The cluster of reefs below the breakwater had been reduced to scorched earth, a graveyard of blackened stone birthed from violent heat and repeated collisions.
Clang!
Enel's solid gold staff, coated in a fledgling layer of Armament Haki, whistled through the air in a heavy horizontal sweep. It struck only an afterimage.
Bastian, the CP0 agent behind a half-crying, half-smiling mask, possessed the seasoned instincts of a veteran. He stepped lightly off the tip of the moving staff, using the recoil to flip backward into the rainy night. Even in mid-air, his hands became a blur.
"Shigan: Wasp!"
Dozens of compressed air bullets shrieked through the dark, raining down on Enel while he was still recovering from his swing.
Enel's pupils constricted. His body surged into a flash of blinding blue light, elongating and dissipating just as the air bullets reached him. Thud-thud-thud. The rubble where he had stood exploded into dust. Using the absolute speed of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, he remanifested on a tilted waste rock ten meters away.
Enel panted, his chest heaving. A two-inch bloody gash on his shoulder seeped crimson into the rain.
"It's useless," Bastian landed safely, his voice dripping with condescending mockery. "My Refraction Fruit can deflect any long-range attack. Give up on your flashy thunderbolts. You are forced to rely on immature Haki and crude martial arts for close combat."
Bastian saw the predicament clearly. As long as the lightning left Enel's body, it could be refracted. Up close, the Sky Islander's staff techniques were nothing more than "peasant moves" compared to an agent who had mastered the Six Powers over a decade. It was a perfect counter.
"A marmot hopping on the ground... do you truly think self-praise can dull a God's edge?" Enel gripped his staff, his eyes burning with irritation. After months of being used as a punching bag by Ace on Upper Yard, he had expected to dominate today. To be stymied by a "shield" was an insult to his very existence.
Just as the malice in Enel's heart reached a boiling point and he prepared to sink the entire breakwater with a reckless thunderstorm—
Vroom—
From deep within the battlefield, an invisible storm swept out. It was a raging tide of domineering will, heavy enough to make the air stagnate and the rain stop in mid-air.
Bastian froze. That shuddering feeling of being watched by a high-level predator made his expression turn grim. "That blonde guy with the staff... he possesses Conqueror's Haki?!"
If Bastian was shocked, Enel was experiencing an internal supernova. When that soul-pressure washed over him, it felt like ten thousand tons of TNT detonating in his mind. Sabo—the man who usually smiled while sparring with him—harbored the same "King's Aura" as Ace.
Two monsters with the potential of kings on one ship.
Then what am I?!
The thought roared through his mind. He was the God who ruled the White Sea. He could accept Ace; Ace had the ambition to swallow the world. But if even Sabo, the "housekeeper," could display this kingly presence while he, Enel, was being toyed with in the mud by a nameless government lackey—
The humiliation was more unbearable than death.
"In this world, there is no domain this God cannot set foot in!" Enel let out a horrifying, beast-like hiss. His paranoid self-esteem, pushed to the brink, finally ignited the spark of pride sleeping in his bloodline.
The blue arcs on his staff began to dance with newfound violence. His eyes glowed with a terrifying white light.
"Your name is Bastian, right?"
As the flat, emotionless statement fell, a new Haoshoku—different from Sabo's steady weight, but sharper and infinitely more violent—burst from Enel. Dark blue Haki fluctuations tore through the rain like jagged swords.
Bastian groaned, forced back half a step by the strike to his soul. "This violent intimidation... even a nobody like you has Haoshoku?!"
"Thanks to this rage, I have finally cleared my head." Enel exhaled a mist that smelled of ozone. The Armament Haki on his hand was no longer sluggish; under the flush of his awakened will, the power became darker, denser, and more absolute.
"Relying on a little reflection to flaunt your superiority... tell me, do you actually dare to take this God's lightning head-on?"
Enel struck the Magatama Drums on his back.
"Since long-range is useless, let's try this."
BOOM! 200 million volts of lightning did not fire outward. Instead, they turned into a hundred rivers returning to the sea, pouring back into Enel's own flesh. The plasma interlaced on his skin, forming a giant, deep-blue armor of divine light. A dozen-meter-tall lightning god phantom, looking like a wrathful Vajra, loomed over the coast.
200 Million Volts: Amaru (Thunder God)!
Cold sweat broke out on Bastian's forehead. He could refract beams, but this combat mode—compressing high-voltage lightning into an externally reinforced physical armor—was beyond "reflection."
"Don't underestimate CP0! Even with Haoshoku and size, if you can't break my defense, it's in vain!" Bastian set his hands into a deflection net, preparing to use kite tactics to drain the giant's stamina.
However... Enel didn't wait.
Under the stimulation of 200 million volts, Enel's massive form became a physical bolt of lightning slicing through space-time. This wasn't a projectile; it was a god-speed impact of terrifying physical weight.
BOOM!
The reef he had been standing on shattered into dust a full second after the blue phantom had vanished.
Speed is absolute power.
Before Bastian's Observation Haki could even register a threat, a giant white-blue fist, sheathed in dense Armament Haki, smashed through his reflection net.
"If you can't take it..." Enel's arrogant voice pierced his ear. "...then crawl and kneel like the trash you are."
"Divine Might: Raivushin!"
The blow landed with the weight of a falling star.
CRACK!!!
Bastian's mask shattered into a thousand shards. The sound of his nose bridge and sternum collapsing echoed through the rainy night. High-voltage blue light passed through his body, piercing the elite agent from front to back. His foundation was crushed like ceramics under an iron hammer.
"Aaaargh!"
Bastian was sent flying like a baseball, trailing a streak of blood-blackened water before vanishing into the dark, vast sea. He sank into the depths, a piece of scrapped dead meat.
The heat subsided. The giant avatar dissipated. Enel stood at the edge of the crater, exhaling a long, turbid breath. He gripped his gold staff, silently feeling the hum of his newly awakened Haoshoku.
He looked up toward the high ground where Ace fought. The untamed pride of a God was etched on his face, ready to gallop through this new era with the black warship and its crew of monsters.
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