"Sulong!?" Newgate stared at Ortoren's current state, clearly taken aback.
It wasn't even dark yet, let alone a full moon. Was this even possible?
Seeing the surprise on Newgate's face, Ortoren curled his lips into a feral grin, sharp teeth bared.
"What's with that shocked look?"
"The Mink Tribe's Sulong… shouldn't be able to appear at a time like this," Newgate said quietly.
"Short-sighted," Ortoren replied coldly. "The transformation under a full moon is nothing more than a trigger. The fact that one can transform at all means the body already possesses this power. The reason a trigger is needed is simply because the power can't be controlled freely."
He looked straight at Newgate, his voice rising with restrained fury.
"And me? Do you have any idea how long this power, this mad blood inside me, has tormented me? Do you know how much effort I've poured into solving this problem?"
For a moment, Ortoren truly wanted to vent everything right there.
Do you know how many years I was plagued by this madness?
But he quickly forced that surge of anger back down.
The madness born from the fusion of the Charlotte family's blood and the Mink Tribe's Sulong had indeed haunted Ortoren for many years. Especially in his youth, when his strength was insufficient and his self-control incomplete, his emotions often spiraled out of control. Those years were memories he could barely bring himself to revisit.
In the first few years after joining the Marines, whenever the full moon drew near, his temper would become violently unstable. The mental pressure was immense, and he would lash out with raw aggression at the slightest provocation. Back then, quite a few of his comrades at Marine Headquarters had suffered under Ortoren's brutal fists.
Only later, as his strength increased and his control over himself improved, did he gradually suppress that agitation before the full moon. Even so, when the full moon arrived, it still caused trouble, robbing him of his rationality.
After so many years of training, and so many years of struggling against that madness, he had finally broken free of it.
Now, he had completely mastered the Sulong form.
Wasn't this something Ortoren had earned through his own effort?
Misfortune and fortune often walk hand in hand. What had once been a curse had now become the key that allowed him to reach the very end of power.
It might sound arrogant, but in this state, Ortoren was filled with absolute confidence. Across this entire sea, he truly believed there was no one stronger than him.
Having calmed his emotions, Ortoren raised his hand and grasped the flickering lightning in the air, speaking softly:
"No one stands at the top of the sea from the very beginning. Not me. Not you. Not even the gods, Newgate…"
By now, Newgate could clearly feel the overwhelming pressure radiating from Ortoren.
Strong. Incredibly strong.
Even as the man known as the strongest in the world, even after ruling the New World for so many years, Newgate had never felt such a chilling, suffocating sense of oppression from anyone.
Not Rocks. Not Roger. Not Shiki. No one.
It was as if the man standing before him now existed on an entirely different level, a kind of power he had never once encountered.
Newgate brought his mind, spirit, and will into perfect focus. Facing Ortoren in this moment, he didn't dare relax for even an instant, and so he remained silent.
On the other side, Ortoren clearly had no intention of waiting for Newgate's response. His expression was proud, his tone still calm as he continued:
"But the unbearable vacancy of the throne suspended above this sea is about to end. From this day on, I will stand in the heavens!"
As those words fell, Ortoren's gaze settled on Newgate. The arrogance faded from his face, replaced by a trace of admiration.
"And you, Whitebeard, Edward Newgate. As the former strongest, the last remnant of the old era, I will grant you sufficient honor. Be excited. Be thrilled. Accept this glory with gratitude. You will become the first person in this world to experience the true power of standing at the very peak!!!"
Ortoren was clearly getting a little carried away, putting on a show as he delivered this speech overflowing with over-the-top bravado.
...
In Totto Land, Charlotte Linlin, who had been watching the scene with a grave expression, froze for a moment. She turned to Rouge beside her and asked,
"Does he usually talk like this at home?"
Rouge looked extremely awkward and hurriedly shook her head.
"No, no, he's completely normal at home…"
"Mamamama… how interesting." Charlotte Linlin laughed, but her expression quickly sobered. A heavy look appeared in her eyes. "The end of power… the other shore?"
Charlotte Linlin knew very well how terrifying Ortoren's strength was. Even without entering his Sulong state, he was already one of the top-tier monsters on the sea.
