"How… how is this possible? They were all dead!"
Shiki's eyes trembled.
It wasn't new monsters attacking him—those were the same ten familiar bandage humanoids again.
What's worse, Shiki realized the one that had wounded him was the largest of the very batch he'd supposedly killed.
Monsters he'd already slain had reappeared and, to his horror, dealt damage to him. A nameless darkness seemed to close over Shiki—unyielding and inescapable.
"Shiki, is now the time to be spacing out?"
Suddenly Whiteflame's voice came from above.
Shiki shot his head up—and a massive elephant hoof slammed down toward his crown!
"Damn it!!"
Shiki's pupils shrank. It was too late to run; the hoof fell with such speed there was no time to escape. The only options were to attack or to try and resist.
Shiki spun up the surrounding seawater, forming a roaring lion's head of water and sending it upward to block Whiteflame's blow.
He had wildly underestimated Whiteflame's strike.
Overwhelming force, Armament Haki of the highest grade, and the terrifying power of an awakened Mammoth-Elephant Fruit combined—how could Shiki hope to simply withstand that?
Boom!!!
The water-lion shattered without the slightest resistance.
The elephant hoof came down, crushing Shiki. He spat blood—his organs rocked; though he attempted to brace with Armament Haki, the impact was beyond what he could easily take. He was blasted like a cannonball and slammed into the sea.
Shiki sank into the water, coughing blood, broken and reeling in agony.
At his peak he might have managed to fight up a little strength and surface. Now he was gravely wounded—he couldn't even speak.
"Bring him up."
Whiteflame withdrew the elephant hoof and said calmly.
Two IBM hauled Shiki's battered, weakening body out of the water and dragged him before Whiteflame.
"You… who… are you?!" Shiki gasped.
"There aren't many strong men in these seas I don't know. I admit defeat—tell me your name! I won't lose to someone without renown!"
Even at the edge of death Shiki's arrogance didn't fully fade. If not for provoking Whiteflame, he might still have been the legendary terror who once nearly became Pirate King—feared by the World Government and the Marines alike.
Whiteflame stood before him, eyes cold.
"A dead man has no right to know my name," he said flatly.
"You—"
Shiki croaked, trying to lift his head. Whiteflame waved his hand and a thread, wrapped in high-level Armament Haki, sliced clean across Shiki's throat.
Blood spurted from the wound. Even in death Shiki's eyes remained open—he would not die with peace.
He could not imagine that the man who had ruled the Grand Line for so long—who had made the World Government shiver, who forced the Marines to yield, who had once stood toe-to-toe with Gol D. Roger and Whitebeard, and whose name alone intimidated countless pirates—would meet his end at the hands of an unknown pirate.
He could not close his eyes.
When Shiki's gaze finally dimmed and his last breath left him, the world took notice: the legend who had once roared across the seas with ambitions to swallow the world had vanished.
A peak battle in the Paradise—an epochal clash in the early Grand Line—quietly drew to its curtain.
"Shiki… he's dead…"
Monet stared, stunned, as Shiki's lifeless form slumped, and her breaths came shallow and rapid. This was no mere Warlord or Yonko commander—this was a legendary equal to the great overlords. To see him felled so humiliatingly by Whiteflame left her numb.
"Yay! Our benefactor won!" Rebecca jumped up, not thinking too deeply—she was just thrilled Whiteflame had defeated Shiki.
"Of course—my man wins!" Baby-5 said, beaming proudly.
Meanwhile, aboard Shiki's flying pirate ship, every pirate who had watched the duel via projection screens fell silent.
They'd been following the whole fight since Shiki first provoked Whiteflame. They'd assumed Shiki would win and had prepared to celebrate his return. No one expected that after the seawater fell, Whiteflame would remain unaffected, kick Shiki into the sea, and then cut his throat.
The ship's atmosphere froze.
"Don't just stand there! Start the engines—get us out of here! You want that monster hunting us down?!"
"This is a lie—such a powerful captain couldn't lose!"
"Who is that guy?! He killed Captain Shiki—this is a nightmare!"
"Shut up and run!!"
"Look! He's looking at us! Mom, I want to go home! I'm never gonna be a pirate again!!"
Chaos erupted in the flying ship.
All of them panicked—Shiki, their pillar of faith, had been killed by an unknown pirate. It was a reality too shocking to fathom.
At that moment—
Bang!
The sealed door exploded as a bandage-wrapped hand—huge and not exactly human—punched clean through the door handle.
Rumbling crashes followed until the whole door fell inward. Ten towering bandage-humanoids strode into the ship.
"Kill them all. Leave none."
Through the IBM, Whiteflame saw Shiki's crew staring in terror at the advancing monsters.
Whiteflame issued the command; the ten IBM flashed forward, their long, wicked claws tearing into the crowd like wolves among sheep—a merciless slaughter.
"Life energy limit reached. Boundary broken. Congratulations, you've gained +1 IBM. Current summonable IBM count: 21."
"Life energy limit reached. Boundary broken. Congratulations, you've gained +1 IBM. Current summonable IBM count: 22."
"Life energy limit reached. Boundary broken. Congratulations, you've gained +1 IBM. Current summonable IBM count: 23."
A hot surge coursed into Whiteflame; a great wave of energy flowed in and three IBM were added at once.
Those three new IBM had come, naturally, from Shiki.
Along with them came vast quantities of high-grade Armament Haki and Observation Haki—and even a rare crown of Conqueror's Haki.
Whiteflame didn't find this odd.
Who was Shiki?
A supremely powerful figure who'd dominated Roger's era—someone who'd placed himself above many greats. If such a person lacked Conqueror's Haki, that would be the real surprise.
Still, Shiki's Conqueror's was hardly overwhelming—sufficient to bully lesser pirates, but useless against someone already equal to him.
"This Armament and Observation are useful," Whiteflame murmured as he clenched his fist. His knuckles blackened, steel-cold, and just from coiling his aura he felt an incomparable force building in his fist.
At this moment, even a single punch from Whiteflame would have rendered Shiki senseless.
He glanced at Shiki's remains. The corpse had been picked clean by the IBM down to bare bones—only the two famed blades "Sakura-Jū" and "Withered Wood" remained to prove this skeleton had once been the man who terrorized the Grand Line.
"Time corrodes legends. It can strip everything away—even their lives."
Whiteflame produced a cigarette, lit it, inhaled deeply, and exhaled. Calm, nearly indifferent:
"If Shiki had been at his peak twenty years ago, he could've fought me. Even after learning of my immortality, he might've escaped. But twenty years change a lot—no matter how grand a legend once was."
"Benefactor—what do we do? Our ship's gone…" Rebecca sniffed, eyes wet with grievance.
When Shiki raised the ocean, the Nine Dragons had been caught within the tide. The ship was pummeled and left in tatters—no intact section remained.
"A ship? Is that what you mean?" Whiteflame looked up.
Rebecca and the other two looked and realized Whiteflame was pointing to Shiki's huge sky-island ship still hovering.
"Benefactor, is that going to be our ship from now on?" Rebecca wiped her eyes and brightened at once.
In an era when everyone sailed the sea, owning a massive ship that actually floated in the sky was the stuff of envy. It would be as conspicuous as a hovering car among congested streets—wherever it went people would scream and cheer.
"This is Shiki's gift to a rookie like me—accept it, grudgingly."
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