Chapter 161: Mahapadma!
The subtle anxiety that had flickered in the depths of Shanks' eyes did not escape the predator before him. Instead of evoking sympathy, it twisted the beautiful features of General Esdeath into a sneer of sadistic delight.
She had found it. The crack in the Emperor's armor.
It wasn't a flaw in his swordsmanship, nor was it a weakness in his Haki. It was something far more fragile and exploitable: his bleeding heart for his comrades.
"Trying to leave? Do you really think I would allow my prey to look away?"
Esdeath's voice was like shattering glass, sharp and piercing through the howling wind.
In a heartbeat, the rhythm of the battle shifted. Esdeath abandoned her previous strategy of wide-range, catastrophic bombardment. There were no more meteors of ice descending from the heavens to crush armies. Instead, her offensive condensed, becoming intimate, aggressive, and suffocating.
She moved like a relentless blizzard given human form, clinging tightly to Shanks' perimeter.
Clang! Clang! Crack!
The ice spear in her hand, forged from the absolute zero of the Demon's Extract, danced with terrifying precision. It no longer aimed for a single fatal strike that Shanks could easily parry. Instead, the spear tip fractured into hundreds of intricate, microscopic cold gleams.
Each thrust was not just an attack; it was a cage bar being slammed into place.
Once the ice latched onto the space around him, it refused to be shaken off. It grew, parasitically feeding on the moisture in the air, sealing off every inch of space Shanks tried to advance through.
"Look at you," Esdeath mocked, her blue eyes glowing with the thrill of the hunt. "You want to save them so badly, don't you? But you can't even take a step."
She wanted to use this most tormenting method—a slow, cold suffocation—to make the Emperor of the Sea watch helplessly as his world crumbled around him.
Just then, the sound of reality breaking shattered the fragile equilibrium of the battlefield.
"Guh... ah...!"
A short, desperate scream pierced the cold air. It wasn't a roar of defiance, but the confused, wet gurgle of a life being abruptly extinguished.
That sound... Shanks knew it better than his own heartbeat.
"Yasopp!"
The name tore from his throat. He didn't even need to turn his head. His Observation Haki, stretched to its absolute limit across the frozen hellscape, transmitted the brutal, high-definition data directly into his brain.
In the distance, the scene was a masterpiece of silent horror.
Ulquiorra Cifer stood amidst the white desolation. His pale skin and white uniform were unstained, a stark contrast to the violence he had just committed. His face, marked by the green tear troughs, showed absolutely no ripple of emotion. Not satisfaction, not anger, not even pity.
He simply... existed.
Slowly, almost casually, the Fourth Espada withdrew his light green energy lance—Lanza del Relámpago—from the chest of the Red Hair Pirates' sniper.
Squelch.
The sound of the energy dissipating and flesh parting was sickeningly wet.
Yasopp, the man who was hailed as the world's greatest sniper, the father who boasted endlessly about his son in the East Blue, crumbled. The light in his eyes, usually so sharp and full of vitality, was dimming at a terrifying speed.
His hand, which had held his flintlock pistol with the steadiness of a mountain for decades, finally lost its strength.
Clack.
The gun slipped from his limp fingers and hit the ice. The sound was crisp, lonely, and final. It echoed in the ears of the crew louder than any cannon blast.
"No..."
"YASOPP!"
The screams came from Ship Doctor Hongō and Navigator Snake. Their eyes bulged, bloodshot and trembling, as they stared at the fallen figure of their brother.
They couldn't believe it. The man who always covered their backs, the man whose laughter was the loudest at every banquet, had just... fallen? Without a grand last stand? Without a final goodbye?
Ulquiorra didn't even glance at the corpse at his feet. To him, the difference between a living human and a corpse was negligible—both were void. He let the soulless body slide onto the cold ground, stepping over it as if it were a stone on the road.
He took a step, then another, walking calmly toward the remaining enemies who were still entangled with his comrades.
The Grim Reaper's scythe would not swing only once. Despair began to spread like a contagion.
"Now is not the time to be distracted by others, you lowly bugs!"
A voice, charming yet laced with the venom of a goddess, exploded right next to their ears.
"Danger!"
Almost simultaneously, the combat monkey known affectionately as "Monster"—a core executive of the crew despite his animal nature—let out a sharp, ear-splitting screech!
SCREECH!
His primal instincts, honed by years of survival in the New World, screamed of impending doom. He sensed the deadly aura descending from the heavens.
In that split second between life and death, the beast made a choice that shamed many humans. He gave up self-preservation.
Monster lunged, violently shoving his partner, Limejuice, away from his side.
BOOM!
The next instant, a shadow blotted out the light.
A pitch-black battle-axe, the World Item 3F, descended with a roar capable of tearing the atmosphere apart.
"Pfft...!"
There was no scream. There was no resistance.
The sound was the dull, heavy thud of insurmountable steel cleaving through flesh, bone, and ice.
Monster, the agile companion who had shared their sake and their battles, was cleanly split in half by Albedo's axe.
Splash!
Hot, crimson blood mixed with fragments of internal organs exploded outward like a bursting balloon. It splashed all over Limejuice's head and face, blinding him with the warm, metallic fluid.
Limejuice, who had tumbled to the ground, sat there dumbfounded. The warm liquid slid down his cheeks, dripping onto the pristine white ice, turning it pink. He blinked, his brain unable to process the image before him.
The severed remains of his friend lay twitching on either side of the black axe.
The death of a comrade. Right before his eyes.
One after another.
"...Damn it..."
