That tiny wound was enough to turn Shiki's eyes completely blood-red. Endless killing intent erupted from his body.
He was a man steeped in slaughter to begin with. Setting aside everything else, just that time he invaded Marine Headquarters alone—relying on his own strength to butcher at least a thousand Marine officers and pile their corpses like small mountains—was enough to prove it. If Sengoku and Garp hadn't joined forces to stop him, Marine Headquarters might really have been razed to the ground.
The purple-gold treasure chest above his head had probably come from that very incident.
Too many people had died at Shiki's hands.
His boundless killing aura flooded the sky, and a faint smell of blood spread through the air. Even Creed's ROOM sphere began to tremble faintly.
"Mm? This killing intent… it's actually risen all the way to SSS+? And it's still going up?! Could it break through to SSSS-?!"
For the first time, Creed's expression changed, his earlier calm nowhere to be seen.
When he'd probed Shiki's stats before, he'd noticed a Killing Intent ability listed as SS grade. The level had been too low, so he hadn't bothered to extract it and simply skimmed past.
He had not expected that, as Shiki flew into a rage, his Killing Intent would suddenly explode upward all the way to SSS+—and still be surging toward SSSS-.
"This world doesn't just have all kinds of bizarre Devil Fruits… it also has these unbelievable special abilities. What a pleasant surprise. System, extract this Killing Intent ability for me!"
Creed was secretly overjoyed.
This Killing Intent should be of the same type as Big Mom's giant power—both could be fueled by fury to unleash terrifying force.
But while its ceiling was frighteningly high, its floor was much worse than giant power's.
Only someone like Shiki, who killed like breathing and whose hands were soaked in blood, could condense this kind of ability. Creed had already met at least half of the world's top fighters, yet he hadn't seen Killing Intent appear on anyone else's status.
Shiki's Killing Intent roared across the sky, turning the world into an ice-cold hell. A giant bird flying in the distance brushed against the aura for a split second and instantly exploded into a cloud of blood mist.
If not for Creed's sword intent guarding his body, he would also have been invaded and shredded from within.
"Ding, extraction of SSSS- grade Kogane no Ken'i (Sharp Gold Sword Intent) successful. Extraction of SSS+ grade Yontoryu (Four-Sword Style) successful. Beginning extraction of SS grade Killing Intent… Killing Intent extraction successful."
Creed, however, had no time to pay attention to the system prompts.
All of his focus was locked onto Shiki.
The Killing Intent ability alone was enough to make him take this seriously. But what shocked him even more was how the surging Killing Intent was dragging Shiki's sword intent upward along with it.
He had never imagined that once Killing Intent swelled to SSS+ grade, Shiki's Kogane no Ken'i (Sharp Gold Sword Intent) would temporarily ascend to SSSS grade.
"The boost this Killing Intent gives to sword intent is this insane? Shiki, you really are a surprise! In that case, I'm even more curious about that purple-gold chest hovering over your head. Today, you must lose!"
Reincarnation trembled in Creed's right hand. In his left, golden light flashed, and the Ama-no-Murakumo no Ken (Heavenly Cloud Sword) manifested.
Faced with Shiki's berserk state, Creed didn't dare hold back any longer.
"Creed!"
"Satsui Yontoryu Senchigiri (Killing Intent Four-Sword Style: Thousand-Cut Valley)!"
Shiki roared and charged, his four blades swinging like lightning. Blood-gold sword aura howled out in torrents, dyeing the sky in a ghastly blood-gold and turning the heavens into a vision of hell.
"Shiki!"
Creed met him head-on. He made up his mind not to use any other abilities—only swordsmanship—to defeat Shiki.
For swordsmen, only the sword itself was the proper form of respect.
"Nitoryu Raiden Gokuaku no Ichi-ken (Dual-Sword Style Lightning: Extreme Evil Single Slash) + Kori Ama-no-Murakumo no Ken (Ice Heavenly Cloud Sword)!"
Golden lightning and crackling thunder tore straight through the blood-gold hell.
"Boom!"
The deafening explosion sounded like ten thousand bolts of thunder striking at once, shaking the world for hundreds of li. The unleashed force shattered the thick banks of clouds above them, and a floating island dozens of li away was blasted in half by the aftershocks.
The other floating islands were like little skiffs caught in a storm-tossed sea, flung backward en masse by the overflowing shockwaves.
The full-power clash of two absolute top-tier experts was terrifying to such an extent.
Down below, Redfield and Law's group stared up at the sky, their jaws hanging open in stunned silence.
Just the gale-force winds howling down from above—easily over level ten—were enough to tell how fearsome the battle raging there truly was.
They could see, with painful clarity, that at the moment Creed and Shiki's attacks collided, a pitch-black crack over ten meters long ripped open in the sky itself. It was so dark it seemed able to swallow their very gaze.
This was what it meant to literally split the heavens.
"Could that crack just now… have been the legendary spatial rift?"
Remembering an old rumor, Redfield felt cold sweat bead on his forehead.
According to legend, when Whitebeard was in his prime and fighting his strongest foe, the Tremor-Tremor Fruit, pushed to its absolute limit, could even shatter space. The battlefield would be filled with yawning spatial rifts.
"That… that's the supreme realm I yearn for and want to chase. Thank you, Creed."
He muttered to himself, and for the first time in his life, his greatest goal became clear.
Before this, all he'd wanted was to repay Creed's kindness and witness Creed step onto the peak of this world. He had never seriously thought about what he himself should chase in the rest of his life.
In this moment, he finally decided.
Perhaps it was also because he'd continued to develop the Bat-Bat Fruit that he now had more curiosity and drive than ever—to see with his own eyes what it would look like when the Bat-Bat Fruit was fully awakened…
By Redfield's side, the shock in Law's heart was a hundred, a thousand times greater.
At first, his idea had been to ally with Creed and contribute his own strength where he could. After meeting Creed, however, he'd realized that with his current level of power, he had no right whatsoever to "form an alliance." Being allowed to work as a division captain under Creed would already be a blessing.
And now, the level Creed and Shiki were displaying left him even more dumbfounded.
He had seen the power of Marine admirals and elite vice admirals before and thought that was the top and second-highest level of strength in this world.
Yet the realm Creed and Shiki were showing today… was clearly above even the Marine admirals.
"This is… way too cool, Captain Creed!"
He snapped his fingers, eyes blazing with fervor.
Never mind swordsmanship or anything else—just that ROOM sphere that casually covered several thousand meters in every direction was enough to turn him into Creed's half-crazed fan.
"Boom, boom, boom!"
"Zheng, zheng, zheng!"
Up above, sword aura exploded again and again. Even the stray, scattered threads of that aura falling toward the sea below were enough to raise towering waterspouts.
Redfield hurriedly gave the order for the Creed to sail away from this sea area as quickly as possible.
(End of Chapter)
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