This novel is finished, and I have posted all the advanced chapters on my Patreon https://www.patreon.com/darkshadow6395
Back in his battle with Garp, Rowen had never been able to figure out how the old man could pinpoint his exact location so accurately.
Inside the black sphere of Raigo – Thunder Greeting, even his own Kenbunshoku Haki (Observation Haki) was suppressed. So what in the world could Garp possibly be sensing?
Yet somehow, he always managed it, going as far as to crack a joke about his "Iron Fist of Love with Auto-Tracking."
It wasn't until the very end that Rowen finally understood: the answer was air.
He needed to breathe, which meant there would always be air moving around him. And that old bastard's mastery of the body and physical techniques was so absurdly sharp that he could detect the faintest disturbance of oxygen dispersing, thus narrowing in on Rowen's exact position.
From this, one could deduce:
In this thunder domain of the Black Prison, a space of absolute darkness where only lightning exists, if there is even the slightest trace of oxygen… then Rowen must be there!
But nobody told Kurozumi Orochi this little detail.
╮(╯▽╰)╭
And now, things were awkward.
All Orochi had wanted was to inhale enough breathable air to restore some stamina. Yet unknowingly, his desperate action had handed his vital point straight over to Rowen… who, naturally, wasn't about to be polite. With a strike, he promptly severed Orochi's second head.
But then came the troublesome realization.
As Rowen stood there, sensing the calm, powerful life force before him, he raised an eyebrow, like a man who had just figured out the trick to a puzzle.
"So that's the confidence behind your arrogance?" he muttered. "Unless all eight heads are cut off, you won't die?!"
Normally, a severed head turning to dust would mean certain death. But aside from the wounds, Kurozumi Orochi's aura remained stubbornly stable.
Losing two heads wasn't even a fatal injury for him and it hardly counted as damage at all.
"What a truly unreasonable Mythical Beast," Rowen muttered darkly.
Up to this point, the only real progress Rowen had made was limiting Orochi's arsenal, reducing his venomous attacks from four types down to three. That was it.
"Damn… damn it!"
Ignoring Rowen completely, Orochi cursed under his breath. The ambush had caught him completely off guard. How could Rowen have been right there, practically colliding into him?
Thud!
Boom!!
Panic tightening its grip, Orochi brought his remaining six heads close together. Eyes burning with madness and despair, he roared as torrents of ice and fire spewed from his maws.
"Damn you, Soryu! If you've got the guts, come out and face me head-on!!"
Inside the Black Prison, without oxygen, suffocation was inevitable.
Rowen was right. To truly kill Kurozumi Orochi, all eight heads had to be severed. That was the unique, maddening gift of the Yamata-no-Orochi fruit, a power so troublesome that even Kaido and Orrick had headaches dealing with it.
No matter how badly mangled he became, as long as a single head remained, recovery was only a matter of time. But now, this overwhelming gift had twisted into his greatest terror. Because in this darkness, Orochi never knew when or how, Rowen's next strike would come.
Death itself didn't frighten him. The waiting did.
"Damn it! If I hadn't wasted time talking to him earlier…"
In despair, Kurozumi Orochi cursed himself.
Had Orochi realized from the very start that Rowen was merely stalling for time, he could've easily avoided being dragged into this strange and terrifying technique.
The spread of the Black Prison had limits, both in speed and in range.
If he hadn't been so foolishly deceived, the Azure Dragon would never have had the chance to cage him here.
For a Zoan user, who could never truly achieve Elemental Awakening, this kind of large-scale domain was their greatest bane. Only Awakening could counter Awakening… but even then, "counter" didn't always mean the same thing.
A Paramecia Awakening could grind against the Black Prison, probing for weaknesses, eroding its edges to carve out an escape.
But Zoans? Their only "answer" was endless brute force. They relied on their near-immortal vitality to withstand, not to disrupt another's Awakening.
This technique had been custom-built to restrain Zoans and physical fighters alike.
"Come out, damn you! You said you'd kill me, didn't you?! Then do it!"
But no matter how he bellowed, the darkness remained absolute. No sound. No movement.
Time gnawed at his nerves. The strike he braced for never came. It was as if Rowen had dissolved into the domain itself.
Orochi knew exactly what this was: leisure. Rowen could wait. Orochi could not.
Slowly, pain like claws tearing through his chest spread outward. His lungs burned. His thoughts blurred.
He was at his limit.
If he didn't break free now, he'd suffocate.
"Half-Beast Form!"
In an instant, his massive beast body shrank, twisting. A humanoid monster clad in a tattered night robe stood where the serpent had been, dragging eight massive tails, but bearing only six furious heads.
