A furious, savage slash drove Ortoren straight down from the sky and into the ground. A massive crater exploded outward in an instant, smoke and debris billowing everywhere.
On the warship, Issho and Gion both stiffened in shock.
"Red-Haired!?" Fury flashed through Gion's eyes as she shouted.
That bastard Red-Haired, with no sense of decency at all. He had been hiding on this island too, and even launched a sneak attack!
At the same time, Ochoku finally halted his high-speed, continuous teleportation. The moment his feet touched the ground, sweat was already dripping down his face.
It was obvious that kind of full-power burst wasn't something he could use lightly.
"Another expert?" Ochoku looked toward the red-haired man who descended from the sky and landed atop distant ruins. After a brief pause, his brow lifted. "That brat from Roger's ship… he's grown to this level already?"
Silver Axe gripped his massive axe, his gaze fixed on Shanks with equal caution. Even if this man had just ambushed Ortoren, that didn't mean he was someone they could trust.
After all, the fact that he had appeared on Hachinosu without a sound already spoke volumes.
Shanks flicked his Meito, Gryphon, and looked toward Ochoku and Silver Axe.
"I don't feel like explaining anything right now," he said calmly. "But at least for the moment, we share a common enemy, don't we?"
At the same time, the thick dust slowly dispersed. Ortoren's warhammer lay alone on the ground, while his towering body was sprawled flat at the bottom of the crater, limbs splayed wide. Pools of dark red blood had already gathered around him.
On the warship, Gion saw this and lost her composure entirely. Killing intent surged in her eyes.
"I'm going to kill that bastard!"
She looked ready to move at once, but just then, Issho seemed to sense something amiss.
He reached out and pressed a hand on Gion's shoulder.
"Wait… Ortoren isn't right…"
"Guh…"
From within the crater, Ortoren's body suddenly twitched. A low groan, thick with pain, escaped his lips.
Slowly, he pushed himself up from the ground. His condition was undeniably miserable.
The left arm he had used to block Silver Axe's attack was split open by a gash nearly half a meter long. Torn flesh peeled back to reveal thick bone beneath, a gruesome sight.
Not only that, but his rear shoulder bore another terrifying wound, just as deep, blood pouring out without stopping.
A flicker of pain crossed Ortoren's face. He could barely remember the last time he had suffered injuries this severe.
He tested the arm carefully. No fractures, no breaks. It could still move.
"He can still use that arm after all that…" Silver Axe stared at him in disbelief. "Is this what it means to be an Admiral?"
After taking Silver Axe's full-powered blow and then Shanks's Kamusari, Ortoren had still managed to stand up again so quickly. The thought sent a deep chill through Silver Axe's spine.
Ortoren raised his head and looked toward Ochoku and the others. His left eye was completely bloodshot, and dark blood seeped from the corner of his mouth, giving him a ferocious, almost monstrous appearance.
"Red-Haired…"
His gaze locked onto Shanks, irritation heavy in his voice.
"Thanks to you, my condition's acting up again. I hope you won't regret this later."
Shanks frowned, clearly confused by what Ortoren meant.
But in a hazy instant, a memory surfaced. Their first meeting, on the Big Mom Pirates' Whole Cake Island, during the theft of Charlotte Linlin's Road Poneglyph.
That day, Ortoren had been utterly devoid of reason, like a wild beast. That day, his arm had been shattered by a single hammer strike.
"…You've got to be kidding," Shanks muttered, swallowing hard.
Ochoku and Silver Axe had no idea what the two of them were talking about. Before they could ask—
Ortoren's other eye slowly turned crimson.
At the same time, his brown hair began to grow at an astonishing speed, cascading down to his waist in the blink of an eye. Its color shifted just as fast, as if washed in moonlight, turning into a pure, radiant silver.
Ochoku and Silver Axe were no ignorant backwater pirates. Seeing this, they both cried out at once.
"Sulong!?"
Ochoku immediately looked up at the sky. Dark clouds filled the heavens, but it was clearly daytime. There was no moon at all.
There wasn't even anything nearby that resembled one. How had he entered the Sulong state like this?
The moment Ortoren's eyes turned fully blood-red, the last traces of rationality vanished from them.
His body, once just over three meters tall, swelled to nearly five. Muscles bulged and tore through his clothing, radiating wild, violent power. His fingernails lengthened into claws, his teeth reshaped into savage fangs. He looked every bit like a feral beast.
Completely transformed, Ortoren threw his head back and let out a thunderous roar.
