"I'll kill you."
Bege shattered the ground beneath his feet as he charged toward Garp. The cursed sword, Hannya, glowed with a seething, blood-red light as it swung for Garp's head.
Garp caught the cursed blade with a single hand.
In the next instant, a circular shockwave erupted from them, tearing up the surface of the island and creating a tidal wave of earth that swept out in all directions.
Boom... Rumble...
More and more dark red lightning, dense as a swarm of serpents, filled the air, turning the dozens of meters around them into a world of crimson thunder.
Wave after wave of force pulsed from the epicenter of their clash, pulverizing the ground. Countless fragments of stone and clouds of dust were kicked up and thrown into the sky.
Garp yanked hard on the cursed sword, pulling Bege toward him. His left fist, already coiled back, shot forward. Bege instantly raised his Fire Cloud Sword to block.
At such a close range, the Slow-Slow Beam struck Garp directly. At the same moment, a series of castle gates opened across Bege's chest. From each gate, a massive crossbow was rolled forward, and a volley of thick, heavy bolts shot out, all aimed at Garp's chest.
The distance was too short. Struck by the Slow-Slow Beam, Garp had no way to dodge the giant crossbow bolts.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
A chaotic symphony of metal on metal rang out, sending sparks flying. A series of small white dots appeared on Garp's jet-black chest, but none of the bolts managed to pierce his Haki-clad defense.
Bege landed a swift kick, sending Garp flying. Immediately, a barrage of rockets launched from the castle within his body. The projectiles grew to an immense size the moment they left him, all streaking toward Garp.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
In an instant, dozens of rockets detonated. The earth-shattering explosions made Fear Island tremble once again. A mushroom cloud rose into the sky, and a terrifying blast wave swept outwards. The fractured ground rolled and buckled like the surface of a stormy sea.
Bege was also thrown back by the force of the blast, an invisible barrier straining to hold back the shockwave.
The spot where Garp had been was now a massive, deep crater.
"No matter what it takes, we have to survive," Bege gasped, gritting his teeth. Inside his body-castle, his men scrambled to reload the rocket launchers. Another volley of rockets was fired, arcing down toward the crater.
Suddenly, a terrifying blast of fist pressure shot up from the bottom of the pit, obliterating all the incoming rockets. Dozens of projectiles exploded in mid-air, the chain reaction of blasts widening the crater even further.
Garp shot out of the pit. He was a mess. The nigh-impenetrable armor of his Armament Haki was shattered in many places, revealing torn and bleeding flesh underneath. However, the gruesome wounds were already healing at a visible rate.
Under the power of his Rokushiki Ogi: Steel Body, Iron Bones, his regenerative abilities were monstrous.
His eyes were grim, filled with a simmering rage. He shot forward, skimming across the ground at such an extreme speed that the earth cracked in his wake and a plume of dust trailed behind him.
Another volley of rockets flew at him. Garp's figure flashed, weaving between the projectiles. He closed the distance, leaped into the air, and brought his fist down from above.
Bege's external space warped around Garp, but the power behind Garp's punch was too terrifying. It tore through the distortion, and the warped space shattered like a mirror.
Bege thrust his swords upwards, unleashing two intersecting slashes of sword energy. Garp's punch blew right through them, and the resulting explosion of energy forced Bege back.
The maneuver allowed him to evade Garp's fatal blow. The moment Garp's feet touched the ground, he leaned forward and exploded forward again, shattering the earth as he shot toward Bege like a bolt of lightning.
Crossbow bolts fired from within Bege's castle body. Garp ignored them, simply smashing through the volley with his indestructible form.
"Beast King!" Bege roared, slashing out with both swords simultaneously. Two blood-red arcs of sword energy cut the ground apart as they rushed forward.
Garp thrust both fists forward like a pair of striking dragons. The ferocious power shattered the two blood-red slashes, and two more violent explosions tore the landscape asunder.
