On the battlefield below, Ace had immediately engaged Moria's Shadow Doppelganger upon Jerry's departure. His flame-enhanced fists and feet struck the shadow construct repeatedly, but the incorporeal form absorbed each blow harmlessly. Similarly, the shadow's attacks passed through Ace's Logia form whenever he activated his fire transformation, creating a frustrating stalemate.
With Ace handling the diversion, Jerry launched himself upward through the massive hole that Ace's Fire Pillar had blasted through the ceiling earlier. His Observation Haki guided him unerringly toward his true target—he had already pinpointed Moria's exact location during the earlier chaos.
As it turned out, the Warlord hadn't bothered to hide very far from the action. Jerry found him only one floor above the main hall, sitting casually against a wall with his hands behind his head, apparently unconcerned about the battle raging below.
This confidence wasn't entirely surprising. Among the original Seven Warlords of the Sea, most possessed the kind of arrogance that came from years of unchallenged power. Moria was no exception—if anything, his isolation on Thriller Bark had made him even more disconnected from the current state of the world.
The massive Warlord barely glanced up as Jerry approached, his expression showing more mild curiosity than concern. "So you made it up here, huh?" he said with casual indifference, his voice carrying that characteristic lazy drawl.
Jerry stopped a few feet away and shook his finger disapprovingly. "Don't sound so casual about this. While I don't have any personal grudge against you, you've kept my friend's shadow captive for who knows how long. That deserves some payback."
He gestured toward the hole in the floor where sounds of continued combat drifted up. "Besides, I'm guessing peaceful resolution isn't really your style."
Moria's lips curved into his trademark grin, revealing rows of pointed teeth. "Kishishishi! Looks like we understand each other perfectly. Let's see which one of us walks away from this."
Without warning, Moria's body began to darken and dissolve, his physical form swapping places with the Shadow Doppelganger fighting Ace below. The transition was seamless—one moment Jerry faced a lazy giant, the next he was confronting the real Gecko Moria in all his formidable presence.
Perhaps recognizing that his shadow's battle with Ace was achieving nothing, or maybe sensing that Jerry posed a more significant threat, Moria had decided to handle this personally. Though his physical conditioning had deteriorated over the years of relying primarily on his Devil Fruit powers, he still possessed considerable Armament Haki and decades of combat experience.
The real Moria immediately began weaving shadow tendrils toward Jerry, but his opponent was ready. Jerry's figure blurred with incredible speed, appearing behind the Warlord before the shadow manipulation could complete.
In one fluid motion, Jerry grabbed hold of Moria's massive form, water beginning to spiral around both their bodies with increasing velocity. He lifted the much larger man into the air through sheer technique and momentum.
"Abyss Vortex Slam!" Jerry roared, spinning both himself and Moria into a devastating tornado-like descent.
The two figures crashed through the weakened floor with tremendous force, Jerry driving Moria headfirst into the main hall where Ace was still fighting the now-masterless shadow construct. The impact sent Moria's shadow form dispersing into countless bat fragments that scattered in all directions.
Jerry landed gracefully and immediately launched himself back into the air, riding the wind currents from his previous attack to kick away most of the shadow bats. Without pausing, he spun toward where Moria was struggling to his feet, having briefly knocked Ace aside with a desperate Armament Haki-enhanced swing.
Realizing that Jerry had forced him back into direct combat and that his shadow tactics weren't sufficient, Moria made a desperate decision. Ignoring his injuries from both the fall and Ace's persistent attacks, he rushed toward the hall's exit, burst through the doorway, and looked up at the night sky.
"Shadow's Asgard!" he bellowed with desperate fury.
The technique's activation was immediate and dramatic. Countless black tendrils erupted from Moria's body like seeking tentacles, spreading out from the mansion and racing across the entire island. Every shadow that Moria had stolen over the years—from pirates, travelers, and anyone else who had been unfortunate enough to encounter Thriller Bark—began flowing back toward him along those dark conduits.
Hundreds, then thousands of stolen shadows poured into Moria's form as he realized that neither his subordinates nor his usual tactics would be sufficient against opponents of this caliber. His only option was to absorb every shadow in his collection simultaneously, regardless of the physical strain it would cause.
As the massive influx of shadows entered his body, Moria began to expand at an alarming rate. His already considerable bulk swelled to enormous proportions, growing so large that his movements cracked and then completely destroyed the ornate bridge connecting the two mansion sections.
