Chapter 35: The Test of Magma
"You're picking a fight with me?!" Sakazuki's voice was a low, furious rumble, disbelief warring with his instinctive rage. From his perspective, it was Levi who had escalated a simple assessment into a full-blown assault. This wasn't a test anymore; it was an insurrection.
The young Admiral's arrogance was staggering.
Levi's initial Reiatsu wave had slammed into him with the force of a falling mountain. Akainu had braced for it, his arms transforming into searing, Haki-hardened magma the moment he sensed the gathering pressure. Even so, the impact had skidded him back half a foot on the deck, his boots leaving scorched grooves in the wood.
Just as Fleet Admiral Sengoku warned, Akainu thought, his face like carved stone. He wields Conqueror's Haki of a monstrous caliber. Substantive, damaging. Sengoku's briefing had been meant to foster caution, to encourage a working relationship. But to Akainu, that information was a warning flare. A man with such power, unmoored from a strict sense of justice, was a walking catastrophe. Someone had to establish boundaries. If Sengoku wouldn't, if Kizaru was ambivalent and Aokiji was absent, then he, Sakazuki, would be the one to do the necessary, unpleasant work. It was all for the sake of Absolute Justice.
He hadn't anticipated that Levi's temperament would be this volatile. Where was the laid-back, pragmatic young man Sengoku had described?
"Admiral Sakazuki!" cried Vice Admiral Doberman, his loyal subordinate, his own face strained as he fought against the lingering spiritual pressure that felt like a sandstorm against his soul. Seeing his unwavering superior physically forced back, even a little, was a profound shock. This new Admiral's power was not an exaggeration.
The Reiatsu wasn't a single blast; it was a continuous, oppressive tide, washing over them, grinding at their willpower and physical endurance. Doberman grunted, one knee hitting the deck with a thud, his sword the only thing keeping him from being driven flat.
A low, displeased growl escaped Akainu. This level of insolence could not stand. If left unchecked, such a loose cannon could veer off course entirely, becoming an enemy of the very justice he was supposed to uphold. Unacceptable.
Gloop… glurp…
The air around Akainu warped violently as his body erupted. Dark, viscous magma flowed from him like a second skin, sending plumes of acrid, black smoke coiling into the sky. His right arm ballooned in size, becoming a colossal, swollen limb of incandescent rock and liquid fire. The temperature on the deck spiked to infernal levels. The sea around the ship's hull began to churn and steam, great bubbles bursting on the surface. Only his precise control kept the warship itself from instantly becoming a funeral pyre.
A wave of sheer, violent menace radiated from him—not the kingly dominance of Conqueror's Haki, but the blood-soaked, relentless aura of a battlefield butcher. It was a killing intent so dense it felt solid, a psychological weapon that had broken lesser men. To Levi's enhanced spiritual perception, it was more than an aura. He could see faint, twisted shapes—writhing, agonized impressions—clinging to Akainu like a shroud. The psychic residue of countless lives ended by his magma. Wraiths? Levi mused internally, unfazed but interested. No matter. His power is real.
"Are the Admirals truly going to fight?!" a panicked Marine cried out. To them, this was an unthinkable disaster. They couldn't comprehend that for men of this caliber, conflict could be its own form of brutal communication.
Akainu's face was now a mask of hardened magma, his eyes glowing pits of resolve. "Great Eruption!" he roared, his voice echoing like a volcanic vent. His massive molten fist pistoned forward, a tidal wave of heat and destruction meant to obliterate everything in its path. It was an attack of terrifying, straightforward annihilation.
"We're dead!!" some Marines behind Levi whimpered, feeling the hopeless, suffocating heat of the approaching apocalypse.
Levi watched the flaming colossus approach, his expression one of mild disdain. That's it? A simple brawl of force? How disappointingly direct.
He took a single, calm step forward. The spiritual pressure in the air didn't intensify; it concentrated. Reiatsu from all around him flowed and solidified in front of his body, forming a vast, shimmering, semi-transparent barrier—a Reiatsu Shield.
BOOOOM-CRACKLE-HISSSS!
The magma fist met the spiritual wall. Instead of punching through, it detonated against it in a cataclysmic explosion of fire, rock, and released energy. The shield held for a critical second, dispersing the force outward in a devastating ring of heat and shockwaves, before shattering into dissolving particles of light. The attack was stopped, transformed into a spectacular, deadly firework display over the sea.
