Deep within the Calm Belt, an enormous tsunami churned the sea into terror. Massive Sea Kings roared in panic as black clouds pressed down upon the waters, intertwined with serpentine streaks of lightning. Occasional thundering collisions and fiery explosions echoed overhead, as if the heavens themselves were being torn apart. What had been a once‑still sea now writhed with turbulent currents, sudden backflows and violent ruptures.
"How terrifying!" someone whispered in awe.
Under the lightning‑scratched sky, Blackbeard, Magellan, Cracker, and others had all emerged atop a flying book. They stared at the dazzling spectacle of light above — a colossal mushroom cloud of fire, expanding and erupting without pause. Three radiant halos swept outward, each forceful enough to threaten even their balance.
Everyone gaped at that earth‑shaking conflict in the distant sky. A battle of such magnitude far exceeded anything they had anticipated.
"This kind of battle is delightful," Cracker murmured, eyes gleaming.
Shiryu was similarly restless, passion burning hot in his gaze. Although he understood he stood no real chance against such formidable foes, the violent beauty of the fight ignited his hunger to participate.
"Quiet," Magellan warned, his voice low, commanding attention, "Watch carefully."
"Zehahaha~" laughter echoed among the gathered experts. Whoever stood there was powerful, and this clash was the kind only the strongest among the seas hoped to witness. The knowledge gained from mere observation would be worth a lifetime.
Beneath the limitless sky, two long rainbows — one to the left and one to the right — collided like comets meeting. A glowing halo pressed down, crushing the sea level into collapse, creating voids so vast the cloud‑choked sky seemed to disperse before them.
Steel and war implements rained outward: a wolf‑tooth club, a massive saber, and a frying pan flew through the air, crashing against a distant island with earth‑splitting force. Meanwhile, a streak of flame and light slanted downward like a falling star, halting only when it struck a shattered rocky mountain, creating a yawning chasm buried beneath rubble.
"Roar!"
Amid booming thunder, Ethan steadied himself and bellowed toward Lucien, his bloodshot eyes ablaze with rising rage.
Boom.
The mountain fractured, scattering debris like streaming meteors in all directions. Lucien Graves emerged from the ruin, his body streaked with blood though wounds began closing rapidly. He surveyed the ground warily, noting Napoleon and the frying pan deeply embedded in mud far off, both bearing the scars of recent combat.
The frying pan, fortunately, could repair itself. Napoleon, however, could not.
With a bone‑shaking crash, Ethan fell from the sky and slammed into the ground. He glared at Lucien as though sworn to slay him. With a violent motion, his hand shot upward and the pockmarked wolf‑tooth club flew into his grasp, drawn as though by instinct. Rapidly, his strength returned.
Lucien watched with cold, amethyst eyes. His left fist crackled with Prometheus, incandescent with flame, and his right hand pulsed with the electric rumble of Zeus.
Ethan's irrational fury reached its peak. Seeing Lucien unarmed now — neither Napoleon nor the frying pan in hand — drove him to a singular conclusion: he would crush Lucien bare‑handed.
Ang.
A titanic roar split the unstable sky.
Behind Lucien, a thunder‑fire divine dragon erupted to life. Its tail vanished into the turbulent clouds as its immense, electric body extended nearly a thousand meters like a living storm made manifest.
Ethan surged forward, unleashing a savage punch.
"Great Might Heavenly Dragon!" Lucien bellowed, his voice resonating with the earth itself.
The island beneath them quaked and cracked apart, as though the world were at its end.
Lucien coughed up blood, his entire right arm blasted away by the force of Ethan's onslaught. Even the legendary Great Might Heavenly Dragon had failed to withstand the oncoming assault.
As the battle escalated, Lucien felt the pressure rise unbearably. Ethan grew stronger by the second. What had once been a dead heat turned suddenly into a widening chasm of power.
Lucien vanished from his original spot, only to reappear ten thousand meters away a heartbeat later. Two colossal knees — one heavy, one slight — collided with thunderous impact.
The surrounding atmosphere shattered. In a blink, the two warriors stood ten thousand meters apart, fists meeting in violent resonance.
Each strike tore bone and flesh from Lucien's body, only for those fractures to heal within breaths. Were it not for his Demon Body regeneration, Lucien would have fallen countless times already.
