"Zephyr's era is over! He's long lost his nerve—no longer the 'Black Arm' who once ruled the seas!" Saint Warcury roared, each thunderous stride shaking the ground as his mountainous body barreled forward. Razor fangs crashed down with bone-shattering force.
The Marine Vice Admiral was swatted from the air like a rag doll.
Despite the gulf in size, Darren was being overpowered in raw strength.
"With your current power, you can't withstand the Demon Grass I personally trained—one of CP0's strongest, the 'Celestial Dragon's Ultimate Shield.'"
Fengxi bellowed. The tusks jutting from his cavernous maw twisted under whorls of black smoke, reshaping into twin blades of pure slaughter.
Another earth-splitting impact.
Still airborne, Darren's pupils tightened. He crossed his forearms over his chest, bracing into Fengxi's meteoric slam and taking the force head-on.
BOOM!
A shockwave rippled out.
He tumbled backward, blood tracing the corner of his mouth.
"Your puny strength is nothing before ours, insect," a cold voice hissed behind him.
A mountain-sized shadow heaved up from the earth.
To Ivankov and Kuma's shock, the Sandworm Darren had just cleaved in half had regenerated. Its ringed jaws, all writhing teeth, snapped for the falling Vice Admiral.
A sinister red light flickered in Darren's eyes. Without a visible motion, electricity crackled at his fingertips.
Lances of searing light stitched the air and punched through the Sandworm's gaping maw.
Yellow-green slime sprayed as Saint Peter—again a towering Sandworm—shrieked and lunged on.
Clang.
Haki-coated hands clamped onto the thrashing jaws. Teeth tore Darren's palms and forearms, drawing beaded blood.
"Even if Dragon stalls Saint Mars, what does it change? In your wounded, exhausted state, you cannot beat us."
The worm hissed; its maw vomited rot and gore.
From Darren's vantage, he saw the churn of flesh and corrosive digestive fluids, a sight that chilled the spine.
"Accept reality, Marine brat."
The jaws slammed shut like a bloody millstone, shearing a gash across Darren's chest before flinging him away.
Before he touched ground, a vast black shape vaulted from the earth.
Saint Nusjuro's Skeleton Bakotsu, wreathed in killing frost, drove its skull-like head into the Vice Admiral's back with meteor weight.
Bang.
A shockwave burst. Snow-white rime raced across Darren's back, locking his muscles in place.
Blood trickled from his nose and mouth as his body went rigid and was blasted through the air.
Gyuki had been waiting. A spider leg thick as a column speared Darren's abdomen and sent him flying.
"No! Stop them!"
Ivankov and Kuma watched in horror as the four demons booted the Vice Admiral around like a leather ball.
Ivankov stepped, purple-black eye shadow flaring. With a hard blink he fired:
"Death Wink!"
A violent blast cored a bloody hole through Saint Saturn.
It sealed in seconds.
"Damn it! How?!"
"Are they immortal?!"
Ivankov's face twisted. He blinked again.
"Death Wink!"
"Hell Wink!"
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Explosions tore through Saint Saturn, Saint Nusjuro, Saint Peter, and Saint Warcury, shockwaves rocking the battlefield.
Despair returned just as quickly. No matter the damage, the four—like fiends clawed up from Hell—healed in moments. Fengxi's hide, monstrous in its defenses, wore not so much as a scratch.
Then—
Another ruinous charge from the colossal boar.
BOOM!!
The Vice Admiral hit like a cannonball, carving a bloody crater at Ivankov and Kuma's feet. The earth fractured, stones geysered.
Through the clearing dust, they finally saw him—and both sucked in a breath.
He looked dyed in blood, torn open from neck to heel. Frost burned on his back, embers ate at his wounds, violet venom and viscous acid gnawed at his flesh until his muscles twitched uncontrollably.
"This is absurd," Darren muttered, pushing up on a blood-slick hand and rising. He glanced at his chest and exhaled. "To think I'd lose in raw strength."
Boom… boom…
The four giants advanced, each step a tremor, an oppressive weight rolling across the field.
"Your talent is undeniable—beyond Roger, Garp, even Kaido in their prime. But time has not been kind to you."
"Two and a half years of training is a ripple against the World Government's eight hundred years."
"Given a little longer, we might have truly feared you."
"But you will never have that chance."
"You die here today."
The guttural, arrogant chorus seemed to rise from all directions, borne on the thunder of their feet.
"Is that so?"
Darren wiped the blood from his mouth and grinned.
He shot a glare at the stunned pair. "You came with Dragon just to stand there and spectate?"
Kuma flushed scarlet.
Ivankov snapped out of it with a grind of teeth. "They're immortal! Our attacks do nothing!"
Darren waved him off. "Enough chatter. I've fought long enough. Just give me the finishing shot."
They froze, disbelief surging.
This lunatic—already on the brink—and he still wanted more?
BOOM!
Fengxi burst from the smoke, eyes blazing crimson. Colossal fangs—twin blades now—cut the air, black-red lightning of Conqueror's Haki crackling along their edges.
"Damn it, he's completely unhinged!"
Ivankov and Kuma traded a look, braced against the crushing aura, and charged.
Ivankov's right hand morphed; his fingertips honed into needles.
He drove them into the ragged wound in Darren's arm.
"So tough—my fingers are going to break!" His eyelids twitched as he finally grasped how monstrous Darren's body truly was.
And that was with Darren deliberately relaxing his muscles. At full tension, even a sneak attack wouldn't pierce.
"Emporio Excitement Hormones!"
The instant the needles sank home, Darren convulsed. His breath sawed, crimson light bled from his eyes. His heart hammered like thunder—as if something terrible inside him were waking fast.
To be continued...