Garp's body was thrown back, his feet dragging trenches in the ground as he slid for more than ten meters.
"I refuse to believe you have any more tricks up your sleeve," Garp said, his expression dark. He charged again, bursting through the swirling dust like a black thunderbolt.
He was in front of Bege in an instant. Bege's expression changed drastically as he fired another volley of crossbow bolts, this time mixed with rockets.
Using rockets at such close range was a desperate tactic. The resulting explosion would undoubtedly harm both of them—a last-ditch method to injure the enemy by a thousand at the cost of eight hundred to oneself.
But at this point, Bege no longer cared.
A stream of bolts and rockets flew at Garp.
Garp threw a punch from a distance. The sheer force of the blow shattered the projectiles in mid-air. Dozens of rockets detonated at once, creating a massive mushroom cloud between the two men. The terrifying blast wave sent both of them flying.
Bege crashed into the ground like a cannonball, the impact blasting a crater and the force plowing a long trench behind him.
A blood-soaked hand shot out from the rubble, pushing upwards. A disheveled figure slowly, unsteadily, rose to its feet.
Bege coughed up a large mouthful of blood, using his swords to support his body.
Garp had also been thrown back, but he was in much better condition. His formidable body had withstood the brunt of the explosion. He spat out a mouthful of blood as the torn wounds on his body healed rapidly, instantly covered again by Armament Haki.
"Let's continue," Garp said, his face devoid of expression as he stepped forward, the veins on his arms bulging.
Suddenly, the distant ruins exploded. A massive, demonic figure burst out of the ground. He landed heavily, his body covered in wounds. He saw Bege, spitting up blood, and his face twisted into a mask of extreme ferocity. His bloodshot eyes instantly locked onto Garp, cold and radiating an endless killing intent.
It was Weevil. He hadn't been killed when Garp had punched him into the earth and buried him in rubble. Now, he was back.
"You dare hurt my big brother? I'll kill you!" Weevil roared. He ran, his speed so incredible that he became a streak of light, closing the distance to Garp in the blink of an eye. He raised his high-temperature naginata high and brought it down with all his might.
"Conqueror's Slash!"
The slash was imbued with a world-shaking, terrifying power. The sonic boom it created was deafening, like a cannonball exploding right next to one's ear.
Garp's expression changed drastically. The Armament Haki on his body surged like a tide into his right fist, which began to crackle with black lightning.
He threw a heavy punch upwards, meeting the high-temperature naginata head-on. In an instant, black lightning filled a space of several hundred meters. In an instant, a thousand meters of earth cracked and collapsed, and the entire island of Fear shook violently. In an instant, ring after ring of shockwaves swept outwards, blasting across the whole island, shattering mountain peaks and triggering a tsunami in the surrounding sea.
Weevil had poured every last ounce of his strength into this one attack. He had absorbed the impact from Garp's earlier punch that had buried him, and now he unleashed it all without reservation, producing a slash of unparalleled, terrifying power.
The ground for a hundred meters around them shattered and rose up, the countless fragments of rock instantly pulverized as a huge crater formed, continuously widened by the pulsing shockwaves.
But even a slash as terrifying as this was stopped by Garp. With a sudden roar, he threw a punch that sent Weevil flying. Already exhausted, Weevil was blasted into the ruins several hundred meters away, buried once again under countless tons of rock. His eyes rolled back, and he fell unconscious.
Garp's face was flushed red. He coughed up two consecutive mouthfuls of blood, and the Armament Haki on his right fist shattered and dissipated.
"A good chance," Bege thought, gritting his teeth as he charged forward.
But just then, a piercing cry of agony echoed from the distance.
"Riki!"
It was Moria's voice. Bege's head snapped in that direction. His eyes widened in horror. His body froze, and he stumbled, crashing uncontrollably to the ground. He scrambled back up, his gaze fixed on the distant scene.
He saw Akainu's magma fist piercing through Riki's chest.