Chapter 337: The Death of Sengoku? The Death of Garling!
Under Vista's shocked gaze, Shane walked through the air, black-and-red lightning crackling around him. He sighed softly with disappointment, looking down at the two men in the crater.
"In the end, you still couldn't even give me a decent workout?"
"You talked big about exterminating me, about wiping us all out, but… this is all you've got?"
The Admiral/Yonko level. Maybe it was because of the filter of his memories, but Shane had mistakenly thought that facing these two together would be a tough fight, one that would take a day and night to decide.
But… it hadn't even been an hour, and they were already barely hanging on.
What a joke. This level… could barely be considered a warm-up!!!
"Damn brat…" Garling struggled to prop up his battered body, black blood spilling from his mouth. Hearing Shane's words, he flew into a rage, gritting his teeth and roaring, "A mere commoner from the lower world, don't think it ends here! Sengoku, use that move!"
ROAR!
Beside him, the Demonic Buddha Sengoku, who had been silent, suddenly sprang up as if a switch had been flipped. He roared at the sky, his remaining right arm swelling to several times its size. Purple-black hellfire burned furiously, and black blood tears streamed from his eight crimson demonic eyes!
"Buddha's Wrath: Finality!!!"
BOOM!!
A purple-black beam of light, over a hundred meters in diameter, shot into the sky, surrounded by rings of black-and-red lightning charged with Sengoku's Conqueror's Haki. Wherever it passed, even the void seemed to be erased. This was a final strike fueled by burning his very life force, its power far exceeding anything before!
"Oh? Now that looks a little interesting!" Shane's eyes lit up. The muscles in his right arm tensed, and black-and-red lightning coiled around it like a raging dragon. Instead of dodging, he met the beam head-on, throwing a punch with all his might!
"Cross Fang…"
The wind from his punch howled out, making thousands of people within a radius of hundreds of meters stumble, their faces contorted by the pressure.
"…Dragon Slayer Fist!!!"
This was the third time he had used this move today. Theoretically, after two consecutive uses, his stamina should have been significantly drained, and the third punch shouldn't have been at full power. But Sengoku and Garling had been such disappointing opponents that after an hour of fighting, his stamina had actually increased instead of decreasing!
Therefore, the power of this punch… was still PRO MAX!!!
THUD!
The intertwined black and white shockwaves collided with the purple-black beam. A blinding light swallowed everything in sight. When Vista and the other onlookers could finally see again, they were horrified to find that Sengoku's desperate final attack had been split right down the middle by that punch!
Domination! Still total domination!!!
"No… no… NO!" Sengoku's pupils shrank rapidly as he watched the destructive force tear through the last of the beam and then, undiminished, rapidly expand in his vision!
SQUELCH!!!
With a scream, the Demonic Buddha's nearly hundred-meter-tall body exploded like a bomb!
CRACK CRACK!
Black-and-red lightning raged, scorching every piece of flying flesh into charcoal. The eight demonic eyes popped one by one like grapes being stepped on. POP POP POP POP! Foul-smelling black blood rained down, drenching Vista.
"…?" Vista was dumbfounded. It took him a full two or three seconds to react. He wiped the blood from his face, stumbled back a few steps, and let out a scream of shock!
Hey! He's dead! The man who led Marine Headquarters as Fleet Admiral for decades, known as 'The Buddha' Sengoku, just died right in front of me!
Shane glanced at the writhing pieces of corpse on the ground but paid them no mind. He cracked his neck and turned his head. "Next, it's your turn." He looked at Saint Garling with a friendly smile.
"…" Garling swallowed hard. The moon-wheel behind his head suddenly burst with brilliance, and his entire body began to rapidly fade. He was trying to use his ability to transform into a beam of moonlight and flee!
But… "Trying to run now? Too late!" Shane's figure vanished, reappearing like a meteor crashing into the bottom of the crater. With a savage grin, he stomped heavily on Garling's spine!
CRACK!
With a crisp sound, the massive body of Tsukuyomi was crushed into the bottom of the crater, the skin on his back splitting open!
