standing at the exit of the portal. Imu hadn't fully stepped out yet. She extended one foot first. It was clad in an exquisite, pointed shoe, carrying the elegance of a sovereign descending upon the world.
Next came the hem of her long robes, as pitch-black as the night and completely devoid of wrinkles. Everyone held their breath. That included Kaido sitting in the corner, and Katakuri, who was frantically stuffing donuts into his mouth.
They were all waiting. Waiting for that head to appear. The head that, just a few minutes prior, had been viciously knocked by Garp's 'Fist of Love.'
Finally, Imu stepped entirely out of the halo of light. She kept her hands clasped behind her back, her chin tilted slightly upward, maintaining her posture of looking down upon all living things.
However. The gaze of every single person in the room was drawn to the exact same spot, as if pulled by an inescapable, powerful magnet.
Right smack in the center of that previously flawless, noble forehead... was a lump. A massive, purple-red bump that was still faintly pulsing. The shape of it was just too perfect. It was round, plump, and looked exactly as if a ruby had been forcefully embedded into a divine statue.
You could even see thin wisps of smoke rising from the very tip of it.
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