"I'll paint this Holy Land red… with blood!"
As the words fell, the Gorosei's eyelids twitched. Their gazes fixed on the Military Den Den Mushi in the Marine Vice Admiral's hand; a familiar dread slid coldly down their spines.
They didn't know what other cards this cunning brat Darren held, but they didn't dare gamble.
This time, the stakes weren't their immortal lives.
It was the lives of their own kind in the Holy Land, Mary Geoise.
"You seek death!"
"Stop this madness!"
"Insolent!"
"Audacious!!"
…
They moved as one.
Five crushing waves of killing intent burst outward, heavy enough to harden the air.
Gyuki, Fengxi, Itsumade, and the Sandworm roared as the sky shook.
Dragon clenched his teeth, shot Darren a glance, then hurled himself forward.
A hurricane detonated.
The emerald Wind Dragon roared again, power surging; in that flash of unleashed fury, it alone held back Fengxi, Itsumade, and the Sandworm.
The Spider Gyuki flickered past in a blur; blade-like legs lanced for the spent Marine Vice Admiral.
"Hell Wink!"
Ivankov blinked hard, violet-black lids snapping shut and open—an explosive shockwave tore from his gaze. The blast rattled Gyuki's bulk, checked it for a heartbeat—but not enough to stop the strike.
The spider's abdomen swelled and spat a jet of dark purple venom.
"Kuma-boy!" Ivankov gasped.
Whoosh.
A hulking, bear-like figure appeared before him without a sound, palm rising.
Bang!
The liquid venom smashed into flesh—and then, impossibly, solidified and was repelled away, slamming into the distant ground with a sizzling hiss that chewed a crater into the earth.
"…Hmm?"
Saint Saturn, still in hybrid form, narrowed his eyes at the blank-faced youth. He stared, then said coldly:
"So it's you. I remember now… little Buccaneer brat."
"I didn't expect you to still be alive after all these years. I thought you died at God Valley."
"It seems I underestimated you."
Kuma's face didn't change. He looked at the figures who had once filled him with terror and despair and spoke in a low voice:
"Elder, I cannot allow you to harm Darren-san."
He raised both hands.
The air between his palms compressed visibly, a blinding light forcing itself into form.
Saint Saturn's pupils thinned. "Then I'll deal with you first… those hands are too troublesome."
Kuma had already driven the compression to its limit. He lifted his arms and pushed.
"Ursus Shock!"
BOOM!!
A cataclysmic blast erupted, a sweeping shockwave devouring everything in its path.
A warhorse's scream split the detonation.
Wreathed in black flame, a skeletal charger tore through the annihilating light with impossible speed and vanished like a phantom. A cursed blade sheared the air, trailing a brilliant blue arc like hell's own frost.
Ice crystals spun.
One stroke.
Ssssh.
Darren's body jerked. For an instant his eyes went blank.
A crimson pillar burst from his chest, blooming wetly outward.
"Darren," Saint Nusjuro snarled from the saddle, fingers wrapped around the blade's hilt, voice cold as winter. "A monster like you has no place in this world."
Black flames swirled around him; the light in his lenses gleamed sinister. His samurai robes snapped in the inferno, the Skeleton Warhorse beneath him screaming like a death knight out of hell.
"This blade… is it the Shodai Kitetsu?" Darren staggered back two steps and dropped to a knee. He looked at the sword in Nusjuro's gaunt hand as blood slid from his pale lips. "A strike that nearly froze my soul… I've never felt swordsmanship like this."
He glanced down. The bone-deep wound had stopped bleeding—cased in hoarfrost that crept steadily toward his heart.
"The taste of imminent death… a soul's primal fear…"
He pressed a hand to his chest—and grinned, twisted with pain and near-mad joy, under Nusjuro's brief flicker of surprise.
"You just keep making this… better."
He snatched up the Den Den Mushi and barked:
"Move out… now."
He drew a breath, eyes bloodshot with pain or rage, and bared his teeth.
"Blast them to hell!!"
In the same instant,
the Gorosei froze.
As if feeling the drop of a blade, they whipped toward the Visual Den Den Mushi feed from Mary Geoise.
What they saw nearly blew their eyes from their skulls.
"This… can't be…"
---
At that moment, on the Red Line—Holy Land, Mary Geoise—
BOOM!!
A blood-soaked body flew through the air and hammered a building to rubble.
Fisher Tiger dragged himself from the wreckage and lurched upright. Scalding blood pattered from him. He clamped a calloused hand over the slash that had nearly opened his belly and felt a weakness like he'd never known.
The distant screams of slaves tore at his heart. The Hoof of the Flying Dragon on his chest burned hotter, as if ready to ignite.
"Is that all, Fisher Tiger? Disappointing. I thought you might offer at least a decent challenge."
A Celestial Dragon with a blood-red crescent-moon coiffure played lazy patterns in the air with a rapier as he sauntered closer.
"So much for a Shichibukai. If this is your absolute limit, there's no point in your existence."
Figarland Garling spoke; the Knights of God flanking him traded mocking smiles.
"How tedious… In the end, only Darren can stir my interest even slightly," Garling sighed, lifting his blade to finish Fisher Tiger.
RIIIIP.
A bolt of blue lightning tore the dark.
Garling's expression flickered; he slashed upward, parrying mid-air.
BOOM!!
The murderous blade aura collided with the descending thunder, and a purgatorial shockwave rolled across the Holy Land.
"Care for company?"
The deep voice rang from above the city.
Knights and Guards alike craned their necks. A figure had appeared in the sky above Mary Geoise: a white cloak billowing behind a black suit, a stern handlebar mustache, a young Marine officer wrapped in quiet, lethal resolve. Lightning braided itself across his hand, dazzling.
In the other, he held a Den Den Mushi steady.
"Hmph. Just you?" Garling sneered—and vanished.
He reappeared overhead an instant later, rushing Momonga with breathtaking speed.
"Of course not," Momonga said, shaking his head. Lightning writhed from his hand in dozens of spears.
Garling laughed through the storm, sword flashing as he carved the bolts aside, closing fast. "So this is the strongest Logia? That's all?"
He exploded forward, both hands lifting his rapier. "Get down here, bastard! You have no right to stand in the heavens—"
Darren's voice thundered from the Den Den Mushi in Momonga's hand: "Bomb him to hell!"
Garling froze for the flick of a heartbeat.
BOOM!!
A colossal golden beam punched through the clouds and swallowed him whole, slamming him into the earth.
The explosion bloomed—a crimson flower roaring open across the Holy Land.
To be continued...