"Hehehe." Silver Axe coldly laughed after hearing Kaido's words. "Not a bad suggestion, Kaido. It just doesn't sound like something a decent person would do. But... we're pirates! Hahahaha! Pirates do whatever they want!"
Whitebeard turned his head with suspicion and looked at Silver Axe beside him.
Compared to whether they ganged up on Harald or not, he felt that was not very important. The important thing was: had Silver Axe been possessed? Since when could he and Kaido stand together laughing and joking?
"Hey, Silver Axe," Whitebeard suddenly said.
Silver Axe turned his head slightly. "What is it, Newgate?"
After a brief pause, he added, "Don't tell me you have some opinion about ganging up on him."
"Idiot." Whitebeard's voice was low. "If you're plotting something, I won't let you off."
"Hah? What are you talking about... wait, are you threatening me, Newgate?" Silver Axe snorted unhappily.
Whitebeard ignored him and turned his gaze back to Harald.
"Fine."
Harald was very satisfied with Ron's proposal. He even felt pleased, as if Ron had walked into a trap by himself.
He turned to Rocks not far away. "You shouldn't have any objections, right, Rocks?"
"Of course I have no objections," Rocks's voice drifted over. "Just don't complain later."
Rocks trusted Ron a great deal.
That guy was sharper than anyone and cherished his life more than anyone. He never did anything without confidence.
Trying to take advantage of him was harder than climbing into the sky.
Harald's lips rose slightly. He felt Rocks should save those words for himself.
After Ron's three moves, Harald would unleash his strongest strike.
With that strike, he would kill Ron completely.
As for what happened after Ron died, Harald firmly believed that with Rocks's personality, he could only accept the loss.
Rocks, oh Rocks. As pirates, you are too naive. How can people this naive possibly fight the World Government? Not dragging all of Elbaf along on your gamble was absolutely the right decision.
"Come at me once you're ready!" Harald sank his center of gravity and entered a defensive stance. His giant sword stood horizontally in front of him, and Haki rose around him like flames.
The corner of Ron's mouth lifted. In the next second, dazzling golden chakra burst from his body, shining through the snowstorm like a sun rising from the ground.
Immediately after, a golden Nine-Tailed Fox even larger than Harald rose from the ground. Its nine enormous tails unfurled behind it, blocking out the sky.
Whitebeard, Silver Axe, and Kaido were also pulled into the golden Nine-Tails' body.
Compared with Whitebeard and Kaido, Silver Axe, who entered this space for the first time, was clearly shocked.
He looked around. His gaze landed on the flowing golden chakra walls around him, and his tone carried a kind of incredulous 'this is allowed too?' disbelief. "What... what is this? You can even bring people inside?"
"Making a fuss over nothing." Kaido snorted, lifting his head high with an expression that said Silver Axe had never seen the world.
"Harald is strong," Whitebeard said with some concern. "Ron, do you have a way to deal with him?"
"Newgate, what are you worried about?" Silver Axe answered seriously. "We're pirates. Pirates do whatever they want. After the three moves, we gang up on him!"
"Exactly!" Kaido agreed strongly, even raising a thumb toward Silver Axe.
Whitebeard frowned slightly at these two who had suddenly become so in sync. He sighed inwardly. It's over. Silver Axe had learned every sinister trick.
If he used them on enemies, fine. But if he used them on allies... tch, shedding one layer of skin would not be enough.
"I know what I'm doing, Newgate," Ron's voice came from ahead.
From the body of the golden Nine-Tails, countless chakra arms suddenly stretched out. Every two hands formed a pair, palms facing each other as they began condensing dark-red Tailed Beast Bombs.
At the same time, the golden fox opened its giant mouth. In front of it, an energy mass appeared from thin air and rapidly gathered. In just a blink, it expanded from a small point, growing larger and larger until it soon surpassed the golden Nine-Tails itself, hanging in the snowstorm like a dark-red moon.
Harald, who had shown little reaction at first, suddenly contracted his pupils when he saw this incomparably huge Tailed Beast Bomb.
His gaze subconsciously glanced toward where Rocks had been standing - only to find that Rocks had already run far away.
"..."
Harald took a deep breath. "Hmph. Then let me see whether it's all for show! Ron, come as you please!"
"Harald, as a giant, eating a giant-sized Tailed Beast Bomb is very normal."
The instant those words fell, the dark-red energy sphere, larger than the golden Nine-Tails itself, shot forward from the fox's mouth with the momentum to crush everything.
Whoosh!
A howling sound resounded throughout the Underworld, like an ancient beast waking and roaring at the sky.
Where the energy sphere passed, the air was scorched into twisting ripples, and the ground was plowed into a deep, wide trench by the airflow.
Facing the incoming Tailed Beast Bomb, Harald did not retreat.
He gripped his giant sword with both hands. Haki surged into the blade like boiling magma, black patterns spreading along the edge while dark-red arcs of lightning danced in the snowstorm.
He clenched his teeth, planted his feet deep into the ground, and stood like a mountain bearing a storm - heavy, stubborn, unwilling to retreat a single step.
Then he swung his sword.
Dong!
A deep impact exploded in the sky above the Underworld, like a great bell shattering.
At that instant, a blinding white light burst from the collision point, like a second sun rising in the Underworld. Its radiance swallowed the outline of everything nearby into pure white.
The world fell quiet in that moment.
It was as if time froze. The sound of the wind vanished. The falling snow went silent. Even the distant aftershock seemed to have been pressed under pause.
The entire world sank into an almost solid stillness. That silence was more deafening than any thunder, like the world holding its last breath before an explosion.
That state lasted less than a second.
Boom!!!
The instant silence shattered, heaven and earth were filled with a roar far beyond thunder.
At the center of the explosion, the ground turned to dust, spreading outward at a speed the naked eye could not follow.
Stone, snow, trees, earth - everything was stripped away, crushed, and vaporized the moment it touched the shockwave.
A massive mushroom cloud rose into the sky, carrying shattered stone, ash, and scalding waves of air straight toward the Sun World.
At the core of the explosion, that enormous figure was disappearing bit by bit.
Harald's body was like weathered sand. It started from his fingertips, then his arms, then his shoulders. Every inch of skin turned into visible dust, scattering into the shockwave.