"Kyahahahaha! Barely enough?"
Garp's boisterous laughter exploded once more, filled with the mischievous pride of someone teasing a child.
"Kid, confidence is a good thing, but being too confident will get you a nasty beating from me."
Before his voice even faded, Garp's figure abruptly vanished from where he stood.
No, it wasn't a disappearance.
Ryoma's magic perception captured a trajectory that was ridiculously fast.
One second, Garp was laughing ten meters away. The next instant, his face was right in front of him.
That heavy body moved across the ice without kicking up a single shard of frost, and without making a sound.
So fast!
Is this... Soru?
Ryoma's magic perception screamed a frantic warning. Almost out of instinct, an ice wall several meters thick rose from the ground, standing between him and Garp. That ice wall was sturdy enough to withstand a direct hit from a Warship's main cannon.
However, in the next second, Ryoma's heart suddenly constricted.
A fist wrapped in a pitch-black substance pressed into the ice wall.
Boom!
The moment that fist touched the ice, a dull, heavy explosion rang out. Countless spiderweb-like black cracks spread out in all directions from the point of contact across the thick ice wall.
Crack!
The entire ice wall turned into dust. Before this pure and powerful physical strength, the ice wall was as fragile as thin paper.
Garp's figure passed through the cloud of ice, grinning. That unadorned fist was already inches away.
"Too slow, kid."
The hair on Ryoma's body stood on end. An ice flower bloomed beneath his feet instantly, and he turned into a streak of light, teleporting back nearly a hundred meters, his expression carrying a hint of lingering fear.
Garp's punch struck the empty air where he had just been standing.
BOOM!!!
His fist landed on the ice field, which was dozens of meters thick.
With his fist as the center, a massive circular area over a hundred meters in diameter collapsed downward. Countless huge blocks of ice were sent flying hundreds of meters into the air by the violent force before crashing down heavily, stirring up towering waves and a sky full of ice mist.
The entire ice field shook violently and groaned under the impact.
Far away on Baratie, the chefs saw a moment of eerie silence on the distant horizon, followed by an iceberg rising from the sea and then violently exploding.
That terrifying sight left them all slack-jawed, unaware that the items in their hands had dropped to the floor.
"I-Is that even human?" A chef stammered.
Zeff's single leg stomped heavily on the deck, his prosthetic making a dull thud. He squinted, trying his best to see the distant battle, but he could see nothing but the chaotic mess of ice and sea.
On the ice field, Ryoma's figure solidified again a hundred meters away. He looked down at the front of his clothes—there was a faint fist print there.
It wasn't a direct hit, merely being grazed by the wind generated by that punch had left a mark.
Just what kind of monster is he?
Ryoma's heart accelerated uncontrollably, but more than fear, it was a sense of excitement—the thrill of meeting a worthy opponent, or even being completely suppressed by a powerhouse.
"Oh? You dodge pretty fast."
Garp withdrew his fist and shook his hand, looking nonchalant.
He looked at Ryoma and asked curiously, "That thing you just did, kid, was it a devil fruit ability? It doesn't feel like it to me, it doesn't seem to have that kind of aura."
Ryoma said, "It's not."
He estimated that even an ordinary Armament Haki user would need to use their full strength to shatter his ice wall, yet Garp had done it with a casual press.
Is this top-tier Armament Haki?
It's completely unreasonable.
And also... fascinating.
"Not a devil fruit?" Garp's interest grew.
"That's interesting, I've never seen that before. However, just knowing how to hide won't cut it."
He bent down and casually grabbed a massive block of ice, the size of a small house, from the edge of the broken ice field. He then held the ice block in his palm as pitch-black Armament Haki spread up from his arm, quickly dyeing the entire block the color of ink.
The moment the originally crystal-clear ice was covered by Haki, its density and hardness skyrocketed at an exaggerated rate.
"Here, kid, catch a ball from me!"
Garp took a standard pitching stance, the muscles in his arm bulging and veins popping out.
Boom!
The screeching sound of air being torn apart pierced the eardrums.
That pitch-black ice block spun and whistled toward Ryoma's head at a speed exceeding a cannonball.
The massive kinetic energy of the ice itself, combined with that unreasonable power wrapped around it, made this strike several times more terrifying than the previous punch. Everywhere it passed, even the air was pushed aside by that domineering, peerless force, forming a visible tunnel of white shockwaves.
Facing this world-destroying strike, Ryoma remained exceptionally calm.
His ice walls were no different from paper in the face of Garp's Armament Haki. Since he couldn't block it... he would make it lose its target.
Ryoma pressed his palms together, and a vast amount of magic power began to surge.
"Cold Domain."
Hum—
A chilling and silent domain, completely different from Garp's domineering aura, spread out noiselessly with Ryoma as the center.
Wherever the domain reached, the moisture in the air instantly condensed into billions of tiny ice crystals. Light underwent eerie refraction and distortion within it, making the entire world look blurry and surreal.
That pitch-black 'meteor' plunged into this domain filled with ice crystals and light refraction, its speed abruptly slowing the moment it entered.
It wasn't because it hit a physical obstacle, but because the object itself and the space around it had become viscous.
Next, Ryoma's figure began to flicker within the domain.
One, two, ten, a hundred...
Countless identical Ryomas appeared in every corner of the domain. Each Ryoma maintained a different posture—some were smiling, some were contemplating, and some were looking up at the 'meteor'.
It was a composite magic that combined a domain with illusions.
The pitch-black 'meteor' fell, shattering over a dozen of Ryoma's illusions and kicking up a large amount of white ice mist.
Standing outside the domain, Garp put away his playful smile.
His Observation Haki told him that every one of these illusions carried Ryoma's aura. Though faint, they were real.
Meanwhile, Ryoma's true body was moving at high speed between these illusions, his presence flickering and difficult to lock onto.
"What kind of magic trick is this?"
Garp examined the figures of Ryoma with great interest.
In his long military career, he had seen all sorts of strange devil fruit users, but this was the first time he had seen someone like Ryoma.
Ryoma's true body abruptly appeared above the massive ice block. "You call this a magic trick?"
He reached out and lightly pressed his hand against the massive block of ice, magic power surging within him once more.
"In that case, I'm going to perform a grand magic trick for you next."
Ice Crystal Butterfly Dance!
Instantly, the massive ice block violently contracted inward.
Crack! Crack...
The huge ice block shattered into a sky full of debris, which then transformed into thousands of butterflies made of pure ice crystals, fluttering their wings as they flew out. They drew elegant arcs in the air, instantly covering the sky above the entire ice field.
These butterflies were not just beautiful decorations. They were Ryoma's eyes, an extension of his perception. Within the area covered by the butterfly swarm, any movement of air or fluctuation of energy had nowhere to hide.
At the same time, every new shard of ice would regenerate into an ice crystal butterfly, filling the sky and interfering with the opponent's vision and movements.
"Using this method to make up for the gap in perception? A very clever move."
Garp nodded in approval, but the smile on his face became even more boisterous.
"However, kid, in the face of absolute power, no amount of cleverness will help."