Precisely because of that, her shock now ran even deeper.
A power described by someone of this level as "the end of strength," a so-called "other shore," a force said to stand above the heavens… just what kind of power was that?
She didn't have to wait long for the answer.
Because Ortoren made his move.
After finishing those grandiose words to Newgate, he seemed to steady his emotions for a brief moment.
Then he moved.
At that instant, no one watching through the screen could perceive Ortoren's speed at all. The footage was being transmitted through a live Den Den Mushi, so what Charlotte Linlin could see was limited to what its visual capture managed to record.
All she saw was the image freeze for a split second.
And then Ortoren was already standing in front of Whitebeard.
That was how it looked to Charlotte Linlin. On the battlefield, top-tier fighters occasionally burst out with speeds that exceeded the Den Den Mushi's ability to track, so she didn't feel a strong sense of immediacy.
But for Newgate, who was facing Ortoren head-on, it was a completely different story.
As mentioned before, his mind, spirit, and will were fully focused. There wasn't the slightest hint of carelessness.
Newgate knew very well just how fast Ortoren's lightning-based abilities could be. Yet in this moment, he couldn't catch even the faintest trace of Ortoren's movement.
It was as if Ortoren had been standing right in front of him all along.
That speed had already surpassed his ability to perceive.
And if his senses weren't mistaken, this wasn't speed granted by the Goro Goro no Mi at all.
It was speed born purely from Ortoren's own physical power.
Countless thoughts flashed through his mind, but reality unfolded in an instant.
By the time Ortoren reached Newgate, his punch was already on its way.
No unnecessary motions. No flourish.
Just a clean, direct, straightforward straight punch.
Because the movement was so simple, even though Newgate's eyes couldn't follow Ortoren, his body reacted on instinct.
His thick, powerful arms, wrapped in Conqueror's Haki and layered with dense tremor counterforce, crossed in front of his chest.
And as if he had been waiting for this exact response, the moment Newgate's arms came together, Ortoren's fist smashed directly into the crossing point.
First came the collapse of resistance.
In that instant, the surging power within Newgate was completely suppressed. His crossed arms failed to stop Ortoren's fist in the slightest and were instead driven violently backward, slamming into his own chest.
Next came the disintegration of the tremor force.
The counter-shock that should have neutralized massive power shattered instantly, causing the surrounding space itself to rupture.
Finally came the collapse of Haki.
The armor formed at peak condition, reinforced by Conqueror's Haki, was crushed completely under this single punch, like a fragile illusion.
It was as if, at that moment, there was no force in existence capable of stopping Ortoren's fist.
And because he experienced it firsthand, Newgate felt the terror of it more clearly than anyone.
This punch carried no extra elements.
It had nothing to do with lightning.
It didn't even use Haki.
It was pure, absolute power, born directly from Ortoren's body.
Boom!
The slowed sense of time snapped back to normal. The instant Newgate was struck, his feet tore free from the ground as that overwhelming, unstoppable force surged into his body. His arms crashed into his chest, arm bones cracking, ribs shattering.
"Kh—!"
A mouthful of foul blood burst out uncontrollably.
Then, for the first time ever, his towering figure was blasted away like a cannonball by a single punch, completely unstoppable.
In the blink of an eye, Newgate's body flew more than a kilometer across the battlefield, smashing through everything in its path before slamming violently into the volcano at the center of Aquino Island.
A deafening impact rang out, accompanied by a massive cloud of dust. For a moment, it felt as if even the volcano itself had nearly failed to withstand the blow.
The battlefield fell into silence.
Every pair of eyes was filled with shock, as if they had just witnessed something utterly inconceivable.
That wasn't some nameless fodder.
That was Whitebeard, the man hailed as the strongest.
And he had been sent flying over a kilometer by a single punch.
Sakazuki was perhaps the first on the battlefield to snap out of it. Instinctively, he looked toward the spot where Ortoren had been standing.
But Ortoren was already gone.
He had vanished.
Before Sakazuki could even react, a second explosion erupted from the volcano.
In the next instant, the towering, massive, imposing volcano was completely shattered.