Limejuice's hands clawed at the ice, his fingernails breaking.
"...DAMN IT ALLLLL!"
The thread of rationality completely snapped.
The surviving executives—Snake, Hongō, Limejuice—let out guttural roars of pure, unadulterated grief. Their eyes turned completely red, veins bulging on their foreheads.
They abandoned their engagement with Rem and Ram. They abandoned the tactical formations that Beckman had drilled into them. They abandoned their lives.
Like madmen, they turned and charged toward the two figures bringing death—Albedo and Ulquiorra.
They had only one thought left in their broken minds, screaming over and over: Revenge!
"KILL THEM!"
"Oh my...?"
Albedo stood amidst the gore, lifting her axe with effortless grace. She looked at the charging pirates with golden eyes full of ridicule.
"It seems the previous lesson wasn't enough for these bugs to recognize reality. How pitiful."
All of this was "seen" by Shanks.
Every death. Every drop of blood. Every scream.
Through his Observation Haki, he felt the life force of his family vanish one by one. The silence where Yasopp's presence used to be was deafening. The fading warmth of Monster was a physical pain in his chest.
And now, his remaining comrades were charging into a suicidal attack from which there would be no return.
The grief transformed. It boiled. It erupted.
Towering rage and endless regret instantly broke through his last trace of calm as an "Emperor."
"...Get... OUT OF MY WAY... AAAHHH!"
ROAR!
With a roar that shook the very foundations of the frozen sea, Shanks poured all his will, all his anger, and every ounce of his Haki into the blade of Gryphon without reservation!
ZZZTTT!
The black and red lightning no longer merely coiled around the sword; it detonated. It transformed into a raging torrent of breached floodwaters, a tsunami of Conqueror's Haki violently gushing outwards, turning the air black and heavy with crushing pressure!
"DIVINE DEPARTURE!" (Kamusari)
Another Divine Departure! But this strike was fundamentally different from the probing attack he had used earlier. It was darker, heavier, and infinitely more violent. It was a slash of pure desperation, meant to obliterate everything in its path to reach his dying crew.
The massive flying slash tore through the ice field, vaporizing the frozen spikes Esdeath had created, screaming towards the General.
However.
Facing this world-destroying attack, Esdeath did not dodge. She did not block.
Instead, her face lit up with a long-awaited, pathological smile. A blush of excitement dusted her pale cheeks.
"Hmph... Is it that move again? I've been waiting for you to lose your mind!"
Instead of retreating, she advanced. She stepped directly into the path of the apocalyptic slash.
She slammed her hands together. The tattoo of the Demon's Extract on her chest glowed with a blinding, ethereal blue light. She gathered all her magic, all her stamina, and her very life force into a single singularity.
Just as the wave of black lightning was about to consume her, she spread her arms wide, as if embracing the entire world.
"Come, my prey! Taste this world of ice and snow... my 'TRUE HELL'!"
"MAHAPADMA!"
Wooooo—
In an instant!
The universe... stopped.
It was as if the film of reality had been paused by a god.
The howling wind froze in mid-air. The falling snowflakes hung suspended, motionless like stars in a dead sky. Sound vanished without a trace, leaving a silence so absolute it was deafening.
The terrifying black lightning of Shanks's Divine Departure froze in place, looking like a jagged, solid sculpture of angry energy suspended inches from Esdeath's face.
Color drained from the world, leaving everything in shades of monochrome blue and grey.
Shanks felt an absolute, unreasonable cold invade his body. It wasn't the cold of temperature; it was the cold of stasis. It surpassed all his understanding of Devil Fruits or Haki. It invaded his body and soul from all directions!
His impending slash, that surging torrent of Haki, was frozen solid in time!
The Gryphon in his hand, moments ago surging with power, now felt as heavy as a mountain of ten thousand tons. He couldn't move his fingers. He couldn't blink. He couldn't breathe.
'What...?'
Shanks's mind raced, his thoughts the only thing not entirely frozen in this blue hell.
'Everything stopped? Is this... freezing 'time and space'?!'
He saw Esdeath moving.
In this frozen world, only she was free. She walked casually toward him, her boots clicking on the ice—the only sound in the universe. A victorious smile graced her beautiful face. She didn't rush. She savored the moment of absolute dominance.
She raised an ice spear, condensed to the hardness of diamond, and aimed it directly at his heart to deliver the fatal blow.
'Move... I have to MOVE!'
Shanks reacted to the extreme. In the last fleeting moment before his consciousness was completely swallowed by the frozen time, he frantically mobilized his will.
He ignited the Conqueror's Haki deep within his core, transforming it into a raging furnace.
Burn!
He forced his spirit to burn against the laws of physics. He used his sheer willpower to defy the concept of the Teigu.
Crack...
A tiny sound echoed in the silent world.
Esdeath's eyes widened slightly in shock. "He can force a reaction in frozen time?!"
Just that sliver of resistance!
Esdeath thrust the spear.
"Die!"
Shanks forced his body to twist. It felt like moving through drying concrete, every muscle fiber tearing, every nerve screaming in agony against the temporal lock. But he twisted his torso at an incredible, impossible angle!
Pfft...!
The spear tip, aimed for the heart, missed its fatal mark by a hair's breadth.
But it did not miss completely.
The sharp, diamond-hard ice mercilessly pierced his side, right above the hip, skewering him through and through!
Crack! Shatter!
As the blow landed and fresh blood spilled, the heat of the blood shattered the time freeze.
"Guh!"
Color rushed back into the world. The sound of the wind returned with a roar.
Blood stained the ice.
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