"Thorn Serpent!"
A ripple of killing intent cut across the square. A serpent woven from bristling thorns surged for the scaffold, shedding a forest of barbs wherever it slid.
Dimon glanced over—its fangs aimed at Roger, not him. Future-sight blinked; the vision arrived on time.
"What in the—?"
Roger caught the serpent's skull with one palm—then hissed as lances of thorn burst outward, pinning his hand.
A sneer drifted over the growing briars. "Idiot. That's all thorns."
Somaz Saint strode through his blooming hell. At once the ground seethed; a thousand spikes speared for Roger. He slipped between them on instinct and future-sight, tearing free as flesh sealed itself an instant later.
"Zephyr—Roger is the target. You stop Dimon!" Sengoku snapped, dropping to help box Roger in.
"Understood."
Zephyr kicked off the shattered masonry, body a coiled spring rocketing skyward.
"Armament—Hardening!"
Both fists went ink-black. The first blow arrived with the weight of a collapsing peak.
Dimon raised an arm. Impact thundered. He cratered the flagstones half a meter deep before the shock died.
Zephyr landed in front of him, tendons cording, mouth quirking. "What's wrong? Weren't you here to extract Roger? You don't pass me, you pass no one."
He rolled a shoulder. "While we're at it—your wine. It made me undying. Stronger, too."
A quick, flinty smile. "I wasn't born a prodigy. Not like Sengoku. Can't grind like Garp. I was twenty-eight before 'private' and learned Rokushiki late. In Year 86, I finally made admiral. Thought that was my ceiling." He tipped his chin. "Then two years ago, your bottle appeared. I'm grateful, brewer."
Dimon dusted his sleeve, mild as drizzle. "Don't mention it. Equivalent exchange—your side paid."
Undying fixes the body at an age, but it doesn't cap growth. Life-force is Armament's root; make the fire inexhaustible and the Haki only burns hotter.
"And you've burned far," Dimon said, almost approving. "By my measure, your Armament has stepped into Layer Four."
"Layer… four?" Zephyr blinked. Haki had layers?
Dimon counted them off, unhurried:
"First—rudiments. An invisible shell on skin or steel.
Second—true Hardening; jet-black gloss, strike and guard both spiking.
Third—advanced flow: outer release, internal destruction; Wano calls it 'Ryuo.'
Fourth—projection, wave-form blasts. A Garp punch, thrown like a bomb."
Zephyr nodded despite himself. "Fair. On today's seas, the strongest Armament still belongs to Garp."
Dimon smiled and leveled a finger at Zephyr's heart. "No. The strongest belongs to me."
His fingertip hummed. Black lightning caged itself to a pinprick—then swelled into a bead of night.
"This is Layer Five—a limit-break born of Armament."
Zephyr's pupils tightened. A pressure he'd never felt before gnawed at the ribs.
"Limit-Break Art — HAKI FLASH."
The bead dilated to a hand-wide disc—then thumped.
A column of black light roared out, Armament compressed to a laser—clean, merciless, and straight. It ate Zephyr's upper body in a single bite and kept going, boring a round tunnel through roofs, walls, and city blocks until it punched the horizon and stitched a dark needle-trail across the sea.
For three hanging seconds no one breathed.
What remained of Zephyr—legs and hips—stood wobbling as blood hissed from a smoking seam. Far downtown, dust rose along a ruler-straight absence where matter had simply… ceased.
Sengoku, Roger, and Somaz all froze mid-swing.
"W-what move is that!?" Somaz squeaked, drenched in cold sweat. "How can Armament… be that strong? It's worse than Garp!"
Sengoku's eyes were flint. On the ruin of the scaffold, flesh began to braid itself up Zephyr's waist—agonizingly slow. Even immortality struggled to rebuild what had been erased.
Roger whistled low. "Now that's a king's gulf. A true admiral—one-shotted."
Dimon flexed his finger, satisfied. Rox could erase an admiral in one stroke. So can I.
He flicked a glance at Roger. You? Tch… not yet.
Across the square, Sengoku set his jaw and stepped forward, Buddha's shadow looming—
—and the air behind Dimon winced. A thin, clinical killing intent—needle-fine—threaded through the roar of the crowd, snapping straight for the back of the "child's" neck.
From a rooftop sightline, a black-gloved hand finished squeezing a trigger.
A whispering round—coated in something not quite Haki, not quite poison—cut through the world like a silent verdict.
Cliff-edge hung.
Would the Limit-Breaker turn in time?
◇ I'll be dropping one bonus chapters for every 10 reviews.
◇ One bonus chapter will be released for every 100 Power Stones.
◇ You can read the ahead chapter on P@treon if you're interested:
patreon.com/MugiwaraTL