The shockwave blasted outward from his body, instantly sweeping away all remaining smoke and dust.
In the next instant, his figure vanished from sight.
Shanks felt the lethal danger immediately. Without hesitation, he kicked off the ground and retreated from the area.
Almost at the same moment he dodged, Ortoren's beastlike form appeared where he had just been. A single punch smashed into the ground, and the ruins collapsed in an instant, the overwhelming force grinding stone and debris into fine powder.
"An opening!"
A sharp glint flashed through Silver Axe's eyes. He kicked off the ground and leapt into the air, appearing above Ortoren as he brought his axe down in a brutal overhead chop.
In the very next instant, Ortoren raised an arm. Coated in Haki, he blocked the blow head-on.
Boom!
The ground beneath Ortoren sank once again, but his body didn't waver in the slightest.
Silver Axe's battle axe had been stopped by the back of Ortoren's hand.
The strength Silver Axe took such pride in failed to suppress him.
With a violent flick of his arm, Ortoren knocked the axe aside. He didn't follow up on Silver Axe, though. His nose twitched, as if catching a scent, and his gaze immediately locked onto the red-haired man who had just landed.
With a powerful push off the ground, he charged straight after him.
"You've got to be kidding. He's targeting me?" Shanks muttered under his breath.
Even so, his response was immediate. Conqueror's Haki coiled around Gryphon as he swung it straight at Ortoren.
The slash was razor-sharp, black lightning crackling along its edge. Wrapped in Conqueror's Haki, it felt as though it could cleave space itself apart. Ortoren didn't dodge.
Instead, he charged straight into it.
He spread his arms wide behind him, gathering momentum, and slammed forward headfirst.
That's right. He didn't even try to block with his arms. He went in with his head.
The next instant, Gryphon and the horns atop Ortoren's head clashed from less than half a meter apart. A violent collision of Conqueror's Haki erupted. The dark clouds overhead were torn apart in an instant, shredded by the overwhelming pressure.
The resulting shockwave swallowed everything around them, flattening an area hundreds of meters wide. Even the ground itself was peeled away, stripped down layer by layer.
The shockwave tore through the entirety of Hachinosu and surged toward the surrounding seas. Ships in the harbor were flipped over, one after another. The ocean itself seemed unable to withstand the pressure, its surface dropping three to four meters in an instant.
The displaced seawater was driven outward with the shockwave, rapidly converging and churning into a massive tsunami that spread in every direction.
This was a clash between top-tier Conqueror's Haki.
Just as the tsunami was about to engulf the warships, Issho drew his staff-blade. A brutal gravitational force poured forth, forcibly pressing the waves down and shielding the Marine fleet.
All of this happened in only three to five seconds.
Shanks's face was flushed red, his arms trembling. A fierce glint flashed in his eyes, but it was obvious he was running out of strength.
The next moment, the pressure shattered.
Ortoren's horn slammed into Gryphon, and the sheer, unreasonable force sent the sword flying from Shanks's grasp.
There was no time to dodge. As the blade left his hand, Shanks crossed his arms in front of his chest, Haki surging as he braced himself.
Then he was sent flying by Ortoren's headlong charge.
He didn't fly far, only a few dozen meters, because he was driven along the ground. When he hit, the earth shattered beneath him. His body rolled like a drum for another forty or fifty meters, carving a deep trench before finally coming to a stop.
Ortoren gave him no chance to recover.
The instant Shanks halted, Ortoren charged again, barreling forward like an enraged bull.
Shanks tried to evade, but it was already too late. His arms trembled. That last impact had already caused fractures in his arm bones and crushed two of his ribs.
At that moment, Silver Axe stepped in front of him.
They had finally gotten a powerful ally, and one who clearly leaned toward overwhelming offense over defense. There was no way he could let Ortoren erase him in a single hit.
Silver Axe stood firm, his hands empty, his signature battle axe nowhere to be seen.
"Don't underestimate me, you bastard!!!"
With that roar, his already massive frame swelled even further, now rivaling Ortoren's size.
Thick steam poured off his body, his eyes bloodshot and blazing red.
As Ortoren crashed toward him, Silver Axe thrust both arms forward and grabbed the twin horns atop Ortoren's head.
Boom!
The violent force of their collision sent Shanks flying away. Silver Axe's feet slid backward as Ortoren continued to drive forward, pushing him more than ten meters across the ground.
That distance alone forced Silver Axe's legs straight into the earth, burying them up to his knees.
The entire island shook incessantly.
It was a terrifying display of what happened when two monsters of pure strength collided head-on.