Both he and Ace crashed down to the island's surface as the architectural structure gave way beneath Moria's increasing mass. Seeing this development, Jerry turned to signal Deuce and Skull, who had emerged from Perona's chamber looking somewhat shaken.
"Stay back and keep yourselves safe!" Jerry called out. "This is about to get much more dangerous!"
Without waiting for their response, he leaped from the collapsing bridge's edge to join the battle on the ground level.
By the time Jerry reached the surface, Moria had completed his transformation. Standing nearly twenty meters tall, the Warlord radiated an aura of barely controlled power mixed with genuine madness. The sheer number of shadows he had absorbed was pushing his body and mind to their absolute limits.
Jerry didn't hesitate. Descending from above like a falling meteor, he aimed a devastating kick directly at Moria's enlarged head.
But Moria wasn't helpless despite his unwieldy size. He raised his massive fists, and countless shadow bats materialized around them, forming a swirling barrier between himself and both attackers. The bats quickly began weaving together into larger constructs.
Jerry's momentum carried him through several bat clusters, but he immediately noticed Moria's strategy changing. The remaining shadow bats were forming into box-like prison constructs, trying to trap both Jerry in the air and Ace on the ground within shadow cages.
Moria seemed intent on ending the fight with a single decisive combination attack. The moment the shadow boxes began to solidify around his opponents, he raised both enormous hands high above his head and brought them down in a massive double-hammer strike.
"Shadow Revolution!" he roared, putting every ounce of his enhanced strength behind the blow.
The attack hit with the force of a natural disaster. The ground beneath the shadow boxes erupted in massive explosions, sending shockwaves across the entire island. Deep crevices opened in the earth as if the land itself was being torn apart. Both mansion structures shook so violently that they began tilting at dangerous angles, their foundations cracked and unstable.
"Hah... hah... you forced me to use this power!" Moria gasped, his breathing labored from the exertion of controlling so many shadows at once. "Don't think you can defeat me on my own territory!"
The Warlord looked down at the devastation he had caused with genuine satisfaction. Despite the enormous strain on his body, he felt intoxicated by the return of power that reminded him of his prime years. The more shadows he absorbed, the greater the physical burden became—but his strength increased exponentially with each addition.
For a moment, Moria allowed himself to bask in what seemed like certain victory. The shadow boxes had contained his enemies perfectly, and his devastating attack should have finished them both.
"What are you celebrating about?" Jerry's voice cut through the silence like a blade. "You just destroyed your own ship like this. Planning to retire from piracy?"
"Then we'll be happy to help you with that decision!" Ace added, his voice carrying its usual confident tone.
"That's right, let's finish this quickly," Jerry continued, his casual tone completely at odds with the massive destruction around them. "We still have friends on this island, and if we let this oversized onion rampage much longer, someone's going to get seriously hurt."
Moria's eyes widened in shock as both Ace and Jerry emerged from the settling dust completely unharmed. Somehow, they had escaped his shadow prison and weathered his devastating attack without sustaining any visible damage.
Before he could fully process this development, both pirates launched themselves forward in perfect coordination.
Ace's entire body erupted in flames as he used his fire like a rocket engine, propelling himself forward with explosive backward thrust. His already considerable speed increased dramatically as he aimed directly for Moria's center mass.
"Fire Fist!" he shouted, pouring every ounce of his enhanced training into the attack.
Simultaneously, Jerry took a completely different approach. His figure blurred as he circled around Moria's flank at lightning speed, using the Warlord's own massive size against him. As he moved, Jerry extended his Supreme Fishing Rod and used its incredible reach to manipulate massive amounts of seawater from the inland sea surrounding Thriller Bark.
"Water Blade: Maelstrom Piercer!" Jerry called out, his fishing rod crackling with advanced Armament Haki that manifested as black lightning around the weapon.
Moria found himself caught between two devastating attacks from opposite directions. Ace's flame-enhanced fist struck his enlarged abdomen with tremendous force, the concentrated heat and impact causing his body to bend almost in half as blood spurted from his mouth.
At the same moment, Jerry's Haki-enhanced fishing rod pierced straight through Moria's back with surgical precision, the weapon's tip emerging from the front of his torso. The internal damage from Jerry's advanced Armament Haki sent shockwaves through the Warlord's entire body.
As if that wasn't enough, Jerry's water manipulation technique reached its climax. A massive tornado of seawater, easily thirty meters in diameter, descended from the sky and engulfed Moria's charred and pierced form.
The combined impact of flame, piercing strike, and crushing water pressure drove the enormous Warlord deep into the ground, creating a crater so large it could have held a small lake.