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Swish, Swish, Swish!
The sea, shattered into a mist of glittering droplets from the earlier blast, fell like shaken snow, scattering slowly across the horizon.
Rowen's eyes narrowed at the sight of the umbrella that had blocked his strike. His expression grew grim.
"So… this is your ability to read minds, huh?"
A moment ago, Redfield hadn't reacted to Rowen's attack, he'd already moved before it even began. The umbrella had been raised precisely at the instant Rowen launched his strike, as if Redfield had seen it coming.
Piecing it together, Rowen instantly sensed something was off.
"That's right," Redfield answered plainly, showing no intention of hiding it. "Even in the fiercest battle, I can hear my enemy's thoughts. It's a gift I've had since birth."
"So don't bother with your mind games, Soryu (Azure Dragon). The infamous brain the world fears... doesn't work on me."
As he finished, Redfield leapt high into the air. His crimson cloak caught the breeze, unfurling like the wings of a giant blood-colored bat gliding through the twilight sky.
The moment he left the spot, a violent surge of black lightning detonated behind him. A storm of thunder swallowed the battlefield, a domain of raw destructive force that scorched the sea itself. Even at several hundred meters, the sheer pressure could still be felt.
This was one of Rowen's signature techniques, Black Prison: Thunder Realm.
But it missed.
"Tch... figured you'd be slippery."
Dispersing the lightning crackling in his palms, Rowen stepped onto a floating plank of wood and frowned.
Unlike Katakuri, whose future sight relied on observation Haki and required his body to sync up with those brief glimpses ahead, Redfield was entirely different.
His mind-reading ability was innate, something he was born with. He didn't rely on it the way Katakuri depended on future sight. He wasn't adjusting his body to match visions of incoming blows. There was no time lag.
If he saw your move, he dodged it.
"But... you just revealed your weakness, Red!"
Suddenly, Rowen surged upward, vanishing mid-step and reappearing high above the battlefield.
Blink!
BZZZZT!!!
Amid a spine-rattling hum, a brilliant white thunder rifle formed in his grasp, humming with deadly energy. Redfield's confident smirk disappeared in an instant. Without hesitation, he snapped his umbrella open and braced it in front of him.
God's Cry: Falling Thunder Gun!
WHOOSH---!!
BOOOOOOM!!!
A blinding white flash burst between sea and sky. A hundred-meter radius was engulfed in thunderous fury. Lightning surged like a storm god's roar, obliterating the sea, wreckage, and even the air around it.
But Rowen didn't let down his guard.
Because the Falling Thunder Spear wasn't meant to explode on impact…
Unless someone forced it to.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Sure enough, four thunderous shockwaves burst out from the lightning storm, like cannonballs punching through the walls of a prison.
A red figure shot out from the vortex of energy, trailing smoke and sparks behind him.
Redfield.
He landed on the sea's surface, cape smoldering. But before he could even catch his breath, the heavens above ignited with a blinding glow, forcing him to glance upward with a frown.
This wasn't the warm glow of sunset.
'God's Cry Barrage: Starfall Cataclysm!'
Hundreds, no, thousands, of lightning-forged God's Cry Shots descended from the sky like divine meteors, silent and swift, trailing arcs of death.
They tore through the heavens like falling stars, beautiful and terrifying all at once.
And this... was only the beginning. If they landed, the destruction would be beyond imagination.
Redfield knew this. With a flick, he spun his umbrella and locked it into position. One hand gripped the hilt, and a deadly aura burst forth like a predator unsheathing its fangs.
Shua! Shua! Shua! Shua!
Faced with this apocalyptic barrage, even monsters like Kaido or Big Mom wouldn't dare take it head-on.
And Redfield didn't try.
Silver-white slashes erupted skyward, hundreds of sword beams soaring like a blizzard of blades. They collided mid-air with the oncoming thunder shots.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Lightning and sword energy clashed in the sky like a fireworks display from hell. Each explosion rocked the heavens, sending shockwaves across the sea.
But despite the power and volume of the attack, not a single bolt of thunder broke through the silver storm.
Every one of them, stopped cold.
The precision... the control… the sheer technique on display, unbelievable.
And just then, as Redfield focused all his attention skyward, a faint ripple of electric current sparked to life behind him, quiet, precise.
Lightning wove together, forming a tall, blue silhouette, like a phantom drawn in streaks of lightning.
High above, a glowing symbol, THUNDER, shone on Rowen's forehead. His eyes sparked with deep azure electricity.
"Explode."
Redfield narrowed his eyes, murmuring softly to himself.
"…Interesting."
Then thunder swallowed him whole.
BOOOOOOM!!!
The world fell still for a breathless moment. The sea exploded beneath the blast. In the silence that followed, Rowen stood tall in midair, his Justice cloak whipping violently behind him, caught in the shockwave of his own wrath.
"Reading someone's thoughts from a distance is certainly powerful... But unfortunately, your ability has one undeniable flaw, the farther away you are, the more blurred those thoughts become. You told me that yourself, back when you were locked up in Impel Down Level 6. So? Any regrets now?"
Rowen spoke calmly as he turned around. Behind him, Redfield appeared, flying using Geppo, his entire body charred and covered in soot.
Although even the corners of his clothes were scorched and sparking, Redfield's expression remained calm. Aside from the disheveled appearance, the last attack hadn't really harmed him.
The two maintained a 100-meter distance, just enough to render Red's mind-reading ability ineffective… Though both knew exactly what Rowen intended to do next.
At those words, Red casually patted out the growing sparks on his clothing, then looked at Rowen.
"You're really something, brat. But you're too optimistic! Saying 'just widen the distance' is easy. Actually doing it? Not so much!"
As he spoke the first half of the sentence, Redfield was still 100 meters away, but by the time the last word left his mouth, he was already right next to Rowen.
It was like he had teleported; his movements were too fast to track.
Shua!
A pair of bat wings tore through his back, bursting from his clothes. His already eerie, demonic face twisted with an upturned nose, amplifying the sinister aura around him. Though his body had slimmed slightly, his frame expanded by a third, giving off an even more oppressive presence.
Zoan – Bat-Bat Fruit – Mythical Beast Model: Vampire Form!
Red had activated his Devil Fruit power, boosting his already terrifying speed to new heights.
Whoosh!
His umbrella, wrapped in Busoshoku Haki (Armament Haki), sliced through the air toward Rowen's legs before the sound explosion even followed.
"Crap, he read my move!" Rowen's eyes widened. His body began to split into particles, attempting to use Elementalization to dodge. But Redfield had already read his intentions. Instead of striking the torso, the easiest target, he aimed for the legs, the weakest point during elemental transformation.
Smack!
Elementalization and Busoshoku Haki are naturally incompatible. Once transforming into lightning, Rowen couldn't reinforce his legs with Haki in time.
The umbrella smashed into his shinbone, and with a sickening crack, Rowen's right leg twisted into an unnatural angle, split down the middle. Just as Red was about to follow up with another strike, he suddenly frowned and beat his bat wings, retreating like a giant vampire.
'Chidori Nagashi: Thunder Needles!'
An explosive thunder veil burst out from Rowen's body, bristling with spike-like lightning needles that made one's scalp tingle. Had Red not dodged in time, he would've ended up like that White Snake on Hellisland, turned into a lightning pincushion.
"What a convenient and versatile ability... Goro Goro no Mi (Thunder-Thunder Fruit)..." Red frowned as he looked at Rowen, then suddenly grinned: "But now we're talking!"
"Show me what kind of power it takes to kill Garp, brat!"
(End of Chapter)