"BOOM!"
The air once again roared in madness, streams of wind swirling violently as the sea below exploded into a solid wall of spray. Between the two massive ships, the ocean's surface suddenly caved in, forming a series of rapidly spinning vortices.
Then, to everyone's shock, a half-arc rainbow appeared in midair, brilliant and dazzling against the shattered sky.
Beneath the glittering rain of seawater, two figures emerged.
At this moment, Whitebeard gripped his massive naginata in both hands, cleaving downward with all his might onto Qin Yi's Ancient Sword. Qin Yi, his gaze razor-sharp, looked up at the titan, his single hand firmly holding his sword aloft.
His arm did not waver in the slightest, all the tremendous power behind Whitebeard's blow was redirected, absorbed, and dispersed into the churning sea and the raging air around them.
It was shocking. Terrifying. Their battle contained no elaborate techniques, no hidden secrets, just the simplest, purest clash of strength and steel. Yet, that simplicity carried a force that shook every heart watching.
This was the truest collision of raw power, direct, unrestrained, and more overwhelming than any complex skill could ever be.
"Good boy!"
Whitebeard roared with madness in his voice. The strength surging through him made even the air groan and crack. Space itself trembled, threatening to shatter under the crushing weight of his might.
His face twisted with strain, his crescent-shaped white mustache trembling violently.
"VMMMM!"
The void-shaking force surged downward through his naginata, growing ever more immense.
This time, neither man retreated to his ship. Instead, they stood suspended above the raging sea, their bodies hovering in midair as if gravity had simply ceased to apply to them.
When their weapons collided, tiny bolts of lightning crackled and burst between them, not the result of energy blasts, but from the sheer, crushing pressure of their blows that tore apart the ionized air.
The space around them began to twist, then fracture. Under Whitebeard's full-power assault, a violent tremor ripped through Qin Yi's Ancient Sword.
"Crack… crack… CRASH!"
In the blink of an eye, the blade forged from pure Seastone split apart, fracturing down the middle, and in the next breath, it shattered completely.
"Your Majesty!" A cry of alarm rose from the Qin Nation's flagship.
On the Moby Dick, Marco and the others' eyes gleamed with fierce excitement.
Whitebeard, this was the World's Strongest Man! Even facing the conqueror destined to unite all realms, Ying Zheng, he had shattered his opponent's weapon in a head-on clash.
Strong. Too strong!
In the air, Qin Yi's gaze hardened. Almost at the exact instant his sword broke, his right hand released the hilt, and clenched into a fist.
"The Tremor-Tremor Fruit, huh… truly formidable."
He murmured softly, eyes glinting. Around his fist, a faint halo of light began to shimmer, the quiet glow of fragmentation power stirring within, a hint of his Marvel-world abilities.
Then, Busoshoku (Armament Haki) and a surging wave of Chakra enveloped his arm, fusing into a strike of unimaginable force.
With a roar, Qin Yi's right fist shot forward, colliding head-on with the descending naginata.
"BOOM!!"
The very atmosphere trembled. From beneath their feet, the ocean cracked open, spreading outward in spiderweb fissures. The sea churned and rolled violently, waves heaving as if terrified by the power of their clash.
"This is insane!"
Swept backward by the shockwaves, Marco and the others stared wide-eyed, hearts pounding like thunder.
From the moment these two began to fight, the world around them had not known a single moment of calm, the air itself raged in endless turbulence.
"A Paramecia-type ability…"
Whitebeard narrowed his eyes, feeling the power emanating from Qin Yi's strike, a force almost identical to his own Quake power, though subtly different in nature, laced with a strange, foreign energy.
From that single blow, both the sky above and the sea below were violently fractured.
The destructive range stretched for thousands of meters in every direction, the very space between them had been reduced to fragments.
The two men stood upon the roaring ocean, facing one another, eyes locked. In that moment, they had each fully recognized the other's might.
"Whitebeard," Qin Yi said solemnly, "You truly are the most powerful man of this world."
"Though age has touched you, the strength you wield remains vast as the mountains, boundless as the sea."
Qin Yi's eyes sharpened, his pupils began to ripple and shift.
The Rinnegan had awakened.
"This battle is worthy of my full recognition," Qin Yi said calmly, his voice carrying like thunder over the waves. "I will fight with everything I have."
Hearing those words, Whitebeard's eyes gleamed with sharp brilliance. He glanced once at the jagged edge of his shattered naginata, then bellowed in a deep, thunderous roar:
"Come then, boy! Let's see what you've got! In all my life, I've never feared anything! Not the sea, nor mankind itself!"
With that, Whitebeard hurled away the broken weapon in his hands.
"Swoosh!"
The air screamed as the naginata spun away, driving itself straight into the prow of the Moby Dick three seconds later, the hilt still trembling and humming.
"The Old Man broke his sword, and now this man shattered the Old Man's blade in turn!"
"This guy…!"
Marco and the others' pupils contracted.
They stared wide-eyed, hearts pounding, witnessing a duel that could shake the foundations of their entire world.
Just as their thoughts tangled in awe and disbelief, the two figures in the air moved again.
First, Whitebeard clenched his fist. The veins on his massive forearm bulged like coiled dragons; his muscles gleamed like sculpted granite, radiating sheer, raw power.
As his hand tightened, a faint pop echoed in the air, a shimmering halo appeared around his knuckles.
No, not a halo. It was the visual distortion caused by the Tremor-Tremor Fruit, vibrating the very fabric of space. It was the visible sign of a strike strong enough to shatter reality and sink islands.
At the same time, across from him, Qin Yi's fists clenched as well.
"Yasogami Kūgeki! (Eighty Gods Vacuum Attack!)"
"Fist of Shattering!"
Terrifying ripples of light radiated from his fists. Behind him, the air trembled as immense Chakra erupted outward, and countless phantom fists began to form from the void itself, a devastating hybrid technique fusing skills from different worlds.
Once unleashed, it would obliterate everything before him.
"Raaaghhh!!"
Whitebeard's right fist pulsed with quakes so intense that cracks appeared in the air before he even swung.
"Come, Whitebeard!!"
Qin Yi roared toward the heavens, eyes locked on his opponent, and drove his fist forward.
"BOOM!!"
The wind howled like a beast; the sky wept; the sea itself trembled in terror, collapsing, splitting open, killing every fish caught within the shockwaves.
Countless invisible fists shattered the void, surging toward Whitebeard,
But then,
"Crack! Crack! CRASH!"
Space itself broke apart like glass, the fissures spreading for tens, hundreds, of miles. Thunder rumbled across the heavens as lightning flared wildly. Every phantom fist was blown aside by the power of that single, titanic blow.
And then, their two fists collided.
"RUMBLE!!!"
The sound was deafening, like the roar of the gods. In that instant, all sound vanished from the world.
The air warped so violently that even sight itself failed, yet through the blur, everyone could still make out one impossible image.
The sea had collapsed! Across a span of ten thousand meters, the ocean had sunk, a full hundred meters deep!
Two men. Two fists.
Were these truly men… or monsters who had transcended humanity itself?
(End of Chapter)
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