"Boom!!!"
A kilometer away, an overwhelming, domineering aura erupted into the sky. The shockwave swept across the battlefield, lifting the black hair over Ryoma's forehead.
In the blinding radiance, Rocks stood tall and oppressive. The injuries Ryoma had struck moments earlier knit themselves back together at a speed visible to the naked eye.
An instant later—so fast it felt like teleportation—Rocks reappeared directly in front of him, moving with a velocity that even Ryoma found unexpected.
Rocks's long hair floated in the windless air, his expression blank, his eyes crackling with golden electricity.
"You used some kind of secret technique to boost your power," Ryoma said calmly.
"That's right," Rocks replied without hesitation. "I didn't expect anyone in this world to force me to rely on this technique."
His voice deepened. "No point wasting time. Let's fight to our heart's content. Today, only one of us walks away alive."
Rocks's technique, Ryoma knew, consumed life force itself to draw out unnatural power. Every second mattered.
Ryoma's pupils tightened—his ocular technique revealing the truth behind Rocks's power. Even so, he had no intention of exploiting the weakness.
He wanted to defeat Rocks at his peak, on equal terms, to grant him the dignity befitting a true warrior.
This was Ryoma's final respect for the legend named Rocks.
He reached down, pulled Vice Admiral Tsuru's Taiser sword from the shattered ground, and raised it before him.
"Come."
Rocks blinked, surprised—then burst into wild laughter.
"You want to duel me with swordsmanship? Interesting. Hahaha!"
He had half-expected Ryoma to use that strange technique again, not a straightforward blade-to-blade duel.
"Fine! Let's make this the greatest battle of our lives!"
Rocks swung his blade through the air, and the sound was like thunder exploding beside Ryoma's ears.
"Use your blood to establish my royal path!"
From the direction of Rocks's swing, the forest and mountains split open—an enormous corridor nearly a kilometer long cleaved through the terrain. Everything touched by the sword aura within 100 meters disintegrated into powder, scattering like dust.
Ryoma intercepted the incoming sword force mid-air, diverting it downward. The shockwave struck the battlefield several kilometers away, where Marines and pirates were still clashing—instantly obliterating them in a violent blast of sword energy.
Rocks shot toward him like a fighter jet, blades crossing in a flash.
Two white streaks ripped through the sky. A mountain tens of meters tall was severed cleanly in half, its upper portion tilting and falling with a deafening crash.
Their battlefield shifted with each exchange, and within seconds they were fighting more than ten kilometers from where the clash began. Everywhere they passed, the structures once owned by the Celestial Dragons were shredded into ruins by the sweeping sword qi.
Neither of them spoke.
Partly because they were moving too fast—opening their mouths would only let the roaring wind flood in.
But more importantly, every intention, every challenge, every conviction was expressed through the colliding blades.
The sky roared as though thousands of thunderclaps erupted together. Sword light and afterimages filled the void, too dense to track.
Each step they took, each swing they made, unleashed a devastating shockwave.
The ringing of clashing steel intertwined with bursts of violent energy, forming a symphony known as Destruction.
Ryoma and Rocks continued their relentless duel—traversing nearly a hundred kilometers in a single minute.
The air split apart as Ryoma's sword cleaved toward Rocks in the distance. At first glance it looked like a single strike—yet in the very next instant, the space around Rocks was swallowed by a storm of sword light.
Countless white shockwaves, visible even to the naked eye, erupted in all directions. And yet, no sound accompanied them.
Only a heartbeat later did the sound catch up.
A deafening thunderclap exploded beside Rocks's ears—Ryoma's slash had surpassed the speed of sound, leaving only silent flashes before the roaring impact arrived.
"Swoosh—"
Within a ten-kilometer radius, entire mountain ranges were severed cleanly through the air.
The ground quaked violently. Blades of compressed wind carved the earth apart, uprooting forests and launching trees skyward. Rivers burst upward in spiraling columns of water, and soil and shattered stone ascended in a massive plume.
Within the eye of the storm, everything around Rocks was pulverized. The ground beneath him was flayed layer by layer beneath the relentless bombardment of sword qi, sinking at a speed visible even from afar.
Dozens of seconds dragged by.
Inside the enormous crater, Rocks finally let out a muffled groan. Blood spilled from his lips as he collapsed into a half-kneeling position.
His body began to change rapidly—his black hair bleaching to ash gray in moments. His face wrinkled and sagged, aging years in seconds. The once-towering physique shriveled into that of a frail old man who seemed barely capable of lifting a finger.
He had exhausted every last drop of life force. His flame had burned too brightly—and burned out.
