Chapter 12 - Garp Thrashes the Five Elders.
Garp rolled his wrist, his joints emitting loud crack-crack sounds.
He grinned, his face wearing an undisguised, bloodthirsty smile.
"So, you finally decided to come out of your doghouse?"
Saturn spat out two cold words.
"Capture him!"
The instant the command was given, the five Demon Gods moved simultaneously!
The first to attack was Saint Ethanbaron V. Nusjuro.
The skeletal horse he had transformed into galloped through the air!
Without making a single sound, his speed tore through the atmosphere, leaving behind an afterimage where he once stood.
The Supreme Grade Blade in his hand, the Shodai Kitetsu, traced a pitch-black trajectory.
"SLASH!"
An extreme, bone-chilling cold erupted instantly along the path of the blade!
K-Krack!
K-Krack!
The air froze. The earth was sealed in ice!
The entire Mary Geoise plaza, along with the collapsing buildings around it, was instantly encased in a layer of black ice several meters thick!
A terrifying slash, condensed with the very laws of freezing, crossed the distance of space and cleaved straight toward the top of Garp's head.
However, Garp didn't dodge.
He didn't even look up.
He simply stood there, allowing the slash—powerful enough to freeze the ocean—to strike him squarely.
BOOM!
The slash landed.
But the expected scene of a body being split in two didn't happen.
Instead, thick black ice centered on Garp's body, instantly sealing him into a crystal-clear ice sculpture.
But it lasted for only 0.1 seconds.
"What?"
Inside the hollow sockets of Nusjuro's skull, two points of soul-fire flickered violently.
The newly formed layer of ice didn't even crack.
It simply melted away at an impossible speed!
It was as if it had been thrown into the core of the sun.
A terrifying heat radiated from Garp's body, instantly turning the ice prison into a cloud of white steam.
HISSSSS...
Thick steam shrouded him, distorting the air around him.
He was unharmed.
Even his flowery shirt didn't have a single scratch.
"Is this the best your cold air can do?"
Garp's voice drifted out from the steam.
"Are you trying to give this old man a spa treatment?"
Before the words fully landed...
Garp's figure vanished from where he stood.
Nusjuro's soul-fire shrank abruptly. An unprecedented sense of crisis seized him.
He didn't even have time to react.
A figure appeared before him like a ghost.
It was Garp.
Garp straightened his fingers into a knife-hand. The muscles on his arm bulged as he chopped down viciously onto the blade of the Shodai Kitetsu.
A single chop.
CLANG!
A deafening sound of metal colliding with flesh exploded.
Nusjuro felt an irresistible force travel up the blade. The arm bones that made up his skeletal form shattered inch by inch!
The Shodai Kitetsu flew out of his hand, transforming into a black streak of light!
It spun into the sky, eventually embedding itself deeply into the distant wall of Pangaea Castle with a loud SHING!
Garp didn't stop.
The moment his hand-chop disarmed the blade, his body spun with the momentum, launching a roundhouse kick!
BOOM!
Nusjuro's massive skeletal horse body took the full brunt of the kick.
Like a stone sculpture hit by a siege ram, he exploded!
He turned into a shower of shattered bones, smashed violently deep into the earth below!
A massive crater caved into the ground.
But, less than a second later.
At the bottom of the crater, the scattered bone fragments seemed to be controlled by an invisible hand, reassembling and clicking back together at an astonishing speed.
"Truly ridiculous Armament Haki defense! Our former Hero of the Marines!"
Nusjuro stood up from the underground, completely intact.
It was as if the heavy blow that could have destroyed a mountain was merely an illusion.
"Hmm?"
Garp frowned for the first time. "He recovered that fast?!"
In that split second of hesitation...
The attacks of the other four Demon Gods arrived.
RUMBLE!
The ground beneath Garp's feet exploded.
The giant Sandworm (Saint Shepherd Ju Peter) drilled out from the earth! Its terrifying maw, lined with rows of serrated teeth, gaped open like an abyss, swallowing upward!
In the sky, the Itsumade (Saint Marcus Mars) spread wings that blotted out the sun! It opened its beak and spewed a beam of apocalyptic fire!
On the left, the giant boar Fengxi (Saint Topman Warcury) let out a roar that shook the soul! The sound waves materialized into a physical shockwave strong enough to shatter a human mind!
On the right, Saturn's spider legs moved in unison, weaving webs glistening with deadly venom, sealing off all of Garp's evasion routes.
Above, below, left, right.
The attacks of the four Demon Gods formed a net of certain death.
"HA!"
Garp let out an explosive shout.
BOOM!
A wave of Conqueror's Haki, so pure it was tangible, blasted outward from his body like a physical shockwave!
[Conqueror's Haki Materialization!]
Black lightning crackled madly around him!
The beam of fire capable of incinerating everything was shattered in mid-air, turning into harmless sparks!
The soul-shaking sonic roar was instantly washed away by a far more violent will!
The Sandworm's maw, rising from the depths to swallow him, had its teeth shattered the moment it touched the Haki barrier. Its massive body was forcibly knocked back down!
Every attack was completely neutralized!
Garp's figure vanished again amidst the crackling black lightning.
His first target was the giant boar that had roared at him.