"Emission Haki? A simple Haki shield dispersed my attack?" Akainu thought, a flicker of surprise cutting through his fury. The mechanics were all wrong.
He had no time to analyze. "Go," Levi commanded, his voice flat.
The remaining, swirling mass of Reiatsu that had formed the shield didn't dissipate. It coalesced and then lanced forward, a spiritual avalanche larger than the warship itself, aimed to crush Akainu into the sea.
Akainu gritted his teeth, preparing to meet it head-on. But before he could, five beams of solidified silver-gray light—Reiatsu Pillars—slammed down from the sky with the speed of thought. Four formed a box around him, sealing his movement. The fifth crashed directly onto his shoulders.
CRUNCH.
"Ghhh…!" Akainu grunted, his knees bending slightly under the impossible weight. It was like having a mountain range laid across his back. Yet, he held. His legs, forged in countless wars, trembled but did not buckle. This was the resilience that had scarred Whitebeard and outlasted Aokiji—a brutal, tenacious endurance.
"Dog Bite!" he roared in defiance. The magma covering his contracted arm brightened from dark red to a blinding, hellish crimson. It shaped itself into a savage, canine maw of liquid stone and glowing teeth, his arm elongating into a focused, high-velocity magma spear. He wasn't trying to break the pillars; he was aiming through them.
CRACK-BOOM!
The crimson dog's head shot forward, a hypersonic projectile of concentrated heat and Armament Haki. It struck the spot where Levi's initial barrier had been, and this time, the focused, piercing power shattered the hastily reformed spiritual defense.
The attack screamed toward Levi, a point-blank eruption meant to end the confrontation.
Levi didn't dodge. He didn't raise a hand.
He simply narrowed his eyes, his gaze locking onto the incoming spear of destruction. All his focus, all his will, poured into that single point of sight. Reiatsu, an ocean of it, surged from his very core, converging not in front of his body, but in the air directly before his brow.
A tiny, brilliant point of blue-white light appeared. It hummed with contained, catastrophic energy, crackling with arcs of spiritual lightning that snapped and hissed like angry serpents.
Silvers Rayleigh, watching from the deck, felt his blood run cold. A primal, soul-deep warning screamed in his mind. That's…!
"What?!" Akainu's eyes widened. He felt it too—a lethal threat that bypassed all conventional defense. But his attack was already in motion; he couldn't pull back.
Levi's lips moved, a silent word lost in the roar.
Cero.
The condensed ball of light lanced out.
It wasn't a beam. It was a thin, impossibly dense line of pure, blue-white spiritual annihilation. It tore through the air with a sound like the sky being ripped open.
TZZZ—BOOOOOOM!!!!
The Cero met the Dog Bite head-on.
For a microsecond, the crimson magma spear seemed to hold. Then it was not melted, not vaporized, but unmade from the point of contact outward, consumed by the spiritual energy. The Cero bored through it without slowing and struck Akainu's still-extended, Haki-clad forearm.
The resulting explosion was not of fire, but of blinding white light and concussive force that atomized the remaining magma and sent a visible ring of pressure exploding across the bay. The sea beneath the epicenter was blasted downward in a perfect, temporary crater, before roaring back in a geyser of steam.
When the light cleared, Akainu was standing, but he had been driven back to the very edge of his ship's railing. His right arm, from the elbow down, was no longer magma, but his normal flesh—smoking, bruised, and dripping blood from a dozen fine, deep cuts where the Cero's energy had sliced through even his formidable Haki and logia intangibility.
A stunned, ringing silence enveloped both ships, broken only by the hiss of boiling water.
Levi lowered his gaze, the residual spark of blue light fading from his eyes. His voice, calm and clear, cut through the silence like a knife, landing in the hearts of every witness with the weight of a verdict.
"You can be proud. That was the first time I've compressed my energy into such a high-intensity attack."
The message was unmistakable. This was not his limit. It was a measured demonstration. A warning.
Akainu stared at his bleeding arm, then back at Levi, his expression unreadable beneath the drying magma. The test was over. The results were brutally clear.
(End of Chapter)
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