"Three-eyed brat, are you mocking me for being old?"
"Then come—try and take it from me!"
"If you can't even withstand a single punch from me, I won't just take away the Red-Hair crew… I'll drag you to the bottom of the sea!"
With that, Whitebeard swung his massive fist—
BOOM!
The sky cracked. A deafening shockwave erupted, splitting the air and sea, raising a tsunami that towered like a mountain.
Whitebeard slowly pulled his fist back, his gaze fixed coldly on Ragnar.
Clearly, Ragnar's earlier words had irked him.
He had only planned to take Shanks and his crew. But now?
He wanted to test this so-called "new emperor" standing before him.
If Ragnar could endure this—
Fine. He'd let him be.
But if not—
He'd send them all to the depths.
This was the might of the man known as the strongest in the world—
The dominance of Edward Newgate.
"Hmph. You think a little seawater's enough to wash me away?"
As the tsunami loomed overhead, Ragnar didn't flinch.
"True Lord, your injury—!"
King stepped forward, concern in his voice.
"Injury?"
Ragnar didn't even look at the approaching waves. Instead, he turned his gaze to King.
"Hmph… Seventy-Two Transformations!"
He took one step forward—
And then, before the stunned eyes of every pirate present, including the two Emperors, Whitebeard and Red-Hair—
He transformed.
A phoenix's cry pierced the heavens.
Ragnar's form—once that of Erlang Shen—was now bathed in azure fire, wings outstretched.
A phoenix.
"T-That's… a phoenix?!"
"Impossible!"
"Isn't that Marco's ability?!"
"How can he transform like that?!"
Staring in disbelief, the Whitebeard Pirates fell into chaos.
Even Marco—the wielder of the Mythical Zoan: Bird-Bird Fruit, Phoenix Model—froze.
Eyes wide, jaw clenched, he muttered, "A phoenix…?"
Then realization struck.
"Not good. If this isn't some illusion, and Ragnar really is a phoenix…"
"Then this is bad. Really bad."
At those words, Diamond Joz and the others finally grasped the situation.
"This fruit power… how can it exist twice?!"
On the Red Hair side, Shanks, Beckman, and the others wore equally grim expressions.
Originally, with Whitebeard here, they had accepted their fate—
They'd be taken, but at least the situation was clear. Predictable.
Whitebeard's unmatched strength. His nearly full-force crew.
And Ragnar—injured and exhausted after battles with multiple Emperors and Admirals—was clearly not in fighting shape.
With only four men at his side, clashing with Whitebeard was suicide.
It wasn't cowardice.
It was logic.
But now—
Everything changed.
The moment Ragnar spread those wings of flame—
The moment he transformed into a second phoenix—
Even the strongest pirates in the world felt a chill.
And what they feared most—
Was about to become reality.
After transforming into a phoenix, the resurrecting blue flames quickly surged, engulfing the wounds on Ragnar's body—injuries inflicted by Admiral Aokiji and Emperor "Red-Haired" Shanks.
Hiss—
As the flames burned and then extinguished, the wounds vanished without a trace.
And during the entire process—from his phoenix transformation to complete recovery—the massive tsunami created by Whitebeard's punch had yet to descend upon him.
"King... Wounds? You mean these?"
Ragnar asked without turning around, his tone calm and disdainful.
"..."
King remained silent.
The shock he felt rivaled that of the Whitebeard and Red Hair Pirates watching the scene.
But Ragnar didn't seem to care for a reply. He had asked only rhetorically.
With a sudden shift of aura, he transformed again—this time not into a phoenix, but into a towering divine wolf.
Awoooo—
A low and chilling howl echoed across the sea.
Ragnar had taken the form of Ōkuchi no Makami—the Great Mouth Divine Wolf of myth.
"This one's mine," he muttered.
Even Yamato, who had seen him use the Azure Dragon form against Aokiji, couldn't help but feel her heart stir.
"Another Mythical Beast?"
Her voice trembled with awe.
"What is that fruit of his?"
"It's not just a single transformation... He can switch between multiple Mythical Zoans—and each one has its own powers!"
Marco, Jozu, and the others all shared similar thoughts. They instantly recognized that this was no ordinary transformation—it was the power of yet another Mythical Zoan.
"Ice Fang!"
Ragnar, now in hybrid form, stood like a god of winter. A chilling aura surrounded him—then, without warning, it surged.
A bone-piercing blizzard erupted across the ocean.
Crackling...
As the icy winds spread, the colossal tidal wave—over a hundred meters high—froze solid in mid-air.
In the blink of an eye, the apocalyptic tsunami was gone.
All that remained was a glacial mountain of frozen sea—an iceberg stretching across the horizon, towering and serene.
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