"Here," Rocks rasped, raising his clouded gaze to Ryoma. "Give me the final blow."
Even after burning his life away, he had still been unable to defeat Ryoma. His pride had already been shattered.
"The law of the jungle… the strong survive," Rocks whispered. "Give me a clean end."
Ryoma said nothing.
He simply raised his blade—and swung.
A colossal arc of sword light engulfed Rocks. This time, he offered no resistance. His frail body was instantly consumed, reduced to drifting powder by the raging storm of sword qi.
Boom.
Ryoma drove Rocks's saber into the ground where he had kneeled.
"This will be your grave."
He turned to leave—but his keen hearing caught the distant cries of several Marine soldiers.
"It's reinforcements from headquarters!"
"Haha! The Navy will claim victory after all!"
Before they could say another word, Ryoma appeared in front of them and snapped their necks in a single motion.
Then, narrowing his eyes at the more than ten approaching Marine warships, he felt the flicker of killing intent sharpen within him.
He stepped forward—and instantly materialized high above the nearest battleship. Susanoo erupted around him, its titanic form manifesting once more. A massive hand descended and seized the entire vessel.
Dozens of Marines panicked and opened fire—muskets, rifles, Devil Fruit abilities, even bursts of Haki-powered attacks.
None of it mattered.
Their attacks couldn't pierce Susanoo's armor. They couldn't even make Ryoma glance in their direction.
Susanoo lifted the warship into the air with ease.
Then Ryoma tossed the tens-of-tons vessel like a toy toward another ship several dozen meters away.
Boom—!!!
The two massive ships collided in an earth-shaking explosion. The resulting shockwave hurled waves tens of meters high across the sea. The Marines aboard screamed and struggled, but their fate was sealed—they were crushed instantly.
Ryoma vanished again.
Moments later, another warship exploded.
And another.
And another.
One by one, the entire naval support fleet was obliterated. To the helpless soldiers, Ryoma did not resemble a man—only a god of destruction.
In under ten seconds, every battleship sent by Marine Headquarters had been completely erased.
The Valley of the Gods fell silent at last—a silence the island had never known.
Ryoma hovered in the sky, gazing down at the shrinking island.
"It's time to return."
The dimensional gate opened above him once more.
This excursion had not been meaningless. The stone slab and metal sphere he had acquired from the Celestial Dragons were still mysterious, but he had a feeling they would become important the next time he visited the Pirate World.
—
No one knew how long it took before Garp, Roger, and the others finally woke from their unconscious state.
They looked upon the devastated island—the countless corpses, the shattered warship remains drifting on the ocean, and Rocks's absence. Only a lone combat knife remained, embedded in the cliff like a silent marker.
Garp exhaled slowly.
They understood: Rocks was dead.
The Valley of the Gods incident had obliterated the entire Rocks Pirates. After the battle, the Golden Lion, Whitebeard, Big Mom, and Kaido all departed silently, leaving without a word.
The Roger Pirates accomplished their goal of eliminating the Rocks Pirates—but many members of their crew had died.
The Navy suffered far worse. The Celestial Dragons they were meant to protect had all perished. The Road Poneglyph and the Ancient Weapon Uranus had been taken away. Except for top-level figures like Garp, Tsuru, and Zephyr, the entire supporting force had been annihilated.
It was a stain the Navy would try to bury for the next decade—desperately rewriting history to conceal the shame of that day.
Their efforts succeeded, but even so…
A legend spread among the people.
A tale of a warrior called "War God Ryoma."
And that legend swept across the world.
—
At that very moment, Ryoma had already returned to the Naruto world.
He intended to use Orochimaru's laboratory to analyze the stone slab and metal sphere.
The metal sphere…
It should be a crucial component of Uranus, the Heavenly King, from the One Piece world.
As for the stone slab—
He hoped it held secrets he could decipher.
Ryoma was inside Orochimaru's laboratory, calling up one experimental apparatus after another. Orochimaru watched him with a mixture of curiosity and fascination.
Ever since their first meeting, this "Fourth Hokage" had repeatedly shattered Orochimaru's expectations. At first, Orochimaru had felt a sense of rivalry—a desire to compare himself with Ryoma, to measure power against power, talent against talent.
But that feeling vanished long ago.
After witnessing Ryoma's overwhelming ability firsthand—abilities that defied every known limit—Orochimaru found that rivalry meaningless.
There are some people in this world who cannot be surpassed, no matter how hard you try.
And trying to chase someone like that endlessly…
Orochimaru realized it would only bore himself.
...
TN:
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