Blackbeard's manic laughter echoed over the skies of Marineford, filled with unbearable greed and triumph.
He spread his arms wide. The darkness swirling around him writhed like a living thing, rapidly crawling toward Whitebeard's still-upright corpse.
It was his Black Vortex, the prelude to stealing a Devil Fruit ability!
"Stop right there, Teach!"
Fleet Admiral Sengoku roared. His body swelled in an instant, bursting with blinding golden light as a colossal golden Buddha rose from the ground!
The massive palm of the Buddha, infused with overwhelming purifying force, slammed down toward Blackbeard.
"Buddha's Impact!"
BOOM!
The shockwave clashed violently with the spreading darkness, triggering a thunderous explosion.
Blackbeard staggered back from the blow, but the crazed grin on his face only grew wider.
"Zehahahaha! Sengoku! Don't be in such a rush! Let me get Pops' power first, then I'll come play with you!"
His crew, Burgess, Lafitte, Doc Q, and the others, immediately charged forward, blocking Sengoku's pursuit.
Van Augur raised his rifle, Senriku, firing a bullet that whistled straight toward the golden Buddha's eyes. It couldn't deal a lethal blow, but it disrupted him effectively.
"Black Vortex!"
Blackbeard took the chance to activate his ability again. His palm erupted with a powerful gravitational pull, attempting to drag Whitebeard's corpse into the darkness.
Sengoku smashed aside the Blackbeard pirates, stopping Teach once more.
Their battle escalated instantly, golden shockwaves and abyssal darkness clashed violently.
Each exchange shook the entire island. Scattered energy ripped apart the already shattered ice, sending ice chunks and rubble flying everywhere.
"Tch… this never ends."
Behind the execution platform, Renzo smacked his tongue in irritation.
Whitebeard had just fallen. He thought the battlefield might finally quiet down, but then Blackbeard started making a mess again.
But what happened next shocked everyone.
The violent clash between Blackbeard and Sengoku resembled two berserk beasts tearing through anything in their path.
And unfortunately, the direction they were moving in…was straight toward the edge of the plaza, toward the temporary treatment area full of severely injured Marines!
Sanji had just finished bandaging a Marine with an abdominal wound. He was about to check on others when the ground trembled violently and a suffocating pressure fell from above.
"This is bad!"
Sanji snapped his head up, only to see the devastating aftershock from the golden Buddha's palm and Blackbeard's darkness wave surging toward the wounded like a tsunami.
Ice shards, rubble, twisted metal fragments, mixed into a chaotic storm, were about to engulf the entire treatment area, filled with injured soldiers unable to move.
"Move, get out of the way!"
Some conscious patients cried out in despair.
"Sanji!"
Potts turned pale with fear and tried to pull Sanji back, but there was no time.
Kizaru tried to rush over to help, but was blocked by Shiryu.
Other Marine officers couldn't reach them in time.
Sengoku noticed the danger but was bound in place by Blackbeard's darkness, unable to defend the area.
The destructive wave was about to swallow Sanji, Potts, and the many wounded-
Then, the man behind the execution platform, Renzo, finally made his move.
He didn't strike a dramatic pose. He simply clicked his tongue in annoyance and waved his hand casually, as if shooing away flies, toward the chaotic battlefield and the incoming disaster.
"Heaven of Sloth."
This was his awakened Devil Fruit ability, and this was its first use.
There was no earth-shattering sound.
No dazzling light.
Only a silent, invisible force, like a primordial rule of the world, spread outward from Renzo, quick and smooth like mercury flowing across the earth.
Gray.
Not darkness, but a soft, sleepy gray, like the color of all things drifting into slumber.
It gently blanketed the entire Marineford.
In that instant, time itself seemed to slow down by thousands of times.
The raging shockwave, upon touching the gray field, suddenly slowed, turning into something like feathers drifting in a slow-motion scene.
Destructive energy was "soothed" by an unseen rule, rapidly weakening and dissipating.
Ice shards, rubble, and metal fragments froze midair, then floated down softly, barely making a sound on impact.
And it wasn't just attacks.
Everyone on the battlefield felt the effect.
Blackbeard's gravitational darkness sputtered like a dying lightbulb, flickered a few times, and failed entirely.
Sengoku's massive golden Buddha palm halted midair, glowing but barely moving, as though stuck in invisible mud.
Marines and pirates in mid-combat suddenly felt their arms grow unbearably heavy.
Their swings slowed to a sluggish push; their shouts stretched thin and weak before fading.
Cannonballs drifted through the air like lazy balloons, losing all momentum and dropping before reaching their targets.
Even sound was "slowed," turning the previously deafening battlefield into a silent film behind thick glass; only faint, delayed murmurs remained.
Aokiji's ice spikes stopped growing.
Kizaru's glow dimmed, flickering like bad wiring.
Akainu clawed his way out of debris, but his magma crawled sluggishly like cooling tar.
The entire Marineford sank into a state of unprecedented slowness and silence.
As if the entire world had yawned deeply, ready to fall asleep.
"Wha… t's… happ… ening…" A Marine struggled to speak, each syllable painfully slow.
"M… y… bod… y… feels… so… hea… vy…" A pirate felt even his thoughts turning thick and sluggish.
Blackbeard's crazed grin froze, replaced by confusion. He tried to summon darkness,
but even that felt like too much trouble.
Sengoku, still holding his palm out mid-strike, felt an indescribable exhaustion seep into his mind.
Meanwhile, the deadly shockwave threatening the wounded had already dissolved into nothing.
Sanji, frozen in a protective stance, looked around in shock at the nearly motionless battlefield.
Potts stared wide-mouthed, unable to close it quickly.
Behind the platform, Renzo slowly stood up, brushing nonexistent dust off his coat.
He surveyed the battlefield, now blanketed in his "Heaven of Sloth", and nodded in satisfaction as he watched everyone move like characters in stop-motion animation.
"Finally, some peace and quiet."
He muttered lazily, strolling toward Sanji and the wounded.
Space itself seemed reluctant to stretch in front of him, making his movement look like instant teleportation.
In this nearly frozen world, his steps were calm, steady, almost… leisurely.
Even the dust in the air seemed too "lazy" to float, dropping docilely to the ground in his wake.
He reached Sanji and Ptots in two steps.
He glanced at the wounded, saved purely thanks to him, each trapped in slowed motion.
"Everyone alright?"
Renzo asked in the same tone one would ask, "What's for dinner?"
Sanji forced a few words out of his sluggish throat: "Th… is… was… you…?"
"Mm." Renzo nodded.
He bent down, picked up a slowly rolling chunk of rubble, and flicked it aside casually.
"Too noisy. Let them all rest for a while."
He glanced at Blackbeard and Sengoku's nearly frozen battle, then at the halted pirate retreat.
He frowned.
"One damn thing after another. If I knew it'd be this annoying, I should've just let Kizaru handle everything alone."
He yawned, a wide, lazy yawn. Maintaining a domain that blanketed the entire Marine HQ really was tiring, well, mentally tiring.
"Sanji, things are safe here for now. Watch over them a bit. I'm gonna go take care of whatever annoying crap is still moving."
Hands in his coat pockets, Renzo strolled away like an old man taking a walk after dinner, heading toward Blackbeard and Sengoku's nearly frozen battlefield.
Behind him, Sanji, Potts, and thousands of slowed Marines and pirates stared at each other in that gray, silent heaven, or would have, if they could move fast enough to do so.
.....
If you enjoy the story, my p@treon is 30 chapters ahead.
[email protected]/DaoistJinzu