"Cough… cough, cough…"
At the bottom of the crater, Ace coughed violently. Every breath tugged at his battered chest and abdomen, sending waves of tearing pain through his body.
And yet, he still forced himself up with trembling arms—gritting his teeth as he slowly rose from the pit. He lifted his head, blood spilling from the corner of his mouth.
"Even if…" His voice was hoarse. "Even if everyone in the world denies my existence!Even if I'm hated… rejected… cast aside—!"
Ace straightened his spine. The flames around him, which had dulled moments before, surged back to life.
But this time, the fire was no longer pure blazing white.
It deepened—intertwining profound abyssal blue with dark, smoldering crimson.
"I will become a great pirate! I'll make every last one of them look at me again with new eyes!I will make the whole world remember my name—!"
Ace threw his head back and roared, his voice riding atop violently erupting flames that shot straight into the heavens.
"Not as someone known for carrying that man's bloodline!!I am—Portgas D. Ace!The name before mine is my mother's!Not that man!!!"
"BOOM!!!"
As that cry from the depths of his soul rang out, a massive, rotating vortex of flames exploded outward from beneath Ace's feet!
In an instant, it expanded to cover a radius of several hundred meters!
Within the vortex, the flames were no longer a gentle element.
They were feral. Unrestrained. Savage.
"Great Flame Commandment—"
The colossal spiral of fire surged skyward like a blazing pillar connecting earth and sky, swallowing Gern and everything around him in a titanic inferno!
The vortex spun at terrifying speed, radiating heat so intense that the air itself was violently drained away.
Then—
Within the raging spiral, several grotesque, demonic skulls formed from flames compressed to their absolute limit took shape.
"Hellfire!!"
As the word fell, the blazing skulls let out silent roars. Locking onto Gern at the heart of the storm, they lunged from all directions—
Bearing the will to incinerate everything—
And tore inward to devour him whole!
"Oho~ oho!"
Faced with this world-ending spectacle, Gern showed no trace of panic.
On the contrary—he looked like someone who had finally seen what he'd been waiting for.
He stroked his chin with evident satisfaction, excitement glittering in his eyes.
"Good. Good! That's more like it!Kicked three times and forged an independent soul—am I the hot-blooded main character now?"
"Now we're getting to the real show! This—this is the right flavor!"
Laughing aloud, Gern finally lowered his crossed arms as the flaming demonic skulls roared toward him.
But this time, his movements carried an entirely different weight.
No longer casual blocks or evasions—
But something closer to a ritual.
His right hand slowly reached toward his waist, closing around the hilt of the black blade that had hung there in silence all along—wrapped in aged white cloth.
The moment his fingers tightened around the grip—
"HUM—!"
A pressure far heavier and more ferocious than anything before burst outward like a tangible tidal wave!
The blade itself had yet to move, yet the thick white wrappings around it began to scream under the strain of the power awakening within.
"Rip—rip—rip!"
The cloth snapped apart inch by inch, tearing, shredding—scattering into countless white fragments that were instantly crushed into dust and erased by the overwhelming aura.
Fully unsealed, Eight Desolations revealed its true form.
Its body was pitch-black, deep as an abyss, its surface veined with dark crimson fissures.
Dark purple and blood-red arcs of Haki—not lightning, but the visual manifestation of supreme Conqueror's Haki interwoven with Armament—
Slithered around the blade like living entities, crackling with a suppressed, ominous sound.
They resonated with the restrained vibration surrounding Gern, warping the very space around him ever so slightly.
With Eight Desolations in hand, Gern's presence transformed completely.
He locked onto the flame storm ahead with absolute focus.
Holding the blade in one hand, he casually angled it downward. The instant the tip touched the ground—
The earth beneath his feet let out a low groan, spiderweb cracks spreading silently outward.
"Then let me show you…"Gern's voice was calm reminded but carried a resolve that could cleave all things, cutting clean through the roar of the inferno.
"…what Heaven-Shattering truly means."
The instant his words ended—
Gern moved.
No warning. No buildup. No afterimage.
He simply swung his blade.
A single horizontal slash—
Plain. Unadorned.
No dazzling effects. No earth-shaking roar. No shouted technique name.
Only the blade.
The black sword Eight Desolations, wrapped in dark violet radiance, became the sole existence in the world.
Where its edge passed, space itself was silently severed—leaving behind a fleeting trail of pure nothingness.
The apocalyptic fire vortex.
The roaring demonic skulls.
The heat capable of melting mountains, boiling seas—
Before this simple black slash, all of it met its nemesis.
Not shattered.
Not dispersed.
Not canceled.
But cut.
Cut at the level of concept.
Flames were cleaved in two. Their raging energy structures collapsed and vanished the instant they touched the blade—erased as though they had never existed.
The colossal inferno split apart like a painting torn down the middle, collapsing violently to either side of Gern!
The flames wailed as they faded, revealing a night sky bathed in crimson light beyond.
Everything—
Everything—
Was divided in silence before that single strike.
And the blade's path never slowed, never deviated.
Faster than thought.Faster than light.Faster even than the concept of "happening."
Reflected in Ace's pupils was still the image of the world-ending hellfire, his fighting spirit boiling in his chest—
The command for his next movement hadn't even reached his limbs yet—
When a bone-chilling sensation brushed against his neck.
Soft.
Gentle.
And carrying the absolute implication of death.
At some unknown moment, Gern had already passed him—standing half a step behind, body slightly angled, still holding the blade in one hand.
The pitch-black edge of Eight Desolations hovered with flawless precision over Ace's carotid artery—
Less than a millimeter away.
The cold of the blade raised goosebumps across Ace's skin. A single lock of hair from his bangs, severed by an invisible cutting edge, drifted slowly downward.
Time froze.
From the moment Gern swung his sword…To the annihilation of the firestorm…To the blade resting at Ace's throat—
All of it took less than half a second.
And just like that—
Victory and defeat were decided.
Life or death—
Rested on a single thought of Gern Reginald Sigmar.