"URGHH!" As Garling screamed, Shane grabbed the moon-wheel symbolizing his divinity with one hand, his fingers like hooks, and pulled with all his might!
RIP!
With the sound of tearing flesh, the entire holy moon-wheel was ripped off, black blood gushing from the hole in his skull!
"Hmm?" Shane looked at the giant moon-wheel in his hand, slightly surprised. "So it's a physical object connected to your body?" He had thought it was just a halo of divine light floating behind his head like in the legends!
"That must hurt," Shane said, looking at the wailing Garling. He clicked his tongue. "Sorry about that. I'd better give it back."
Garling's wailing stopped for a moment. Not because the pain had stopped, but because it had suddenly intensified hundreds, thousands of times over, twisting his face in agony and robbing him of speech. —Because Shane had snapped the blood-stained moon-wheel in half and then, one piece in each hand, forcefully shoved it back into the hole in his skull!
"AAAAAHHH!!!"
In the next instant, a scream ten times more piercing than before echoed across the battlefield! Garling was weeping uncontrollably, his ten fingers clawing ten deep furrows into the hard ground. Even though he was pinned down by Shane's foot, he struggled frantically, writhing like a maggot, desperate to crawl away!
Demon! This man is too strong, and too cruel! A guy like this is the real demon! A true demon from hell!
"Eh, it won't go in?" Shane's voice drifted down again. "Looks like I need to put a little more effort into it."
No, no! Garling felt a sense of impending doom. Extreme fear and panic made him struggle even harder. But it was useless. Shane's right foot suddenly exerted force, kicking the top of the moon-wheel pieces twice in succession!
SQUELCH!
The two halves of the moon-wheel, acting like sharp blades, pierced straight through Garling's skull, emerging from his eye sockets!
Then, Shane drew the sword from his back. Just like on Raijin Island, his sword always stored a charge of holy energy from Angewomon. Coated on the blade, combined with an overwhelming amount of Conqueror's Haki…
In front of him! There was no immortal body!
"You can't kill me! You can't kill me!" Garling wailed in despair, snot and tears running down his face. "Our lord's plan wasn't supposed to go like this! It wasn't supposed to go like this! Why are you so strong! Why do you have to end this so quickly! Dammit, we were just one step away! Couldn't you just wait obediently for that person to return…"
That person to return? Shane frowned. "Plan? What plan? Be specific."
But Garling was reduced to babbling incoherently, his mind clearly on the verge of collapse under the pressure of death.
Shane's gaze turned cold, and he said no more.
SQUELCH!
The blade, wrapped in black-and-red lightning, came down! Garling's head rolled away. His massive body twitched violently a few times, then went limp, silent forever.
The sea breeze blew. Shane's black hair fluttered in the wind, his face expressionless. He casually flicked the purple-black blood from his blade and sheathed it.
Silence.
The noise of Shane destroying the Demonic Buddha Sengoku had been so loud that many people had been distracted. And so… tens of thousands of Marine soldiers, Whitebeard Pirates, and Warlords… witnessed the beheading of the head of the Five Elders, the core of the World Government, the god-like Saint Garling!
"…"
The entire battlefield seemed to have pressed the pause button. Almost everyone's gaze was fixed on the giant head that had rolled to the side.
The Whitebeard Pirates erupted in cheers.
"PWAHAHAHAHA!" Diamond Jozu punched a Marine who was blocking his way, laughing. "See that, you bastards! Your backer is a corpse!"
"Fighting two at once and winning so quickly, what a terrifying man," Atmos the Water Buffalo scratched his head. "I hadn't seen it before, but now I understand why Pops and Marco felt safe leaving. With that kind of strength… I'd feel safe leaving it to him too!"
The Warlords' situation was a bit more complicated… A certain onion-headed otaku had sensed the situation was bad half an hour ago and had quietly slipped away while both sides were engaged in a chaotic melee. So he hadn't seen this scene.