Like phantoms caught between moments, the two flickered continuously, time seeming to stop as scenes of their frozen combat filled the sky.
Wherever they struck, the waters split beneath them. Monstrous tempests tore through sea and sky.
In the blink of an eye, the two figures left the collapsing region of the sea and reappeared on a barren island — their confrontation still unfolding with terrifying force.
Boom… rumbled.
The earth shattered, sinkholes gaped wide, chasms thousands upon thousands of meters deep split the desolate ground.
Lucien spun mid‑air and struck with his left elbow, fracturing space itself. Ethan caught it with his left arm, and in that moment Lucien flipped upside down and hammered downward with his right foot.
Reacting with preternatural instinct, Ethan shifted sideways. His right leg arched high and sent a devastating kick toward Lucien's chest.
In the blink before impact, Lucien reappeared behind Ethan — only for Ethan to swivel as though sensing his presence, delivering a back kick that met Lucien's own strike head‑on.
Their feet collided, the force detonating like an explosion, sweeping shockwaves outward across the desolate island.
Lucien's lightning‑fire hedgehog hair streamed wild behind him. The raw power behind Ethan's kick tore into his thigh, and he felt flesh rend apart.
Ethan's roar resounded, his strength rising again without restraint. He crushed Lucien's right foot with overwhelming force before hammering at his chest. With a harsh thud, Lucien spat blood and was hurled backward.
Crash.
Shattered rock and rubble tumbled as a gully extended to the island's end.
Ethan drove himself into the earth, his tyrannical aura still expanding.
Boom.
A wild hurricane ripped outward. Tangled ruins were flung away as Lucien rose from the wreckage, coughing up fragments of lung and breathing hard. His chest and right foot had already regenerated. He faced Ethan with a solemn, unwavering look.
A swirl of dust descended as the ground beneath them imploded. Then, like bolts of lightning, they moved along the surface, their arms striking with successive earth‑shattering explosions.
Instantly, a powerful shockwave centered on the two swept outward, overturning the world along its path.
The fractured island vibrated. The atmosphere rippled while tsunamis rose in massive columns.
Their knees collided once more as they climbed with violent ascent. Power swells radiated outward, ripples turning into explosions wherever they spread.
The fractured sky roared with lightning and thunder, and the two blurred figures flickered in and out of sight, trapped in a tempest.*
Clouds split, rocks shattered. Hurricanes battered relentlessly, an unstoppable display of natural fury.
A towering mushroom cloud rose yet again. The desolate island vanished completely, replaced by a bottomless abyss that seemed to connect straight to hell, seawater pouring in without mercy.
Two long rainbows streaked across the angry sea as waters parted in a massive current break. The battle had long since surpassed the sound barrier.
Each collision battered Lucien's body apart, only for him to heal instantly. The pressure he faced grew ever more intense, yet he could not help but grow exhilarated by the confrontation.
Adrenaline surged through every vein, and he felt his blood boil as his cells hungered for greater stimulation. The sensation rose in steady waves, each higher than the last, driving him toward a peak of battle ecstasy he had never experienced before.
Across a vast expanse, earth‑shaking power trailed behind them as they reached the deepest part of the Calm Belt. A chain of monstrous islands lay scattered across the turbulent sea. For a time, the once clear sky collapsed into darkness, rife with thunder, lightning, and dread as the two combatants closed in on each other with unstoppable force.
Though neither possessed Haoshoku Haki, their overwhelming ferocity was enough to warp the weather itself.
In the Calm Belt even the slightest disturbance caused atmospheric upheaval, but these two were like unchained beasts, tearing through archipelagos at will. Mountains collapsed, valleys fractured, and desolate hills crumbled at their relentless pace.
At this moment, at the eye of the storm, the battle raged like madness incarnate. Blood splattered with every thunderous blow as Lucien spat crimson across bleached rock.
His wild, fiery hedgehog hair whipped in the gale, and because the flesh along the right side of his cheek had been torn away by Ethan's relentless assault, he looked like a revenant clawed back from oblivion — naked bone and blood exposed to the storm's wrath.
Countless bones in his slender body had been shattered.
Still, within moments those injuries healed once more.
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