He staggered to the ground. Without pause, his claws became digging tools, raking furiously at the earth.
Escape!
Even if it meant clawing a tunnel with his bare hands, he had to escape!
"Smart choice," A calm voice suddenly whispered behind him. Lightning cracked the air like mocking applause. "Downward is your only real chance. Anywhere else and I'd catch you immediately. You can't escape."
Then came the pause, the feeling of inevitability.
"But what I've been waiting for… is now."
From the void itself, a colossal hand surged forth, wrapped in roaring arcs of divine thunder. With a single tug, the fabric of the Black Prison itself tore open, leaving a jagged white scar across the pitch-dark domain.
The Half-Beast Form combined the brute strength of his full beast with the flexibility of a man, a balance every Zoan user was forced to master.
But in terms of sheer defense, it fell short of the complete Beast Form.
And that was exactly what Rowen had been waiting for. Orochi had to shift to Half-Beast Form eventually. The window was small, but fatal.
Yet,
"My plan… is also now!"
With a roar, Orochi's six heads reared back. The long serpent necks twisted, and suddenly, the dormant tails, until now eerily still, exploded outward.
Whoooosh! Whoooosh!
Each tail, swollen with monstrous strength, became a hurricane-whip, lashing outward in every direction. The air itself screamed as the blows tore through it, whipping the Black Prison into a frenzy.
At this range, there was nowhere to dodge.
But Rowen didn't panic. His gaze hardened. Lightning surged around his clawed hand hidden in the void. He reached forward, and pulled.
The clash had truly begun.
Shhhhhh!
In an instant, two of Orochi's tails were ripped apart, flesh and bone splitting under the merciless assault of thunder.
Against lightning's destructive might, the Half-Beast Form's defenses crumbled.
Seizing the opening, Rowen stepped in. His lightning-clad hand shot forward, claws blazing, and clamped around one of Orochi's snapping heads.
Snap… CRACK!!
A bone-chilling crunch echoed. Fingers like molten iron sank effortlessly through armored scales, gouging deep into flesh.
Through the gaps in his sparking fingers, Rowen met Orochi's vertical, serpent-like pupils. His voice was calm, almost amused.
"Your grand plan… was to deliver yourself to me?"
"No!!"
Another head whipped around, pain flaring in its slit eyes as it locked onto him.
"It's the oxygen around your body!"
Immediately, the five remaining heads lunged forward in unison, their maws opening wide as they greedily inhaled the faintest traces of oxygen clinging to Rowen's figure.
Rowen's brow furrowed. Then, slowly, a grin stretched across his face.
"Idiot. You're beyond saving."
"What?!"
All of Orochi's eyes widened, disbelief etched into every gaze.
Rowen bared his teeth in a grin that was pure mockery. "You already forgot how you lost your second head, didn't you?"
Forgot…?
It had been the oxygen. Desperate for air, Orochi had followed the faint trail of dissipating poison smoke, straight into Rowen's waiting strike. By the time he realized the trap, his second head had already been severed.
And so?
What was wrong with that reasoning?
In Orochi's mind, the gamble made sense: there had to be oxygen around Rowen. He'd risked everything, enduring direct blows, just to get close enough to breathe. And it had worked. Air filled his lungs once again, his body rejuvenated, his vitality roaring back. With this, he could last another thirty minutes easily.
But Rowen… Rowen saw what Orochi still didn't understand.
He shook his head slowly.
"I know better than anyone there's oxygen around me. I figured that out long ago, back in my battle with Garp. The old bastard left quite an impression on me."
Watching Orochi freeze, Rowen let out a low, cold laugh.
"So you really thought I'd just let it happen again? That I'd make the same mistake twice?"
The Marine Soryu. Known for cunning as much as power. Careless enough to reveal a fatal weakness twice? The thought was ridiculous. Laughable.
Orochi's instincts screamed danger. Frantically, one of his hands shot up, clamping over the nose and mouth of the head still in Rowen's grip.
"What did you do?!"
"Relax. It's not poison…"
Rowen's tone was cold, casual, almost conversational.
"I just shook out the Seastone dust from the lining of my clothes."
Orochi froze. His breath hitched. His eyes bulged with terror.
"Go ahead… breathe deep. Get closer." Rowen pressed forward until his chest hovered inches from Orochi's face, utterly unguarded, daring him. Lightning flickered like a crown around his form.
His grin widened into a predator's sneer.
"Ever heard of… drinking poison to quench your thirst?"
And in that final instant, Orochi's heart seized with despair.
This…
This was no man.
This was a monster.
(End of Chapter)