Saint Jaygarcia Saturn's broken legs had already regrown, his eerie healing ability making it clear that this fight was going to be far more difficult than they had imagined. Kyle and Mihawk stood back-to-back, feeling the immense pressure from all directions, so heavy it felt like space itself was about to collapse.
"Oi, getting scared, Hawkeye?" Kyle's voice was light, a hint of a taunt in it, breaking the suffocating silence.
Mihawk didn't answer. He simply lowered the blade of his Black Sword, Yoru, and tightened his grip on the hilt. His knuckles turned white. No words were needed. For the World's Strongest Swordsman, action was the only answer that mattered. To retreat even a single step out of fear would be to tarnish his title and abandon his ambition.
"Hahahahaha!" Kyle's boisterous laughter echoed across the battlefield, unafraid of the five monsters encircling them. "Then stay focused! That old swordsman with the Shodai Kitetsu is all yours!" he declared. "As for the other four… I'll handle them!"
The moment he finished speaking, they both moved.
Mihawk shot forward like a pitch-black arrow, heading straight for Saint Ethanbaron V. Nusjuro. But Kyle was even faster. He appeared in front of Nusjuro in an instant, blocking Mihawk's path. He didn't draw his weapon. Instead, his right fist was clenched tight, Haki and the power of his shockwaves concentrated into a single point.
"Fist Bone: Galactic Impact!"
He unleashed a punch with devastating force. A crimson cross of light bloomed from his fist, transforming into a destructive torrent that slammed directly into Nusjuro. Guess getting chased by old man Garp for years paid off in a few ways, Kyle thought.
Nusjuro's eyes widened, shocked that Kyle had targeted him. He quickly brought his sword up to block, and the Shodai Kitetsu met the crimson blast with a deafening crash.
"Boom—!"
An unstoppable force surged through the blade. Nusjuro was sent flying backward like a cannonball, disappearing into the sky a thousand meters away. Before he could even stabilize himself, a sharp, black blade was upon him. Hawkeye Mihawk had already caught up. The two greatest swordsmen in the world began their fated duel on the Red Line, their clashing blades tearing the sky apart.
Back on the main battlefield, the situation had become four against one. The Houki, the Sandworm, the Ushi-Oni, and the Itsumade surrounded Kyle.
"Come on, you old monsters!" Kyle roared, raising his black-gold naginata, Nidhogg, to the sky. "All-Encompassing Collapse: Divine Naginata!"
The sky itself seemed to answer his call. The fire-lit night was instantly swallowed by dark clouds, and a colossal black vortex began to spin wildly above them. In the center of the vortex, a spear made of pure lightning slowly took form.
The divine punishment descended. The spear exploded into hundreds of thousands of lightning dragons that danced wildly as they rained down from the sky, turning the area for hundreds of meters below into a sea of death.
Even the Five Elders didn't dare to face such a world-ending attack head-on. Saint Topman Warcury roared as his massive boar body moved with surprising speed to dodge. Saint Marcus Mars's wings beat once, and he shot into the sky as a streak of black flame. Saint Shepherd Ju Peter was even more direct, his sandworm body instantly burrowing into the ground and disappearing.
Only Saint Saturn, who was either too slow or too confident in his healing, simply raised his pincers to protect his head and took the full force of several lightning dragons.
"Zzzzz—!"
Electric currents coursed over his body. Even with Armament Haki for protection, the terrifying voltage made him tremble violently. The beard he was so proud of was burned black, smelling of burnt protein. Saturn was furious. His eyes glowed with a fierce, red light.
Just as Kyle was about to press his attack, a tearing pain exploded in his head, as if a thousand needles were being stabbed into his brain.
"Ugh!" He grunted, his vision spinning as he staggered in mid-air.
It was the only opening they needed. Saint Warcury seized the chance, his massive body becoming a black meteor. His two enormous, gleaming tusks slammed savagely into Kyle's chest.
"Pfft!"
Kyle felt his ribs crack as he coughed up a mouthful of blood and was sent flying. Before he could recover, the sky above him went dark. Saint Mars shrieked as he dove down, his sharp claws wrapped in black flames, aiming straight for Kyle's head.
Enduring the pain in his head and chest, Kyle roared and swung his naginata to meet the claws.
"Clang!"
The recoil slammed him downward like a stone. And waiting directly below, Saint Ju Peter had already opened his bottomless maw. The ground split open, and a giant, circular mouth filled with rings of sharp teeth erupted, swallowing Kyle whole before he could react.
The world went dark.
Saint Ju Peter's massive sandworm body wriggled on the ground, seemingly satisfied. But a second later, its body went stiff. A brilliant, circular line of light suddenly ignited around its midsection.
"Die—for—me—!"
A rage-filled roar erupted from inside the sandworm's body.
"Puchi—!"
With that roar, Saint Ju Peter's colossal body was sliced completely in half by the blade of light from within. Foul-smelling blood and organs rained down as Kyle, soaked in blood, burst out from the severed body.
He hovered in the air, gasping for breath, his golden eyes burning with a fury he had never known. A gruesome wound on his chest was so deep you could see the bone, and his entire body was covered in corrosive digestive fluids.
In the sky, Mars circled. On the ground, Warcury and Saturn watched him, ready to strike. The two halves of Ju Peter's body were already wriggling, trying to reconnect.
Kyle slowly raised his head, a strange, bloody smile spreading across his face. He lifted his left hand and formed a peculiar hand seal.
"Domain Expansion."
His voice was quiet, but it carried the weight of an absolute declaration.
"Silence."
Buzz—
There was no world-shattering roar, no blinding light. The moment Kyle's voice faded, the world simply… disappeared.
Sound vanished. Light vanished. The heat from the flames, the flow of the air, even the subtle vibrations of space itself—every form of "wave" was instantly and completely erased by an incomprehensible power. A domain of absolute stillness, absolute darkness, and absolute silence had descended upon the Red Line.
From the outside, it looked as if a perfect black sphere thousands of meters wide had appeared from nowhere, silently swallowing all light and sound.
But inside the domain, time itself seemed to have stopped. Saint Warcury was frozen mid-charge. Saint Mars was stuck in his dive. The look of shock on Saint Saturn's face was permanently fixed. They lost their senses. They couldn't see, couldn't hear, couldn't feel anything. Their very thoughts seemed to be trapped in an eternal void.
In this new world, everything came to a halt.
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