The Straw Hats had already witnessed Orochi's monstrous transformation into his fully Beastified form. The moment that overwhelming aura washed over them, Sanji's eyes went wide.
"Impossible…! Four powers?!"
Everyone knew the truth: a single Devil Fruit granted one ability, and there were no exceptions. Back during the Paramount War, the world had been shaken when Blackbeard Teach revealed not one, but two powers. That miracle had rewritten history. And yet, what stood before them now was even more grotesque.
Kurozumi Orochi wielded four distinct abilities.
No, adding in the might of his Yamata no Orochi Zoan, he was essentially a beast with five powers fused into one abomination.
And this was no clumsy fusion. Even from afar, they could feel the waves of searing heat that burst outward, proof that each ability was nearly as lethal as if wielded by a single master.
Among them, two powers struck a chilling familiarity: Fire and Ice. Ace and Aokiji.
Orochi's control lacked refinement, but the raw destruction he exuded was just as terrifying.
"That's enough, Luffy. Time for the next step," Zoro muttered at last.
They both turned and froze.
From beneath the pale moonlight, coils of thick green smoke slid out, writhing like venomous serpents. Their hearts clenched. Poison gas, the cruelest of weapons, spreads endlessly.
In the blink of an eye, the vast forest was drowned beneath a churning sea of toxic mist. Under the moon's glow, leaves blackened and curled to ash, trees shriveled and rotted before their eyes.
"The poison's spreading!"
"Run! That's the General's bone-melting toxin, there's no cure!"
The Oniwabanshu, hardened though they were, knew true terror when faced with Kaido's arsenal. They broke ranks at once, scattering in panic like prey before the hunt.
Luffy didn't pursue. He understood, you never waste your strength chasing down the routed. And as Zoro reminded him, there was a next step waiting.
"Sanji, where's Momonosuke's Vivre Card pointing?" Luffy demanded.
"Due west. Inside a prison somewhere in the Flower Capital," Sanji replied, drawing the worn strip of paper that Kanjuro had entrusted to them.
"The resistance fighters in the capital are waiting to guide us there."
"Yosh! Then let's go!"
With a crash of fists, Luffy's spirit flared like a sudden storm.
"Momonosuke and Kin'emon got dragged into this because of us. I don't like owing debts, especially to kids."
Sanji sighed wearily, tugging at a rope and looping it firm around his own waist.
"Yeah, yeah… I get it, Captain."
On the other end of the rope, Zoro was already bound up like a furious boar, baring his fangs as he growled in protest.
"WHY ARE MY HANDS TIED TOO?!"
"Oops. Must've slipped," Sanji replied with zero sincerity.
A vein bulged on Zoro's temple as he snarled.
"One day, cook… I will cut you down."
Sanji smirked and ignored him, eyes flicking back to the monstrous figure ahead, the beast shaking the earth with every breath, spewing fire and frost, while a poisonous fog slithered along the ground like a swamp come alive.
"Kaido's 'Dragon Form' is strong, sure… but that doesn't make him invincible."
Sanji's words carried weight. Battles weren't merely contests of brute might. Kaido's terror came not just from raw power, but from mastery of the battlefield, his suffocating dominance. That was what made him the "Strongest Creature."
Still, could Orochi, a twisted lieutenant wielding four fused abilities, truly be outmaneuvered?
"Relax," Luffy said, confidence blazing. "That thunder-clad old man isn't losing to a guy like Orochi. He's still waiting for me to get my revenge on him."
Sanji faltered, slack-jawed.
I get it, I do… but damn it, Luffy! Since when do pirates put faith in Marines?! Am I the idiot here, or are you?!
While the Straw Hats pushed toward the Flower Capital to rescue their comrades, the forest behind them descended into a living nightmare. Flames roared through the canopy, feeding infernos that only drove the choking poison mist deeper into the land. Animals perished mid-flight, their bodies collapsing into sludge before the fire or frost could even claim them.
"...Hahhh!"
Orochi finally exhaled, hissing between ragged breaths after minutes of devastation. His many heads swayed, gasping for relief.
"That… should be enough to make even that monster suffer."
The battlefield was consumed. Poisonous swamps swallowed the ground. Toxic fog choked the skies. Ice and fire clashed endlessly, leaving no escape. Even oxygen itself had become a luxury.
This was his ultimate killing ground, his formation of death. No enemy had ever survived it.
"So… what's left of you now?" Orochi muttered, peering into the haze.