He appeared instantly in front of Warcury!
Facing the two massive tusks charging at him like battering rams, he didn't dodge. He threw both fists forward.
BANG! BANG!
Two dull thuds.
Warcury's tusks, hard enough to crush mountains, were snapped in half by Garp's bare fists!
"ROAR!!!"
The giant boar let out a scream of agony.
Garp didn't stop.
He stomped on Warcury's head, using it as a springboard to launch himself into the sky, diving straight toward the Sandworm that had been knocked back.
"Get back in your hole!"
He threw a kick, landing squarely on the Sandworm's massive body.
SPLAT!
The tough body of the Sandworm was kicked cleanly in two!
Foul-smelling liquid splashed everywhere!
The battle completely devolved into a one-sided beating.
Garp was like a tireless God of War, shuttling madly between the five Demon Gods.
He punched the reassembled Nusjuro into a pile of bones again.
He spun with an elbow strike, knocking the Itsumade out of the sky and crushing its beak.
He grabbed one of Saturn's spider legs and swung him around like a flail, smashing him heavily into the newly regenerated boar.
BOOM!
Two Demon Gods crashed together and were buried into the ground.
The entirety of Mary Geoise wailed under his fists and feet.
However.
No matter how many times he shattered their forms, no matter how many times he blasted them away...
Although Garp's Haki was strong enough to noticeably delay their regeneration, with their teamwork covering each other, they managed to recover every single time!
Bones reconnected. Flesh regrew.
It was as if their life force wasn't stored in these bodies at all.
"No... something is wrong! What is happening?"
"Garp-san... is he beating up the five highest authorities in the world by himself?"
"But... why won't they die?"
"What are those five things? Monsters?"
"No! That man is the monster! He's treating those five creatures like punching bags!"
In the distance, some guards awakened by the shockwaves hid behind ruins, shouting incoherently.
Their worldview was being completely overturned.
BOOM!
Another loud bang.
Garp appeared in front of Saturn.
An uppercut landed solidly on the Ushi-Oni's head.
SPLAT!
Saturn's head exploded like a watermelon hit by a sledgehammer!
Red, white, and unknown fluids sprayed in all directions.
The headless body swayed, then fell straight backward.
"Phew! Getting a bit tired!"
This time, Garp stopped abruptly.
He stood in place. He didn't pursue, nor did he pay attention to the other Demon Gods rushing toward him.
He simply watched the headless corpse quietly.
Under his gaze, countless black tendrils began to writhe and weave from the severed neck.
In just a few breaths, a brand-new, undamaged head grew back.
Saturn stood up once again.
Garp watched this scene.
Watching the rapidly regenerating flesh, the bloodthirsty smile on his face slowly faded.
He finally understood.
"I see."
Garp's expression shifted to one of clear understanding.
My Haki level can suppress their recovery speed, but compared to the level needed to completely obliterate them, there's still a gap!
If I grabbed one and focused solely on him, maybe I could kill him. But with five of them here covering each other, I'll never get the chance to beat one to death.
Now, the five Demon Gods surrounded him again.
Auras even more violent and evil radiated from them as they prepared for their next combined assault.
"That's enough for today."
Garp's voice was flat, yet it made all five Demon Gods stop in their tracks simultaneously.
"I'll come back to play with you another time."
The instant the words fell, Garp didn't choose to attack anyone.
He simply raised his right fist high.
And smashed it into the ground, which was already ruined beyond recognition.
BOOM!
This punch didn't create a shockwave of destruction.
Instead, all the power was focused into the earth in an extremely restrained manner.
The hard white rock was pulverized into the finest dust the moment the fist connected.
A sky-filling cloud of dust exploded outward like a sudden white sandstorm!
The entire plaza, along with the surrounding ruins, was instantly swallowed by dust so thick you couldn't see your own hand.
Everyone's vision was completely stolen.
Even the powerful Observation Haki of the five Demon Gods became useless in this moment.
Because the instant the dust rose...
The presence that had been as dazzling as the sun completely vanished.
Not moved away. Not hidden.
It was as if he had been erased from the world entirely. His aura, his presence—cut off cleanly.
The dust slowly settled.
In the center of the destroyed plaza, only the five Demon Gods, radiating ominous auras, remained standing.
Garp was gone.
"Where did he go?!"
The skeletal horse (Nusjuro) let out a furious roar, pointing his blade at the sky, but finding no target.
"His aura... has completely disappeared!"
Saturn's voice carried a trace of undisguised panic for the first time.
"This is impossible! No ability can completely block our perception!"
"Unless... he's dead!"
"No!"
Saturn immediately rejected the idea. "He figured it out."
"He figured out the secret of our immortality."
This sentence plunged the other four Demon Gods into silence.
A chill, far deeper than the physical beating they had just taken, spread from the depths of their inhuman bodies.
A monster who possessed the strength to crush any one of them and suppress all five combined.
A monster who now knew their greatest secret.
A monster who could come and go as he pleased, appearing in any corner of Mary Geoise at any time to threaten them... or even "That Person."
"We must find him!"
Warrior God of Agriculture, Saint Shepherd Ju Peter, let out a beastly shriek.
"AT ALL COSTS!"
(To be Continued)