"Hey… hey…"As the thought crossed his mind, Loget's assault suddenly stalled. A mocking glint surfaced in his eyes.
"You… don't tell me," he sneered, "you actually don't know swordsmanship at all?"
"Heh."Gern didn't answer. He simply exhaled quietly.
Loget wasn't wrong.
Ever since obtaining the Tremor Fruit, Gern had never undergone proper combat training. Before gaining his ability, he'd been nothing more than a logistics soldier with slightly above-average strength. Even after awakening his power, he had spent only a year developing it—forcing his way forward through raw destructive output rather than refined technique.
Against someone with real combat experience, those flaws were impossible to hide.
That was why Gern always gathered intelligence before engaging an enemy.Because without a system to rely on… he only had one life.
"Hah! Just as I thought!" Loget burst out laughing. "Holding such a fine blade, yet swinging it like a madman—what a waste!"
He flicked his spear upward, knocking aside Gern's blade before thrusting straight for his throat.
"Bloodbeak—Throat Pierce!"
Gern twisted aside at the last second. The spearhead grazed his neck, drawing a thin line of blood.
Using the momentum, he leapt backward to create distance, his expression calm but heavy.
Combat experience really was his weakness.
But now… he'd also figured something out about his opponent.
Another pirate with no hidden trump card.Armament Haki at a basic level at best.
Someone he could deal with.
"What? Scared already?" Loget sneered as he shook the blood from his spear. "Once people like you get figured out, all that's left is despair!"
Gern fell silent for a moment. Then the corner of his mouth slowly curved upward.
"You're right…"
He reversed his grip on the black blade Eight Desolations. The dark crimson cracks along the blade flared violently under the sunlight.
"I'm not a swordsman."
The blade began to hum—not metal vibrating, but space itself crying out.
"But—"
Gern's left hand slid slowly along the spine of the blade. In an instant, billions of vibrating particles compressed, collapsed, and compressed again.
The air twisted into spiraling vacuums around the blade.
"Your Haki…"Gern lifted his gaze."Isn't very refined either."
The blade fell.
For an instant, the world went silent.
Centered on the Black Blade Eight Desolations, the entire harbor floor lifted as if a massive carpet were being ripped upward. Hundreds of tons of stone disintegrated midair. Seawater was torn apart into crystalline cubes. Even the air itself shattered like glass.
"Whitebeard…!"Loget's face twisted in terror as his pupils shrank violently.
That apocalyptic scene ripped open memories long buried.He finally remembered who this power resembled.
"What kind of monster fruit did you eat?!"
Loget's Armament Haki surged to its limit, coating both arms in black.
"I don't know," Gern replied calmly."But I do know this—its destructive power is… terrifying."
He bent his knees slightly. The vibrating particles around the blade compressed to their absolute limit, warping the surrounding space.
"Strong enough to let me ignore…"A feral grin spread across his face."…and crush the so-called gap between us!"
The ground collapsed beneath him.
His form blurred inside the distorted space—only the black blade remained visible, devouring everything in its path.
"Heavenquake — Sky Rend!"
The moment the blade fell, space itself shattered like a mirror.
A titanic vibration cleaved through the sky, annihilating everything in its path into fundamental particles.
Half the harbor—and the coastline itself—was split open by a gash hundreds of meters long, as if a god had torn the world apart with a single stroke.
Loget's vision warped violently. He raised his arms on instinct—but the impact struck in the next instant.
His Armament Haki shattered like brittle ice.
Crack—BOOM!!
His body was hurled away, the air exploding around him, the ground collapsing wherever he passed.
…
Dust slowly settled.
Amid the shattered harbor, Gern slowly sheathed his blade. The crimson fissures on Eight Desolations dimmed, though the surrounding space still trembled faintly.
The port was completely ruined. Seawater poured into a massive chasm torn through the land.
"Ugh… kh—"Loget's mouth opened, but only broken sounds escaped.
His organs had already been pulverized by the shockwaves. His arms—along with the Armament Haki he once took pride in—were severed cleanly.
Blood poured from his eyes, ears, and mouth, pooling into a dark, stinking mire.
"Your Haki… was as thin as paper."(Unless it's truly powerful, Haki can't resist the force of a Devil Fruit.)
Gern stared down at him in silence, then bent and picked up the blood-soaked spear.
"'Blood Spear' Loget… bounty: sixty-nine million."
With a single motion, he hurled the spear forward.It pierced straight through Loget's skull, pinning him to the tattered remains of his own flag.
The sea wind howled through the ruins, carrying away the last trace of bloodshed.
"Ha… ha…"
Only after confirming Loget's death did Gern finally collapse, slamming heavily onto the ground.
His chest heaved violently. Sweat and blood soaked through his torn clothes.
That final strike—the fusion of the Black Blade Eight Desolations and the Tremor Fruit—was his ultimate trump card.
By compressing vibration particles to their absolute limit and channeling them through a Supreme Grade blade, he hadn't just cut—he'd shattered space itself.
The power was monstrous.
The cost was just as severe.
Every muscle in his body screamed. It felt as if thousands of steel needles were piercing him at once. Even breathing burned.
"A sixty-nine million bounty… and it pushed me this far…"
Sunlight stabbed into his eyes. He squinted, touching the thin trail of blood still seeping from his neck.
"…I'm still too weak."
...
Some time later, slightly recovered, Gern sat atop a broken slab of stone, slowly wrapping white bandages around Eight Desolations.
In the distance, a Marine warship approached. Soldiers stood on deck, staring in awe at the lone figure amid the ruined harbor.
"Ensign Gern won!"Cheers echoed across the sea.
But Gern felt no joy.
He lifted his gaze toward the sky, a single sentence echoing in his mind—
Haki… is the proof of the strong.