The vast sensory net woven by the butterflies of swirling ice crystals lost all meaning to Garp in an instant.
It felt as though he hadn't even bothered to distinguish anything. Those weather-beaten eyes seemed to pierce through layer upon layer of fluttering shadows, past the refractions of light and ice, and lock straight onto Ryoma's real body a hundred metres away.
Ryoma's mana-perception web shrieked alarms at that instant. The images sent back by the butterflies told him clearly—Garp had moved.
Garp's trajectory was rendered in stark clarity: a silhouette shot forward in a zig-zag line the naked eye couldn't catch, rushing straight at him.
So what?
Seeing it didn't mean keeping up with it.
That figure carved a straight black bolt of lightning across the ice, its goal unmistakable.
As expected, relying solely on sight and mana to track something stood no chance against the near-precognitive perception of Observation Haki.
Ryoma slammed both palms onto the ice field beneath him, and vast mana erupted without reserve.
Eternal Ice Rampart: Thousand-Fold Labyrinth!
Rumble... Rumble...
The ice plain along Garp's path quaked violently.
Countless thick, gleaming walls of ice sprang up, crisscrossing and stacking until, in moments, they formed a majestic frozen maze. Each wall could withstand repeated bombardment from heavy artillery.
Yet Garp's figure didn't slow for an instant, showing no intention of going around. He chose the crudest, most unreasonable method.
Charge!
Boom!
The first wall exploded into glittering shards the instant it met his body. From within, an invisible, domineering force pulverised it into dust.
Then came the second, the third…
Garp had become an unstoppable human shell, smashing a straight corridor through the ice maze.
Ice shards flew and frozen mist billowed.
Numerous butterflies tried to close in and hinder him, but within a few metres of his body, they were shattered by an unseen ripple and turned back into vapour.
Armament Haki, released externally!
The Haki cloaking his body alone was enough to crush Ryoma's magical creations.
"Still too naïve, kid!"
Garp's roar pierced through the layered walls and reached Ryoma's ears clearly.
Boom!
At the far end of the ice-walled maze, barely ten metres from Ryoma, a huge hole was blasted open.
Garp burst through the swirling ice mist, unstoppable, his wide grin once again filling Ryoma's vision.
"It's over!"
With a thunderous shout, Garp hurled his right fist.
A pitch-black, ink-like substance coated his fist, giving off a terrifying aura.
He punched across the several metres of space toward Ryoma.
Voom—
The air in front of Ryoma shuddered violently.
Ryoma's pupils shrank. Almost by instinct, he formed dozens of composite ice-shields of varying densities in front of him.
Crack... Crack...
All those shields, at the same instant, showed countless black fissures starting at their cores and shattered together.
An invisible yet savage impact pierced every defence and slammed into Ryoma's chest.
"Gah—"
He was flung backwards.
It felt as if an unseen hand had clutched his guts and torn them, agony sweeping through him.
A mouthful of scalding blood sprayed into the air.
"So this… is the higher application of Armament Haki?"
Internal Destruction!
Ryoma's body crashed onto the distant ice, tumbling and skidding, finally smashing out a crater, broken chunks half-burying him.
Garp lowered his fist and blew away dust that wasn't there, grinning. "That should keep you qui—"
He hadn't finished when a brilliant silver light burst from the piled ice.
The next second, Ryoma leapt out, landing steadily on the ice.
He wiped away blood that wasn't there. The searing pain in his chest and the churning of his organs had vanished with that silver flash.
"Hm?"
For the first time, Garp's grin faltered, genuine surprise flashing in his eyes.
"Recovered?"
He had seen Zoan awakeners' freakish regeneration—life-force racing to rebuild the body—but what he'd just sensed from Ryoma hadn't felt like that.
"A kid full of secrets, isn't he?"
By the ice crater, Ryoma panted lightly, still shaken.
Conventional elemental magic—defence or control—achieved little against this unreasonable Armament Haki.
Defences were pierced, attacks blocked, and even perception held no advantage against Garp's Observation Haki.
Without learning Haki himself, he was still a step behind.
If that's the case… I'll gamble.
Ryoma's gaze turned grave. He channelled his last vast reserves of mana and spirit into an original composite spell he had never used in live combat.
"Eternal Freeze: Sequential Time!"
He shouted, a complex arcane array blooming before his chest.
Voom—
A power different from his earlier cold domain spread silently outward.
Within the domain, the flow of air turned sluggish. Drifting ice-dust froze mid-air, even light seemed slowed, the whole world turning viscous and strange.
Garp, who had been about to charge again, visibly slowed for the first time. He was no longer an uncatchable bolt, but moved frame-by-frame.
Not from choice—space, air, moisture, dust, even the transmission of his own burst of power were being forcibly frozen and decelerated.
"Interesting."
Garp's eyes blazed with delight, like a child finding a new toy.
With a roar, he held nothing back.
"Haaah—"
A far more terrifying, overwhelming force erupted from him.
It was no longer pure black, it was Conqueror's Haki laced with countless black-red lightning bolts.
Crack… Crack…
Conqueror's and Armament Haki together, in the crudest, most domineering fashion, tore open the sluggish domain.
Yet that instant of delay was enough.
Ryoma had vanished, seizing the split-second chance created by Eternal Freeze: Sequential Time to appear at Garp's flank.
In his hand, a crystalline longsword formed of pure mana had already taken shape.
Clink!
The ice-blade slashed at Garp's fist wrapped in pitch-black Haki.
Clang!
A metallic crash rang out.
A ring of frosty white spread wildly from the point of contact.
Before the frost could spread, the black Haki on Garp's knuckles pulsed and the ice-blade shattered inch by inch, bursting into motes of light.
The space at the point of contact twisted violently.
Black Haki and white mana devoured and annihilated each other, letting out a grating hiss. Ripples of black-and-white energy swept outward, shaving another thick layer off the ice field beneath them.
Ryoma grunted as a fearsome force mixed with a savage mental backlash surged up the broken blade, striking both mind and body at once.
Once more, he was sent flying.
"Pwah—"
Another mouthful of blood spattered across the ice.
His feet ploughed two deep furrows for hundreds of metres before he slid to a stop on one knee, gasping.