"Gern, was it? The name's Roger."
The sea wind came to a sudden halt.The air itself congealed.
Roger's voice wasn't loud, yet it struck the entire battlefield like a massive hammer.
He stood there in a seemingly casual stance, charging straight ahead—and yet, he felt like an insurmountable mountain, bearing down on everything around him, crushing the breath from their lungs.
"So…"Roger's mouth split into a wild grin, but his eyes were sharp as honed blades."Make sure you survive this!!"
"Roger…"Gern's pupils shrank to pinpoints. In that instant, every drop of blood in his body seemed to boil.
Facing the very pinnacle of this era, the corner of his mouth still lifted uncontrollably, carving a near-mad arc across his face.
"Then come at me!!!"
There was no escape—
So he would charge straight through!!
"Clang!!"Facing the man who had once defeated his blade's previous master—
Black Blade · Eight Desolations shuddered violently, releasing a low, unprecedented hum!
Pitch-black blade patterns writhed like living creatures as violet-black lightning wrapped around the weapon in a frenzy.At the very edge of the blade, space itself began to twist and collapse, forming a black-hole-like vortex that devoured light!
"Vmmm—!"At this moment, the blade's resonance far exceeded anything before—even more violent than when it had cleaved Golden Lion apart!
It was exhilarated.It was roaring.It was—yearning to clash with Roger!
Gern's figure exploded forward.Eight Desolations dragged behind it a violet-black torrent that split heaven and earth!
Wherever the blade passed, space shattered layer by layer like fragile glass. Pale shockwaves tore countless fissures through the void itself!
The coastline collapsed under the residual pressure. Towering waves hundreds of meters high had only just risen before being pulverized into a sky-filling mist by the rampant blade aura!
Fast—So fast it surpassed the limits of vision!
In everyone's eyes, only two afterimages remained: one crimson, one dark violet, colliding again and again at speeds that seemed to tear time and space apart!
Every burst of acceleration detonated rings of annihilating shockwaves!
"This fight ends here, Marine."Roger's cold voice suddenly detonated right beside Gern's ear!
"Clang!!"The instant Ace swept out, crimson Conqueror's Haki erupted like a volcanic blast. The air across the entire sea wailed beneath that single slash!
"Is that so?"Gern snarled. His arms bulged with coiled muscle as the patterns on Eight Desolations boiled over completely."Whether it's now… or in the future!"
The blade fell in a savage arc. Violet-black lightning and crimson Haki tore at each other in the void!
"I've always wanted—to personally arrest you and forge my own legend!!ROGER!!!!"
"Divine—Evasion!!"
"Divine—Fall!!"
The instant the two blades collided—
The world lost its color.
First, blinding white.Then, darkness that swallowed everything.
At the epicenter where two kingly destinies clashed, a pitch-black sphere nearly a kilometer in diameter materialized out of nothing!
Seawater, air, light—all matter was crushed into its most primitive particles!
Countless spatial fissures burst from the sphere's edge, like shattered mirrors reflecting innumerable distorted battlefields!
"Crack! Crack! Crack!"Reality itself screamed in agony!
"BOOM!!!"
At the moment the two supreme auras and powers collided, heaven and earth were bleached bare.
Violet-black Divine Fall and crimson Divine Evasion intertwined into a vortex of destruction. Space fractured layer by layer like brittle glass.
The shockwave radiated outward across the sea. Cracks tore through the deck of the Oro Jackson, while the Marine warship's steel frame twisted and warped grotesquely.
"Hold on tight! The captain's gone all out!"Gaban roared, burying his axe deep into the deck while his other hand clutched the unconscious Buggy.
Crocus had already been knocked out as well, flung away by the pressure wave—only to be snagged by Sunbell's harpoon at the last moment before plunging into the sea.
Shanks held on for a while longer, but his consciousness eventually began to fade. The last thing reflected in his closing eyes was a vision like the end of the world.
The entire sea was forcibly pressed down into a depression nearly a kilometer wide. Across the exposed seabed, spiderweb-like cracks spread in every direction.
...
"Creeeak—!"
A piercing metallic wail echoed across the battlefield.
Gern's arms trembled violently. For the first time, Black Blade · Eight Desolations visibly bent.
He watched helplessly as his violet-black Haki was devoured inch by inch by a crimson torrent—those high-frequency particles that could shatter anything at all melting away like snow beneath the sun before Roger's slash.
So this was it…
The strength of the one standing at the apex of this era—"Pirate King" Roger.
An overwhelming power that transcended eras entirely!!!
"Bang!"
Ace pressed down without flourish. Gern's knees slammed into the reef.
Blood burst from his torn palms, flowing down the hilt in thin streams.
The vibration power he took such pride in couldn't even brush the corner of Roger's clothing.
"Good eyes."Roger suddenly grinned, giving his wrist a light twist.
A seemingly casual motion—yet it made the entire world sink beneath its weight!
"I can't block this—this is a commander facing a king…"Gern's pupils shrank violently.
What he saw wasn't a blade—
It was the crushing weight of an entire era bearing down on him!
"Boom!"
Eight Desolations was torn from his grip, spinning through the air before embedding itself into a cliff face a hundred meters away.
Gern's body was hurled backward like a kite with its string cut, smashing through three floating reefs before finally coming to a stop.
He tried to push himself up—
But he couldn't move.
Lying there, blood blurring his vision, Gern saw Roger striding toward him atop the waves.
With a single strike, the dark reef island Gern had created was completely split apart, seawater beginning to seep through the fractures.
And yet that man didn't even pause to catch his breath.
Ace rested casually on Roger's shoulder, as if that world-ending blow had been nothing more than an idle swing.
"Gern Reginald Sigmar."Roger stopped five steps away, sunlight gilding his silhouette in gold."What a shame. If you'd been born in the same era as me…"
The sea breeze brushed aside the loose strands of hair on his forehead, revealing eyes that seemed to see straight through history itself.
"Who knows—you might have changed the very balance of this world."
Gern bit deeply into his lower lip.
The bitterness of defeat spread through his mouth, but what truly made him tremble was the gap between them.
Not the strength of Devil Fruits.Not the refinement of Haki.
But something far more fundamental.
The helplessness of a commander facing a king—like a stream confronting the open sea, like a fledgling eagle gazing up at the endless sky.
Earlier, he could still trade blows with Rayleigh, a figure on the level of an Emperor.
But against Roger—
He was simply crushed.
"So this is… the height of one who stands at the summit?"
Gern's trembling left hand grasped a broken piece of reef. He suddenly let out a low laugh.
"Hey, Roger."Using bloodstained teeth, Gern tore open his collar and stared up at the sky.
Violet lightning flared once more—this time mixed with the crimson haze of blood.
He staggered to his feet, shockwaves parting the seawater beneath him.
"In the future, we'll fight again. And next time, I'll personally drag you to the execution platform—and end your era with my own hands!"
Roger's eyebrows shot up—then he burst into thunderous laughter.
"Rayleigh! Did you hear that?!"
Rayleigh approached, clutching his ribs, the expression behind his cracked lenses impossibly complex."…It might actually happen."
The waves gently washed over the shattered battlefield. The fading silhouette of the Oro Jackson reflected in Gern's gradually dimming vision.
In the final moment before darkness claimed him, he heard Roger's distant voice.
"Kid of the new era…if you can, I'll be waiting for the day you bring me to the execution stand."