"Awaken—Wood World: Buddha at the Summit!!!"
The voice wasn't loud.
Yet in that instant, the entire world seemed to freeze.
A power that felt like it didn't belong to this reality swept across the battlefield—quiet, absolute, annihilating.
In the sky, the wind stopped. The dark clouds halted mid-drift.
On the sea, the surging waves stalled too—each crest suspended in midair, beads of water hanging like crystal spheres, faint glimmers trapped inside them as if the ocean itself had been paused.
Within several kilometers, it was the same.
Eyes widened. Faces locked into whatever expression they'd worn a heartbeat ago—like statues.
Time felt as if some true god had pressed a pause button.
But it lasted only a blink.
"BOOOOM—!!"
The terrifying stillness shattered.
The thick cloud mass at the horizon lurched and began to churn violently again.
Strangely, no one seemed to realize a full second had vanished. That soul-gripping pressure—so real it should've left scars—was dismissed by the mind as a hallucination.
Everyone's attention snapped back to the same thing:
The Thunder Spirit Spear, carrying the combined might of seven Silver-Armored Knights, was closing in.
Because Rōmu had stopped—
the spear, packed with catastrophic force, was about to catch him.
"Damn it!!"
"Is it over?!"
"Captain!!"
"NO—!!"
In that instant, Roger, Rayleigh, Kong, Garp, Sengoku, Zephyr—everyone turned deathly pale.
The pressure from the thirteen knights was too overwhelming. They weren't just enemies—they were despair made flesh.
And Rōmu… was their only hope.
But that spear was too terrifying.
Just sensing the leaking edge of its aura made breathing difficult. If any of them were the target, they couldn't even imagine the outcome—
they'd likely shatter before the spear arrived, crushed like space itself, bursting into a mist of blood.
Mary Geoise
Sensing the sheer lethality contained within the spear, the Five Elders' eyes narrowed.
"To think they can condense a spear of this level without even going all-out…" the man in the black suit muttered, stroking his mustache. "Even we couldn't endure that."
"Hmph," the elder in green sneered. "They are the conquerors who swept the world alongside Lord Imu eight hundred years ago. To die under a strike from seven cursed Creator-Kings—this lowborn should consider it an honor."
"Disturbing the order Lord Imu built—this is the only end," the elder in blue said coldly, gaze full of contempt.
"I wonder if his corpse can be preserved," another murmured. "With power like that, Lord Imu will want him as a… collection piece."
"Whose life-lamp will go out next?" the red-suited elder and the swordsman in kimono said almost in unison.
To them, Rōmu was already meat on a chopping block.
On the distant island
"Rōmu! Move!!" Whitebeard roared, forcing himself up—only to cough up a mouthful of blood from the strain.
"This is madness!" Shiki's face twisted. "You can't take those seven monsters head-on—DODGE!!"
Kaido's pupils narrowed into a dragon's slit. Black Armament Haki surged over him as if he intended to launch himself into a suicidal charge—
But Redfield, who had been silent ever since recognizing what those thirteen beings truly were, suddenly spoke—low and sharp:
"His energy… is disappearing fast."
Kaido, Whitebeard, Shiki all froze.
They focused—just for an instant—and felt it.
It was true.
Rōmu's energy signature… had dropped like it was being drained.
That made no sense.
His stamina and reserves were infamous. Even after unleashing sixty-four Wood avatars and sixty-four Wood dragons, he hadn't seemed depleted—
So why now?
And in that same moment of shock—
the Thunder Spirit Spear arrived.
"ZZZ—CRACKLE—!"
Space fractured in layers.
The spear tip, wrapped in razor-sharp destructive force, trembled with an executioner's intent as it pierced forward.
Its target was clear:
Rōmu's forehead.
A single thought flashed through countless minds.
God Valley ends here.
"Captain Rōmu!!"
Kaido snapped—rage breaking through reason.
But just as he moved, Redfield slammed an arm across him.
"Wait."
Redfield's eyes were locked on Rōmu.
From Redfield's perspective, Rōmu wasn't panicking at all.
Those black eyes stared straight at the spear tip about to enter his skull—calm, emotionless, almost… divine.
As if the "fatal" strike wasn't worth noticing.
The spear hits.
The spear—thrown with the full force of seven knights—finally drove into Rōmu's forehead.
In Pangaea Castle, Imu's shoulders dipped, as if releasing a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.
"So it ends here."
But—
In the instant Imu relaxed—
Rōmu's eyes widened.
A hundred-meter spear of pure energy, dragging shattered space behind it like a ruined corridor, had been declared a "Judgment Spear" meant to punish rebellion.
Compared to it, Rōmu looked like an ant.
Yet the impossible happened.
The spear tip… stopped.
It trembled—hovering at Rōmu's forehead—blocked by a dense emerald radiance.
"How—?!" Imu shot to his feet.
No one understood the thirteen beings' power better than Imu.
