Blackbeard fought back the searing, soul-deep pain.
He knew he couldn't show weakness now, not for an instant.
On the projection screens in the Marine command center, the high-ranking officers stared in stunned silence.
"What? He actually withstood the self-destruction of that many Seraphim?!"
"How is that possible!"
"Just how strong has he become...?"
They watched as Blackbeard, though clearly wounded, roared with defiant laughter.
The Seraphim, their invincible trump card, had been completely negated.
"ZEHAHAHAHA! Is that all you've got?! In the end, your own weapons hurt you more than they hurt me!"
His mocking voice was a physical blow to the Marines' morale.
"Damn him..."
"He will pay for this!"
While the officers seethed, Fleet Admiral Sengoku's expression was grim.
The pirates' power was far beyond their estimations.
"Aokiji," Blackbeard taunted, crawling reluctantly from the dimensional shadow he had used to hide.
His new, enhanced body was covered in burns, but he was alive.
He looked across the ruins at the Admiral, who was emerging from a shattered, miles-wide fortress of ice.
Aokiji was bloody, battered, and his body was still smoking, but he, too, was standing.
"Tsk tsk," Blackbeard grinned, a trickle of blood running from his own mouth.
"What a pity, Kuzan. You're in no state to fight. Your body is corroded by my Death Scythe, and you just took a full-blown Seraphim explosion to the face. How much power do you really have left?"
Aokiji's expression didn't change. He calmly brushed the frost and debris from his shoulders.
"You're indeed powerful, Teach," he said, his voice a low, cold rasp. "But if you think you can kill me... you're still a little short."
"Am I?!" Blackbeard cackled. "Don't bluff, Kuzan! I can feel your life force draining away! Don't tell me you can still fight me."
"That's right," Aokiji admitted, taking a steadying breath. "The explosion caused... serious trauma. But you've missed something, Blackbeard."
He stood up straight, his gaze clear and sharp.
"Why do you think you're the only one who gets to have magical new toys?"
Blackbeard's smile faltered.
"You pirates have Rocks and his Necromancer Staff," Aokiji continued, the temperature around him beginning to drop again.
"But we Marines have the genius, Dr. Leon."
"Haha... Leon?!" Blackbeard burst out laughing, though it pained his scorched lungs.
"Truly? If that little boy could really be compared to Rocks, you Marines wouldn't be getting suppressed across the entire world! Stop dreaming, Kuzan! Recognize the reality!"
He spread his arms wide, a look of manic certainty on his face.
"The Marines are a sinking ship, and there's no place for you in the new era! So, I'll give you a choice. Join me, or become another corpse in my collection. You choose, Kuzan!"
Aokiji's face remained as calm and frosty as ever, but deep in his eyes, a new, dangerous fire began to burn.
The other man's arrogance was suffocating.
Seeing the genuine anger finally burning in Aokiji's eyes, Blackbeard burst into another round of mocking laughter.
"Zehahaha! Don't tell me you really think you can win, Kuzan! Killing you will be easy!"
With that, he lunged forward again, his speed like lightning, giving the Admiral no time to breathe.
The Death Scythe, a conduit of pure darkness and decay, slashed through the air.
Aokiji didn't flinch.
Instead, his face took on an unprecedented calm, an eerie indifference to the lethal weapon just inches from his throat.
A cold arc formed on Blackbeard's lips.
"Since you're so eager to die, I'll send you straight to hell!"
BOOM!
The scythe slammed into its target... or where its target had been.
The terrifying weapon, wreathed in dark energy, passed straight through empty air.
Aokiji's figure had simply vanished.
Blackbeard's pupils contracted violently.
Shock and disbelief flooded his mind.
'He dodge? How?!'
Even injured and weakened, Aokiji shouldn't have been able to dodge that.
Just as the doubt began to form, a cold voice echoed behind him.
"Ara ra, Teach. You seem surprised."
Simultaneously, a spear made of pure, razor-sharp ice burst from the void, its tip pressing against the back of Blackbeard's neck.
The frosty air burned his skin.
"Damn you!" Blackbeard snarled, realizing he'd been tricked.
He swung his fist backward, the white light of a quake surrounding it.
The space-tearing blow collided with the ice spear.
BAM!
The impact was deafening.
The two terrifying forces canceled each other out in a violent explosion, but the shockwave still sent a spray of blood erupting from Blackbeard's throat.
His internal organs felt like they had been shattered.
He stared at Aokiji, who now stood before him, completely unharmed, not even a scratch on him. Horror began to dawn on Blackbeard's face.
This man... he wasn't injured at all.
"Well now, Teach," Aokiji said, his voice laced with an easy confidence that chilled Blackbeard to the bone.
An impossibly sharp blade of ice, like a giant skate, formed around his hand.
"I didn't expect to have to use this power so soon. I was saving it for an Emperor."
Blackbeard's mouth twitched.
'Saving it? Was he saying that I, Blackbeard, wasn't even worthy of his full power?!'
A wave of uncontrollable rage surged through him.
"Damn you, Kuzan!" he roared. "I'll kill you!"
He unleashed everything.
The dark power within him erupted, and he felt an unimaginable agony tear through every cell of his body as he forcibly liberated the death energy gifted to him by the Necromancer's Staff.
He was burning the stolen life force, using his own pain as a catalyst, transforming it all into raw, destructive power.
It was a mad gamble, but he had no choice.
SHINK!
Just as his power peaked, the ice spear pierced through his shoulder, the sheer force of it sending him staggering backward.
A huge, bloody scar was torn across his upper body, nearly severing his arm.
But Blackbeard only grinned, a terrifying, complacent look in his eyes.
He was finally in control.