"Nani?"
Captain John froze at Ozz's words. He lowered the bottle and looked up at the tall figure before him.
The moment his gaze met that pitch black muzzle veined with black and crimson lightning, sweat rolled cold down his temple. His pupils trembled.
"You have got to be kidding. We are all on the Rocks Pirates…"
Bang.
The gunshot answered for Ozz.
A wet choke.
There was no defending it, no tracing its path. Haki defenses tore like paper.
This was the weight behind the title of the world's strongest sniper.
"You talk too much."
One round was enough. A seastone bullet, wrapped in Flowing Armament and a king's Conqueror's Haki, carried by a blink of space itself, punched through Captain John's chest.
Worse, for a split second his Observation went dark.
Inside the range of his Kenbunshoku, Ozz's presence and the attack simply ceased to exist.
"If Conqueror's Haki crosses a certain threshold, can it smother weaker Observation outright?"
Ozz studied his palm while black red thunder snarled and crawled over his knuckles.
In principle it was simple enough. Overwhelm the mind with a king's pressure and you could mute the enemy's perception. In practice the bar was brutal, and against another king on your level it barely mattered.
At true peak, this trick did not decide fights. It sharpened them.
All across God Valley heads snapped toward the man wreathed in black red lightning.
"Oh. Ozz."
Roger broke into a grin and waved as if greeting a neighbor.
"So that is Ozz? I am bringing you in."
Garp thumbed blood from his lip and stared at the lightning crawling Ozz without a flicker of doubt on his face.
Only Rocks went dark as the sight of John coughing blood and collapsing reached him.
"What do you think you are doing.
Ozz, are you betraying the Rocks Pirates."
His roar hit like a storm front. Conqueror's Haki flooded out of him and crushed every lesser will on the field.
Ozz did not yield. He met it head on. Kingly lightning collided, black red against black red, and the sky dimmed.
Two talents beyond the mold of admirals and emperors slammed their spirits together and the earth split under the backlash.
Anyone below that summit slumped where they stood, rocked into snoring sleep.
Young as he was, Ozz still fell short of Rocks at full height, but the outline of something beyond the normal scale was already there. In the name of the strongest of the next age, he drew blade and leveled gun at a ring of men who had each ruled an era.
"This war has one winner."
"It is me."
A thundercrack.
Creaks like a world coming apart.
His Haki turned abyssal and did not stop at Rocks. It swept across every name that mattered on the island.
Ozz knew talent alone was not enough. To reach Rocks' realm beyond emperors, to even glance toward Im and Joy Boy, you needed an unbending will to match the power.
Space Awakening. Blink. Split.
"Plenty are born with a king's spark on this sea. Only one climbs over every monster and plants his flag on the peak of Conqueror's."
"That one is the king of the age."
The storm drew inward and hardened into a blinding core. Ozz's outline wavered and then separated. Three bodies stepped out of him, one with a blade, one with clenched fists, one with flames coiling his leg.
Ozz himself brought his hands forward. Haki layered thick over his gloves.
A metallic hum.
The black rifle took the king's lightning too, sleek lines along the receiver pulsing like living circuitry.
On a distant ridge Saturn Saint watched the whole board. Even he felt a jolt of awe.
"In long centuries I have seen too many prodigies. Even Rocks was only so much. But this future Celestial Dragon…"
"Perhaps he truly can touch the summit of mortals."
Mortals. Because he did not believe any man of this era could equal Im or Joy Boy.
Even so, Ozz dazzled.
"You have got to be kidding."
"Ozz."
Monarchs of their time refused to let him dominate the moment. Bellowed answers hammered the valley.
"This age bears the name Rocks."
"Your time has already passed."
The island shuddered as if it might slide into the sea. Ozz stood in the dead center.
Four cutting stares swept across the monsters whose names were already legend.
And in the tightest instant, one figure turned his back and left.
A giant man with a crescent white mustache cradled a small child in one arm. Though every nerve ached to dive into that storm of monsters, a single word from the bundle in his arms pulled him back down.
"Old man."
"Newgate, where are you going."
Rocks heard his most familiar right hand retreat and felt the old sting of betrayal. He roared.
"Do not order me around."
Shockwaves cracked the air from Newgate's naginata as he opened a path straight out of God Valley, the child tight against his chest.
"My dream was never pirate supremacy."
He looked down at the kid and something soft and new moved in his eyes.
"Family is my greatest dream."
No one stopped the first to quit the stage. All the peak powers were circling Ozz.
Shiki followed soon after, then Charlotte Linlin, and a badly wounded young Kaido.
Rocks' head rang.
The finals were about to begin, so why
why were all his own leaving the field.
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