Even diminished by their cursed, unnatural state, each of them could still overwhelm an Admiral-class foe.
And Rōmu had just stopped seven of them combined.
Imu's ripple-patterned eyes flickered violently—until he noticed the still-expanding altar light beneath him.
The final insurance.
Emerald light flared at Rōmu's forehead.
And that soul-touching, world-ending presence everyone had dismissed as a hallucination—
returned.
"BOOOOM!!"
The spear slammed into the emerald barrier with a thunderous impact that shook the heavens.
For the first time since appearing, the Silver-Armored Knights' eyes shifted.
Because the spear—
the spear made of pure destructive power—
was shaking, as if it had struck a law it couldn't break.
Then—
crack.
It began to crumble.
Bit by bit, it shattered into countless black, glowing motes drifting like cursed fireflies across the air.
Rōmu spoke, voice flat, indifferent:
"Is that all your attack amounts to?"
He raised his right hand and casually swept the black motes aside, like brushing away dust.
Then his body answered.
Bone and muscle rumbled with explosive force.
His black pupils turned into the same emerald hue as the light on his forehead.
Not just his eyes—
his head, torso, limbs—
his entire body ignited with blazing emerald radiance, like a living lighthouse.
The earth began to roar.
One phantom plant after another—glowing emerald—rose into the air.
In seconds, thousands of meters of space were drowned in that light.
The phantom flora wove together at low altitude—
forming a lotus-shaped base, nearly a thousand meters in radius.
With a thought—
the Wood dragon beneath Rōmu let out a low cry and surged forward.
Bathed in that radiant, unreal emerald glow, Rōmu looked less like a man and more like a god descending into judgment.
Kong, Garp, Sengoku, Zephyr, Roger, Rayleigh—stood stunned.
On the distant island, Kaido slammed both hands onto Redfield's shoulders, eyes blazing.
"INSANE!!"
"You saw his hidden move coming—fine! From today, you're my friend!"
Redfield didn't even react.
Even though he hated people getting close, he was frozen, staring upward.
His Observation Haki screamed one truth:
This wasn't over.
Rōmu was brewing something that would overturn the very meaning of "power."
The thirteen knights tightened their grip on their spears.
In their eyes, Rōmu walked forward like a hunter approaching prey.
Danger incarnate.
Rōmu remained emotionless, continuing forward without caring what anyone thought.
And as he advanced—
the emerald light condensed faster and faster.
When the Wood dragon reached the center above the lotus base—
BOOOOM!!
A heaven-splitting explosion detonated.
An emerald firestorm erupted, raging outward with destructive fury, swallowing everything within thousands of meters.
No one could see inside.
But within that storm, after the first wave of pure annihilation—
a strange, chilling sensation seeped out.
A creation-energy so quiet it made souls fall silent.
Then everyone saw it—
Within the firestorm, emerald Wood dragons appeared one after another, flying through the chaos.
In that instant, "destruction" and "creation" merged—
forming a true chaos zone.
No Observation Haki could penetrate it.
Faces filled with disbelief and dread.
At the center of the chaos—
Emerald lightning crawled over Rōmu's body.
Beneath his feet stood a colossal emerald silhouette—thousands of meters tall.
Countless Wood dragons circled him like worshippers.
Then—
whoosh.
All dragons cried out together and shot toward the lotus base, slamming into the giant emerald silhouette.
The silhouette rapidly solidified.
With a final thunderous rumble, it absorbed the last dragon—
and became real.
CRACK—CRACK—CRACK!
The transparent energy barrier around the island—once impossibly strong—shattered like glass.
The surrounding violent energy… suddenly halted, as if forced into silence.
The chaos dissipated.
The world returned to view.
And the sight that greeted everyone—
froze even kings.
Marines. Pirates. Bounty hunters.
The thirteen silver-armored "Creator-Kings."
The Five Elders in Mary Geoise.
Even Imu in Pangaea Castle—
for the first time in countless years—
felt something close to fear.
In midair, Rōmu stood with a blank expression, his pants snapping in a wind that seemed afraid to touch him.
And beneath his feet—
was a colossal emerald Buddha, thousands of meters tall, blotting out the sky.
This was the ultimate technique born from devouring Rocks and pushing his awakened fruit to its new, transformed limit—
[Armored Awakening — Wood World: Buddha at the Summit]!!!
Rōmu's voice echoed, cold and emotionless, across the dead silence:
"Come."
"Marines… Celestial Dragons…"
"It's time to settle everything."
Then, under countless trembling gazes—
Rōmu brought his palms together.
His eyes sharpened.
"True Thousand Hands!!"
Behind the giant Buddha—
light erupted.
Two hands. Three. Ten.
A thousand.
Ten thousand.
Ninety-nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine—
One hundred thousand.
A full hundred thousand Buddha hands unfurled like a peacock's tail—
covering the heavens.
Blotting out the world.
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