"You're finally here, York," Ochoku murmured softly, standing by the high window of the skull fortress.
He had been waiting for this exact day for so long that his nerves were beginning to fray with impatience. York had finally come to seek his revenge, completely obliterating the outer defenses of Hachinosu in the process.
"Our grudges... let them be settled completely starting today!"
Ochoku withdrew his intense gaze from the crater below and turned back toward the interior of the room.
The chamber was entirely empty. It had been stripped devoid of any tables, chairs, or sofas. Instead, on the center of the polished stone floor, a massive, intricate five-pointed demonic summoning circle was painted in dark pigment.
Ochoku reached into his heavy coat and pulled out a highly classified Golden Den Den Mushi—a device usually reserved exclusively for a Buster Call. However, this one was heavily modified. He firmly pressed the specialized switch installed on its back.
An invisible, encrypted stream of information instantly originated from the golden snail, traversing thousands of miles across the sea and the Red Line, reaching its corresponding receiver deep within the Pangaea Castle of Mary Geoise.
The sudden, piercing alarm caused the Five Elders, who had been in the middle of a tense geopolitical discussion, to fall completely silent. Then, after obtaining a silent, telepathic permission from the absolute authority resting upon the Empty Throne, the atmosphere shifted.
A massive, five-pointed demonic magic circle, identical to the one in Ochoku's room, instantly materialized beneath each of their feet.
York, having just crashed down from the heavens like a meteor, did not delay for a single second.
From the moment his boots hit the cobblestones, he immediately coated his legs in Advanced Armament Haki and rushed directly toward the towering Big Skull Mountain at the center of the island.
His primary objective for this trip was to execute Ochoku; everything else was merely incidental collateral.
The reason he didn't immediately unleash a massive, island-shattering attack upon landing was purely pragmatic: he needed to confirm whether Ochoku was actually inside the fortress. What if Ochoku wasn't there, and York exhausted his power leveling an empty mountain? Wouldn't that just give the scheming coward an opportunity to slip away and hide?
However, York never expected that even with his blistering, untrackable speed, he was still a step too late.
Just as York was about to reach the rocky foot of Big Skull Mountain, the sheer cliff face to his right suddenly exploded outward.
A colossal, mythological four-tusked wild boar—the Houki—violently crashed through the thick rock wall, moving with an impossible, earth-shattering momentum that caught York completely off guard.
BOOM!!
The sheer blunt-force trauma of the massive beast ramming into him sent York's heavy body flying backward through the air like a drifting leaf in a hurricane. He crashed through several rows of stone buildings, kicking up a massive cloud of dust.
Fortunately, York's battle instincts were unparalleled. He had coated himself in a dense layer of Armament Haki just in time to mitigate the worst of the impact. Moreover, tapping into the astronomical amount of life force he had just harvested from the thousands of mummified pirates, his body underwent instant, hyper-regeneration. He landed steadily on his feet with a graceful backflip, the cracked ribs and internal injuries he sustained from the monstrous sneak attack completely healing before he even stopped sliding.
"The Five Elders..."
York's eyes darkened dangerously. The dust cleared, revealing the colossal boar standing in the rubble. York had anticipated a Marine ambush, perhaps an Admiral or two, but he absolutely hadn't expected the Five Elders to personally descend to the lower realm. And the one possessing the most impenetrable defense among them—Saint Topman Warcury—was the first to reveal himself.
"Atlas D. York!!"
The colossal four-tusked wild boar let out a deafening, buzzing roar that sent concussive shockwaves through the air.
"By the absolute command of that Creator! Your time of death has arrived!!"
As soon as Warcury's booming words fell, a chilling streak of light appeared from the corner of York's vision, moving at extreme, blinding speed.
York's eyeballs shifted sharply to the left. His Future Sight flared, clearly tracking a terrifying skeletal horse circling out from behind the massive boar's flank.
"Saint Nusjuro, you bald old man!" York roared.
In a fraction of a second, York activated his Mythical Zoan Awakening. His jet-black hair rapidly turned a blinding, luminous white, while a dark, ominous ribbon of black flames materialized and swirled behind his shoulders like a divine hagoromo.
The skeletal horse closed the distance instantly, transforming mid-gallop into a terrifying, centaur-like abomination. Saint Ethanbaron V. Nusjuro, gripping the hilt of his cursed supreme blade, delivered a swift, devastating draw-and-slash. An absolute, extreme coldness—the freezing chill of the Underworld itself—swept over the plaza, threatening to eternally freeze York in place.
At the exact same time, York's left hand had already clamped down onto the hilt of the three-meter Miaodao resting at his waist. He drew his Thirteenth Supreme Grade Blade with a brutal forehand strike, generating a blazing arc that collided directly with Nusjuro's skeletal blade.
Saint Nusjuro: "Freezing Prison Draw!"
York: "Pine Torch!"
CLANG!!!
The freezing chill of the Underworld and the blinding, scorching flames of the Sun God erupted simultaneously. The conflicting powers of absolute ice and divine fire instantly violently swirled together, creating a massive, destructive elemental tornado that shot high into the darkening sky.
The two supreme-tier combatants were deadlocked, their blades grinding against each other for a full two seconds.
But in the third second, the absolute power of York's flames violently erupted.
The ambient temperature and the resulting fire wave instantly spiked to 6,000°C. Saint Nusjuro's Underworld chill, no matter how absolute, was completely overwhelmed by the literal surface temperature of the sun. The lethal draw-and-slash, which had been perfectly executed as a flawless high-speed sneak attack, instead ended with the Elder being violently blasted backward by the sheer, melting heat.
"How is that possible?!"
Saint Nusjuro exclaimed, his skeletal hooves skidding across the melting cobblestones to stabilize himself. The intense heat radiated from York's blade, warping the very air between them.
"Where did you acquire such absolute pyrokinesis?!"
York stood at the center of the molten crater, resting his glowing, three-meter blade on his shoulder. He responded with a cold, mocking smirk through the swirling fire tornado.
"Did you really think I would voluntarily reveal the true extent of my trump cards to the world?!"
.....
.....
.....
Support me and read advance chapters on patreon.com/ImmortalDaoWriter