The Armament Haki clash didn't last long. Katakuri and Diarmuid withdrew their power at the same time, both retreating a few steps.
Katakuri's trident flashed, and a murderous look appeared in his eyes. He thrust it forward, and even though he wasn't close enough, his arm stretched out. The trident was incredibly fast, reaching Diarmuid's chest in the blink of an eye.
The Nagasone Kotetsu precisely parried the trident, blocking the attack. At the same time, a strange power erupted from Diarmuid. It surged along the blade, with an almost imperceptible tiger's roar, then a fierce tiger made of gravity shot out from the Nagasone Kotetsu and pounced on Katakuri.
For a moment, Katakuri felt his trident become incredibly heavy. His eyes flashed. Without hesitation, he expanded his other arm into a giant club, coated in Armament Haki, and smashed it down on Diarmuid. The attack shattered the charging tiger's force and descended with unstoppable momentum.
"Mochi Slash!" Katakuri roared.
"Gravity Field: Aegis!" Diarmuid didn't dodge, immediately unleashing his ability.
In an instant, Katakuri's arm smashed down, but it didn't hit Diarmuid. Instead, a half-meter away, it felt like his attack had hit an invisible barrier.
"A repulsive force?" Katakuri thought, surprised.
The repulsive force wasn't an absolute defense. It was strongest in the initial moment of contact, holding back Katakuri's onslaught. But he quickly felt the force weakening. Before he could follow up, Diarmuid pointed a finger at him from a distance.
"Shigan: Flying Gravity Cannon!" Diarmuid yelled.
A faint purple, invisible force shot from his fingertip, reaching Katakuri's chest in an instant. The next second, mochi splattered, and a large hole appeared as if a cannonball had punched through Katakuri's chest. But his expression showed no pain, and Diarmuid knew the attack had missed its mark.
Katakuri had likely used his ability to change his form just before the attack hit, allowing the Flying Gravity Cannon to pass through him.
This mimicry was similar to a Logia's element transformation, but it wasn't true elementalization. However, you could argue that this was a superior quality to the passive defense of a Logia, as it could even be used to dodge an Armament Haki attack.
Without giving Katakuri a chance to counter, Diarmuid stomped his foot, unleashing another wave of gravity. Katakuri's eyes grew serious, and he prepared to take the pressure, but then he felt his body lighten.
"Not pressure! Weightlessness?!" Katakuri thought in shock.
He was thrown off balance, floating in place as if he had entered a vacuum. Diarmuid seized the moment, using his Nagasone Kotetsu to push the trident aside. He swung his sword upward, building momentum for a moment, then brought it down with the force of a mountain.
"Gravity Blade: Tiger Slayer!" Diarmuid roared.
A powerful slice shot out. Katakuri couldn't dodge it at all and was struck directly. At the same time, he felt as if a collapsing mountain had fallen on him. The immense gravity, combined with the power of the slice, smashed down on him. Even though he managed to use Armament Haki to defend in time, it was utterly futile.
"Gah…!" Katakuri spat out a mouthful of blood. His body, which had been floating, was hit as if by a rhinoceros, smashing straight into the ground. The ground immediately cracked and crumbled, collapsing downwards. In a moment, a terrifying deep pit formed, and Katakuri was sent plummeting to the bottom.
After delivering that attack, Diarmuid felt a mix of realization and clarity. He had always known his ability was incredibly powerful, but he never had a solid sense of exactly how powerful it was. He had only ever had a vague impression of it from seeing Fujitora pull down meteors.
Now, after fighting Katakuri, he finally understood how freakishly strong his ability was. He also realized something else: he didn't need to develop any flashy techniques. All he had to do was relentlessly increase his power output. All he needed was to unleash this ability without any restraint.
The mere realization of this was enough to make this trip worthwhile!
The distraction lasted only for a second, but it was enough for Katakuri to seize his chance. Without even wiping the blood from his mouth, he scrambled out of the pit. He abandoned his trident and launched himself at Diarmuid.
While Diarmuid was marveling at his power, Katakuri was in awe. He could sense that while this Marine Rear Admiral was strong, he wasn't necessarily stronger than him, perhaps even a little weaker. But the moment he used his ability, it became overwhelming, easily dealing a critical blow.
