Time fractured.
To the untrained eye, the battlefield had simply gone still. But in the hyper-accelerated perception of Level 3 Observation Haki, the world was moving frame by excruciating frame.
Admiral Sakazuki's eyes were wide, the pupils contracted in genuine shock. The oppressive, freezing weight of Light's Conqueror's Haki had momentarily short-circuited the Red Dog's relentless advance. It was a fraction of a second—a microscopic window of hesitation from a man who had never hesitated a day in his life.
It was all the time Light needed.
Light's dark eyes flicked to the translucent blue interface hovering in his peripheral vision.
[ Remaining KP Reserve: 3,050,500 ]
He had bled the archipelago dry to build this fortune. Now, he was going to burn it to survive.
System, Light commanded, his mind operating with cold, sociopathic clarity even as his body screamed in agony. Upgrade Armament Haki to Level 4. Internal Destruction.
[ Upgrading Armament Haki: Lv. 3 ➔ Lv. 4 (Internal Destruction). Cost: 3,000,000 KP. ][ Confirmed. Remaining KP Reserve: 50,500. ]
The transformation was violent.
The invisible tide of Level 3 Emission Haki surrounding Light abruptly condensed. It was as if the surrounding light was being sucked into his skin. His pitch-black saber didn't just gleam; it drank the ambient glow of the burning plaza, becoming a literal void of localized spiritual gravity. Black and dark red lightning began to violently arc off the steel, tearing jagged fissures into the cobblestones beneath his boots.
Level 4 Armament wasn't just armor. It was an invasive, absolute violation of the enemy's defenses. It was designed to flow inside a target and tear them apart from the cellular level.
"Die," Light whispered, his manic grin pulling taut across his blistered face.
Soru. Combined with a max-output burst of his Force Authority propelling his back, Light broke the sound barrier. He didn't just move; he vanished, leaving a sonic boom that pulverized the remaining rubble of the auction house.
Akainu snapped out of his stupor just as the sonic boom hit his ears.
The Admiral's battle-hardened instincts screamed. He reflexively raised his right arm, violently transmuting his flesh into a hyper-dense, bubbling shield of magma reinforced by his own colossal Armament Haki.
SWISH.
Light materialized directly inside Akainu's guard.
The black blade swung in a flawless, horizontal arc. At Level 3, the sword would have bounced off the hardened magma.
At Level 4, the blade didn't even acknowledge the magma as a physical obstacle.
The pitch-black steel sheared cleanly through the molten rock, the Advanced Armament flowing effortlessly through Sakazuki's Logia defense. The Red Dog realized, a millisecond too late, that his invulnerability was completely compromised. He violently jerked his head backward to avoid decapitation.
He wasn't entirely successful.
The black blade carved through the right side of Admiral Akainu's face. It sheared his right ear completely off his skull and dragged a deep, jagged, horizontal canyon across his cheek and jawbone.
Horrifying.
Blood—real, crimson, human blood—sprayed through the air, mixing violently with the hissing steam.
The invincible monster of Marineford let out a raw, guttural roar of absolute agony. It wasn't the pain of the cut; it was the searing, tearing sensation of Light's Haki physically invading his flesh and ravaging the nerves from the inside out.
Light's boots hit the ground behind the Admiral, sliding across the stone. He had done it. He had permanently scarred the highest echelon of the World Government.
But dealing lethal damage to a cornered beast only accelerates its wrath.
Blinded by pain, his face pouring blood, Akainu didn't turn around to assess the damage. Driven by an apocalyptic, uncompromising rage, the Admiral simply detonated.
"YAGAMIIIIII!"
Akainu's entire body expanded, turning the surrounding fifty feet of the plaza into a localized volcano. It was a point-blank, omnidirectional explosion of superheated magma and kinetic force. There was no named attack. There was no technique. It was pure, unadulterated annihilation.
Light spun around, his Observation Haki screaming a lethal warning. He instantly threw up a max-output spatial barrier and coated his entire body in Level 4 Armament.
It wasn't enough.
The explosion hit Light with the force of a falling meteor. The spatial barrier shattered under the sheer thermal expansion of the blast. The magma washed over his Haki-coated body.
Light was violently launched backward, skipping across the ruined plaza like a stone across a pond. He crashed through the thick, petrified trunk of a fallen mangrove tree, shattering it into splinters, before slamming hard into the stone seawall at the edge of the grove.
The impact cracked the seawall in half.
Light collapsed into the rubble, his vision swimming with black spots.
He coughed violently, a thick spray of blood splattering across the pristine white ruins of his coat. The right side of his uniform was completely incinerated. Severe, agonizing third-degree burns painted his chest, abdomen, and left leg. The ribs that his Life Force had just finished healing cracked again under the concussive force of the blast.
He lay in the rubble for a moment, the sky spinning above him. The pain was absolute, eclipsing anything he had ever felt in his two lives.
But as the ringing in his ears subsided, a low sound started in the back of his throat.
It was a chuckle.
Despite the burns, despite the broken bones, Light Yagami dragged himself up to his knees, clutching his black saber. He looked through the thick, swirling smoke of the battlefield.
Fifty yards away, Admiral Sakazuki stood amidst a lake of boiling rock. The Red Dog was panting heavily, one hand clutching the right side of his face. Thick, dark blood was pouring between his fingers, sizzling as it hit the magma below him. The permanent, jagged scar of the Smiling Reaper was carved deeply into his flesh.
"Hehehe..." Light laughed, coughing up another mouthful of blood. He used his sword as a crutch, slowly forcing himself to his feet. His god-complex fed on the sight of the bleeding Admiral. "Look at you, Sakazuki. You bleed just like the pirates. And you bleed just like your masters. All of you, trash."
Akainu lowered his hand. Half of his face was a ruined, bloody mess, but the glowing, demonic ember of his left eye locked onto Light. The air around the Admiral began to violently distort again as the magma gathered for a final, lethal strike.
"I will melt you until there is nothing left to bury," Akainu promised, his voice wet with his own blood.
Light's manic smile held, but his calculating mind overrode his euphoria.
I dealt the blow. But he is a monster of stamina. One more point-blank blast like that and my organs might get cooked. *sighs * I know what the world's top looks like now. Time to wrap this up.
He had won the psychological victory, but he would lose the war of attrition. He knew he couldn't kill an admiral from the start. He got what he wanted- the experience, and the momentum.
Light sheathed his saber. He slowly raised both of his severely burned hands toward the boiling ocean bay beside the seawall.
He pushed his Level 10 Life Force to its absolute, breaking zenith, his upgraded stamina draining at a horrifying rate.
"You think you command the earth, Sakazuki?" Light's voice echoed, cold and terrifying, over the roar of the flames.
"Try... this!"
And God gripped the ocean.