"I know better... than you do, Satan Saint."
Moving with a mysterious grace, Shanks had already closed the distance to Satan Saint's spider body, which loomed as large as a mountain.
His gaze, sharp as a tempered divine weapon, pierced through the cold light flickering in the other's compound eyes, his voice carrying the clarity and resolution of one who had discerned the deepest of secrets:
"The truth behind your so-called 'immortality'..."
He paused, and every word struck like a heavy hammer against the barriers of reality:
"That is not some sublimation of life level or a divine gift! It is a 'curse shackle' that Imu, at the cost of the ultimate power of that 'national treasure', forcibly grafted, branded, and bound between your soul essence and the fundamental rules of the world!"
"A cage that forcibly binds your 'existence' to a certain twisted concept of 'eternity'!"
These words exploded over the battlefield like a thunderclap! Even the other Mythical Zoan Type Gorosei currently locked in fierce battle seemed to falter, their movements imperceptibly stiffening for an instant!
This was a shocking secret that struck at the very core of the World Government's eight-hundred-year reign and the legend of the Gorosei's 'immortality'! It was a truth hidden in the darkest depths of history, one that even the Roger Pirates had never fully uncovered!
"And the key to severing this shackle—"
Shanks did not give the other party any more time to react or retort. With both hands, using all his strength and willpower, he gripped the hilt of his famous sword, which had accompanied him across the four seas and was named 'gryphon'!
"Hum—!!!"
An unprecedented, almost tangible surge of Conqueror's Haki erupted from within Shanks, like a volcano that had been dormant for ten thousand years, roaring forth!
But this Conqueror's Haki was not the kind of area-of-effect intimidation that had permeated the battlefield and terrified the masses before!
It was crazily tempered, compressed, and condensed by Shanks' ultimate willpower, firm conviction, and his infinite heart of protection for his companions and the future of this world!
In the end, it transformed into a solid layer of dark red energy, like flowing lava or a huge, powerfully beating heart, completely and unreservedly wrapping, enveloping, and saturating the entire blade of the gryphon!
The 'gryphon' was emitting a joyful and eager hum!
Where the blade pointed, the space even emitted a strained, spiderweb-like 'crack' sound of shattering! It was as if the reality structure of this area could not withstand the power of 'definition' contained within this ultimate willpower and Haki!
"—lies in this very will of 'conquest' itself!"
Shanks' voice, at this moment, roared like a thunderclap from the heavens, carrying the supreme majesty of one who declares a new era and severs old shackles!
"Raising the power of Haki to the same rule-based level as your 'divine authority' derived from the 'national treasure'!"
"Infusing my will, my conviction, and everything I wish to protect... everything, without reservation, into this one sword strike!"
His eyes burned with a flame capable of incinerating all falsehoods and darkness:
"The ultimate form of Conquerors Haki Infusion has never been a simple 'enhanced attack'."
"Its essence is—"
Shanks' voice was resolute, as if he were declaring a new law of the world:
"'Defining Reality'!"
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