For a long time, Katakuri had prided himself on having a special Paramecia fruit that gave him the properties of a Logia. But now, after fighting against a truly top-tier Paramecia ability, he understood how much of a bonus a strong ability could be.
He couldn't let Diarmuid use his ability freely. He had to find a way to take him down quickly.
Katakuri moved with incredible speed, but Diarmuid's reflexes were just as fast.
"Baked Mochi!" Katakuri roared. His arm instantly swelled up. As it was coated in Armament Haki, it compressed rapidly and then shot out like a rocket, flying towards Diarmuid.
The distance between them was short, and Katakuri's move was extremely quick. Diarmuid also remembered how powerful the Baked Mochi attack was. He couldn't dodge. He imbued his Nagasone Kotetsu with Armament Haki and a burst of gravity, then swung it at the incoming attack. But even with Diarmuid's monstrous strength and the gravity boost, the attack's force was beyond his prediction.
It was like getting hit in the face by a Sea Train. In an instant, the Nagasone Kotetsu couldn't handle the force and was knocked from his hand. Diarmuid himself was sent flying. He tumbled several times, plowing a deep trench in the ground before he stopped. Blood flowed from his mouth.
Before he could even stand, a dark shadow blocked the sun and fell on him. It was Katakuri. To prevent Diarmuid from recovering, Katakuri had moved with incredible speed. His fist was coated in pitch-black Armament Haki, making it overwhelmingly powerful.
"Hammer Mochi!" Katakuri roared.
But Diarmuid's reaction speed was far beyond what Katakuri expected. Just before the punch landed, he stomped his feet and put his hands on the ground. He flipped backward, doing a series of acrobatic backflips to perfectly dodge the attack.
Katakuri was stunned. Does this guy not feel pain?
Normally, a person would freeze up after taking a powerful blow and sustaining injury. It was the body's natural instinct to feel pain and adapt to the injury. But Diarmuid had just been hit so hard he was spitting blood, yet his movements were unnaturally agile, as if he wasn't hurt at all.
Before Katakuri could process the thought, he saw Diarmuid lift an arm and open his five fingers, aiming at him. His instincts screamed danger, and he immediately coated his body in Armament Haki. But then, Katakuri watched as Diarmuid reached out and clenched his hand into a fist in the air.
"What is this…?" Katakuri wondered, frowning, but his guard was up.
Before he could react, he felt the ground beneath him crumble.
"Weightlessness again?" he thought, quickly preparing for the same counter as before. But the next second, he realized something was wrong.
The ground was also breaking apart, and the chunks of earth and rock were floating up with him and beginning to stick to his body.
"Secret Technique: Planetary Devastation…" Diarmuid said, a grin spreading across his face.
At that moment, he finally understood Borsalino's mentality. When your ability is strong enough, who cares about anything else? No matter how many tricks your opponent has, they are nothing in the face of absolute power! Borsalino had truly embodied this, developing his Glint-Glint Fruit to be overwhelmingly powerful.
Diarmuid was now getting a taste of that power, but he wasn't as extreme as Borsalino. He still believed that even with a powerful ability, a person's other skills were just as important. If you were to run into an opponent with a counter-ability, it would be an embarrassing situation.
Learning from his mistakes, Diarmuid didn't let his mind wander. He put his full focus into unleashing the power of his Devil Fruit.
He had conceived of this technique, Planetary Devastation, long ago, but he had never actually used it. Katakuri was the first to experience it.
As Diarmuid increased his power, Katakuri couldn't break free. He was in a state of weightlessness, and a massive amount of earth and rock was being pulled towards him, forming a sphere with him at the center. In a few moments, Katakuri was completely covered by the rocks, with only half of his head visible.
But it didn't stop there. He glared at Diarmuid, releasing waves of Haki to try to break free, but he couldn't. Soon, his head was also covered, and a perfect sphere floated in the air.
This wasn't the end of it.
Diarmuid wanted to see the full extent of the technique. He continued to manipulate gravity, and more of the ground crumbled, feeding the floating sphere and making it bigger and bigger.
After five minutes, Diarmuid finally stopped. By now, there was a wide, gaping crater in the ground, and a massive sphere of earth and rock, about the size of a warship, was floating in the sky.
"Seal successful? That felt pretty easy… Katakuri… Am I… too strong?" Diarmuid thought in surprise. He never expected to have such an easy time fighting a top-tier opponent like Katakuri.
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