And Hancock collapsed on the ground, clutching her chest, her cheeks flushed. "As expected of Lord Shane… truly… too handsome…" Oh no, my heart is beating too fast… too fast!
THUD!
Her slender body fell backwards. Before her eyes closed completely, her hazy vision saw her two sisters running towards her, screaming.
Only Mihawk's reaction was relatively normal. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the moment Shane flicked the blood from his blade and sheathed it, and his pupils shrank. Beheading the head of the Five Elders on the battlefield? To be able to do that, he truly deserved the title of World's Strongest Swordsman.
But because of that… he had to find a chance today to challenge him in person!
Compared to the Warlords, the Marines' reaction was basically uniform.
"Lord… Lord Garling… is dead?" a giant Marine Vice Admiral stammered in terror, dropping his giant axe with a clang. "And… and Fleet Admiral Sengoku, are they both dead just like that?!"
Since the Curtain Call's announcement, the names of the Five Elders were no longer a secret. Although the wanted posters explicitly stated that these guys were just ordinary people who had eaten Mythical Zoan fruits and been granted immortality, their inherent nobility and long lifespans still led many Marines to view these old men as god-like figures.
But… two against one, and they were still easily slaughtered by that man?
"Fleet Admiral Sengoku has fallen, Lord Elder has fallen too…" Beside him, Vice Admiral Doberman's face was ashen, murmuring in disbelief. "Is the outcome of this war already decided?"
The answer was practically written on his face. On the vast battlefield, when people finally recovered from their shock, the Marine camp instantly showed signs of collapse!
"Run! Run!"
"We're no match for him!"
"That Shane is free now! If we don't leave, none of us will make it!"
Someone shouted first, and many Marines who were still fighting lost their will to fight, dropping their weapons and fleeing frantically.
"Stand your ground, cowards!" Akainu punched Aokiji back, roaring in fury. He threw a punch, sending a stream of burning magma that instantly melted the five or six Marines closest to him into charcoal.
"M-Mr. Sakazuki!" The surrounding Marines were terrified, freezing in place, not daring to retreat further. Akainu's cold gaze swept in another direction. The Marines who were retreating while fighting there also shuddered, exchanged glances, and had no choice but to brace themselves and push forward again.
Akainu withdrew his gaze. This is the intimidation of an Admiral! But unfortunately, it didn't have much effect on the overall situation of the battlefield. If one stood on high ground and looked out, of the fifty thousand troops of the Marine Headquarters, at least several thousand were fleeing. Even the members of the Whitebeard Pirates in the far distance, who hadn't yet understood what was happening, were dumbfounded!
"Senior Sakazuki!" Greenbull's bitter voice rang out. "Hey, Senior, let's retreat! The situation is really bad! If we keep fighting, if we fight to the end… w-we'll all die here!"
"Aramaki!" Akainu's anger intensified. This guy, a Marine Admiral, dares to shake the morale of the troops in public! How dare he!
But in his heart… he had to admit that the other party's statement was objective and rational, and the situation was even worse than that. Because that Shane was already heading their way!
Is the tide turned?! Akainu stared at Garling's head and the slender figure stepping over it, striding towards them, his face livid. If they retreated today, forget about attacking the Curtain Call's territory. The entire New World would be handed over to them! The Marine Headquarters would be forced into a passive defensive state from now on!
Just then… "Hold on a little longer!" A furious voice came from above. It was Saint Nusjuro. His massive skeletal horse body was covered in wounds, dripping black blood. Clearly, even though he was stronger and his immortality had been enhanced, he was still at a disadvantage against Angewomon, who was his natural counter.
"Listen up, mortals!" Nusjuro slashed several sword beams at Angewomon, temporarily suppressing her, and found a moment to shout sternly to the people below, "Although the plan didn't keep up with the changes, it's about to succeed! Reinforcements will be here any moment!"
"Besides Admiral Kizaru, there will be an even more powerful existence joining the battlefield! That will be the time for us to completely turn the tide!"
"I am still fighting here! Would I lie to you?! Sakazuki, hold your ground with your men! No retreat!!!"