Cold sweat broke out on Garp's forehead.
He knew White Night's terror.
In the instance world, he had witnessed powers that defied common sense.
And White Night was the one who could control those powers.
Kizaru pushed up his sunglasses.
His instincts were screaming wildly.
It was an instinct of a strong person.
Telling him that if they continued to fight, he would die.
Dragon's pupils constricted slightly.
He came here to seek the power to overturn the world.
And now, he saw it.
The source of that power stood before him.
The two exchanged glances.
Both saw the same meaning in each other's eyes.
Let Shiki test him.
This brute could be used to probe White Night's limits.
Above the sky.
Golden Lion Shiki's smile froze.
He lowered his head, and for the first time, a hint of confusion appeared in his domineering and arrogant eyes.
What's going on?
Why did these three stop?
His gaze swept over Garp, over Kizaru, over Dragon.
Then, it landed on White Night, who had a calm expression.
Is it this kid?
The Golden Lion narrowed his eyes.
He felt something was off.
But soon, this feeling of unease was thrown to the back of his mind.
The Great Ship Steering Wheel started working, and his clever intelligence once again descended from the high ground.
Jie hahahaha!
The wild laughter rang out again.
The Golden Lion spread his arms, and the smoke from his cigar drifted around his mouth.
"Where did this kid come from!"
"Your territory?"
His voice was full of mockery and disdain.
"Do you know who I am? I am the Golden Lion!"
"The entire sea is my territory!"
Before he finished speaking.
He swung his hand violently!
Rumble—!
The sea surface exploded.
A thick water column shot up into the sky, and under the Golden Lion's control, it transformed into a ferocious lion, roaring as it pounced towards White Night!
The water column was dozens of meters thick, carrying a terrifying impact, as if it wanted to crush everything into dust!
But White Night still stood in place.
He raised his eyelids and glanced at the whistling water column.
Then he sighed.
"Seriously."
"Do you know who I am?"
He raised his hand and rubbed his forehead.
"One after another, it seems it's time to set some rules. A god should have a god's demeanor!"
His voice was very calm.
So calm it was chilling.
"Otherwise, any random cat or dog would think I'm easy to bully."
White Night just raised his head, his calm gaze passing over the ferocious water lion, landing on the Golden Lion who was laughing incessantly ten thousand meters in the sky.
He smiled and said softly.
"Also."
"I hate it when others stand above me the most."
Before he finished speaking.
He slowly raised his right hand.
There was no earth-shattering aura, no dazzling light.
There was only pure, utterly profound... darkness.
A pitch-black Uzumaki quietly appeared and spun in his palm.
Light, upon touching the edge of that darkness, was twisted, devoured, and vanished without a trace.
The surrounding air seemed to be collapsing towards that tiny Uzumaki.
The roaring giant sea lion crashed into that darkness.
There was no explosion.
No roar.
Not even a single splash of water.
That behemoth, capable of destroying everything, was silently devoured the moment it touched the darkness in White Night's palm, as if it had never existed.
High above, Golden Lion Shiki's wild laughter finally stopped.
He stared intently at the light-distorting darkness in White Night's palm, first with extreme shock, and then that shock transformed into an even more pathological greed and fanaticism!
"Dark-Dark Fruit!"
"Kid, do you think obtaining a powerful Logia-type Devil Fruit makes you invincible?"
"Too naive! In this New World, Devil Fruit users are as common as cattle, only Haki is the power that transcends everything else!"
"Let me show you what true Haoshoku aptitude is!"
The moment the words fell!
Boom—!
An invisible will, like the collapse of the sky, pressed down fiercely!
The air was wailing, the sea was trembling!
Centered on the Golden Lion, a visible black lightning spread wildly in all directions. That was not real lightning, but the manifestation of Conqueror's Haki being so powerful that it interfered with reality!
All the weaklings in this sea area would be terrified to their core and foam at the mouth, fainting instantly.
This was the pressure belonging to a legendary Great Pirate! It was the king's spirit that once contended with Roger and Whitebeard!
Garp, Kizaru, and Dragon all grunted simultaneously, each releasing their own Haki to resist and stabilize themselves.
However, White Night, at the center of the storm, didn't even move a corner of his clothes.
He didn't even look at the Conqueror's Haki that swept in like a tsunami; he just looked up, watching the Golden Lion in the sky with interest.
He smiled.
"Haki?"
White Night spoke softly, his voice not loud, but it clearly reached the ears of everyone present.
"Are you talking about this kind of thing?"
The next moment.
The world lost its sound.
No warning, no process.
A will that could not be described in words surged up from White Night's body!
If the Golden Lion's Haoshoku was a black storm sweeping everything, then White Night's will was the eternal, dead silence of deep space, encompassing the entire universe!
What kind of scene was that?
Sound disappeared.
The roar of the wind, the howl of the waves, the Golden Lion's arrogant laughter, everything, all of it, was completely erased the moment White Night's will ascended.
The entire world seemed to be dragged into a deep space of absolute silence.
Garp, Kizaru, and Dragon, three of the strongest individuals standing at the pinnacle of the world, simultaneously stiffened at this moment.
This is Conqueror's Haki!!!
How is this possible!
Even they, being in it, felt a suffocating pressure like falling into the deep sea.
This power had already exceeded the scope of Haki, resembling more a force of rules.
This was the pressure brought by the fusion of all powers within White Night.
Just as the sun rises, darkness must retreat.
Just as gravity exists, all things must fall.
The veins on Garp's forehead bulged one by one, and his proud iron fist, for the first time, trembled slightly uncontrollably.
He felt as if he wasn't standing on a reef, but carrying an entire starry sky on his back!
That power didn't target him; its mere existence made him, a marine hero who had traversed the seas for decades, feel a sense of insignificance!
This feeling... he recalled that unintentional gaze in the instance.
No!
That gaze in the instance was far less intense than this.
The pressure before him was purer, more... incomprehensible!
"Kowai ne..."
For the first time, Kizaru's sunglasses couldn't hide the violent contraction in his pupils.
He felt that his body could no longer elementize normally. Since eating the Glint-Glint Fruit, he hadn't felt his body so heavy in a long time.
He could feel it,
Light was being devoured and twisted by that profound will!
He even had an absurd feeling that with just a thought from White Night, his tiny spark would be completely obliterated!
"This... is..."
Dragon's Adam's apple bobbed with difficulty. The strong winds gathered around him were now as docile as a house cat, without a trace of their former ferocity.
This was not a power that humans could possess!
If Haoshoku represented the aptitude to become a king, then White Night's will was the will of a god.
They were merely observers, and yet it was already like this.
What was Golden Lion Shiki, at the very center of that storm of will, enduring?