Zzt… zzzt…
The silence broke with a low crackle. Energy prickled through the fog, scraping nerves raw.
A calm voice drifted out, composed, unshaken.
"Impressive lungs you've got. Even Kaido's Hot Breath doesn't last this long."
Orochi's monstrous eyes bulged wide.
"Impossible! How are you, completely unharmed?!"
This was absurd. Even if Rowen's Logia body made him durable, the bone-melting toxins and endless assault of frost and flame should have shredded him by now. Unlike Kaido, Rowen wasn't a creature of legend. He was human.
Tap… tap…
Footsteps echoed steady, certain. The steaming fog of poison and fire parted. A figure emerged.
Orochi's jaw twitched as he saw it, black spheres of condensed void swirling around Rowen's body, arcs of pale-blue lightning dancing across the surface like chains of judgment. Darkness and storm intertwined, alive, breathing.
"Don't tell me…" Orochi rasped.
Rowen's eyes glinted. A faint smile tugged at his lips, mocking, but his gaze was colder than ice and heavier than thunder.
"I'll give you this," he said, voice low and sharp, "your power packs a punch. Holding out this long, balancing fire and ice at once…"
Rowen's grin widened, lightning crackling sharper.
"Even Admiral Aokiji would've broken before you did."
"But… it's a pity you're a Zoan," Rowen said coolly. "You'll never touch the true essence of a Logia's power."
Orochi's many heads twisted in dawning horror.
"Fruit… Awakening!" he roared.
Rowen nodded, calm as ever.
"Only Awakening can stand against Awakening. Especially with Logias… Without mastering this stage, no matter how fierce your abilities are, we can assimilate and erase them."
At equal levels, Logia users stood at the summit. A martial arts master without Armament Haki couldn't wound an elemental body. Even Devil Fruit users with specialized counters struggled unless armed with seastone or overwhelming attribute advantage.
When Awakened, Logias became broken. Unstoppable.
And Rowen… Rowen had carried the Goro Goro no Mi, the Thunder-Thunder Fruit, into the legendary Third Stage. The Fusion Stage. A realm whispered about in the Void Century, reached by only a handful in eight hundred years. His lightning didn't merely flash or strike, it intertwined with darkness itself, seamless, formless, a void of storm.
"Your flames and frost might trouble Akainu or Aokiji," Rowen admitted, voice rumbling with static. "But against lightning? They are meaningless."
His words crackled like thunder over steel.
"Your attacks can't reach me. You lack advantage. All you have left, Orochi…" His eyes gleamed, twin bolts of pale fire. "…is brute strength."
Thud.
Rowen's foot slammed into the poisoned earth. Power erupted, dark void surging outward in tidal waves, filled with arcs of holy blue lightning piercing the shadows.
"Now…" His voice dropped to a whisper sharp as a blade. "It's my turn."
'Awakening Technique: Black Prison Thunder Realm!'
Orochi's faces shifted in panic as the truth struck. "No… He was stalling for time!"
Even a Logia Awakening required balance and concentration. To endure Orochi's endless assault, Rowen had invested every spark of will into assimilation and defense. Talking, mocking, standing exposed outside the mist, it was a ruse, a delay…
All that composure had been a trap.
"Correct," Rowen intoned, his voice now booming with storm. "But you realized too late."
BZZZZZT--!
An ocean of destruction burst out all at once. What had been a slow expansion now detonated, detonating in an eruption of godlike scale.
The Raigō – Thunder Greeting surged forth like a tsunami of light. In a blinding instant, several kilometers were engulfed in a dome of lightning.
The heavens combusted into white. The earth cracked under the storm.
Orochi's monstrous heads froze mid-snarl, every sinew screaming as primal terror scorched his mind. A suffocating doom pressed upon him from every direction, inescapable, merciless.
"This…" Rowen's voice reverberated like judgment across the battlefield, omnipresent and absolute. "…is the Heaven's Peak you will never scale, worm."
The void howled alive.
Awakening Technique: Temple of the Thunder God – Twelve Guardian Palaces!
From the storm-black darkness, streaks of lightning carved twelve colossal silhouettes. Guardians of thunder, spectral figures clad in armor of storm, each bearing immense spears charged with divine voltage.
Expressionless. Inexorable.
They hurled their weapons.
The skies split. The battlefield burned white.
A cathedral of destruction consumed the land, lightning spears raining like the wrath of gods.
The colossal Yamata no Orochi's roars drowned in a deluge of endless thunder.
(End of Chapter)
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