"Whether it's reckless or not—you won't know until you try!And besides, I want to see it for myself… just where I stand now!"
Before Shanks' words had fully faded—
His figure vanished from where he stood.
This was not elemental movement like that of a Logia.
It was pure, extreme physical acceleration.
Combined with top-tier Observation Haki prediction, his body cut straight into Gern Reginald Sigmar's centerline as if he had teleported.
Shrrk!
Gryphon tore through the air, dark-red Conqueror's Haki lightning coiling tightly around the blade.
There was no massive flying slash.
Instead, every ounce of power was compressed into a single line along the edge—driving straight for Gern's throat!
"When I face you… I want to know exactly what level I'm on!!!"
As the blade closed in, Gern's pupils contracted almost imperceptibly. A trace of interest flickered across his face—as if to say just as I expected.
In the very same instant, the hand gripping Bahuang moved.
CLANG—!!!
A deafening metallic crash erupted, overwhelming even the distant thunder.
Bahuang, its unraveling bandages fluttering, struck first despite moving later, intercepting Gryphon's thrust with flawless precision.
At the point where blade met blade, red and violet Conqueror's Haki slammed violently into one another.
Countless fine arcs of Haki lightning exploded outward like a swarm of deranged serpents.
Blocked—but Shanks' wrist did not hesitate even for a heartbeat.
Using the recoil from the clash, Gryphon slid downward, turning the thrust into a slicing cut aimed directly at Gern's sword-wielding wrist!
Gern snorted coldly. Instead of retreating, he stepped in.
His left leg, coated in Armament Haki, snapped out in a brutal kick toward Shanks' shin, forcing him to defend.
At the same time, Bahuang trembled.
A vibration—fine, dense—rippled through the blade.
Hmmm—
The air let out a low, mournful cry.
Gryphon's slash struck what felt like an invisible barrier vibrating at extreme frequency.
Not only was the cutting force dramatically weakened—
A bizarre rebound surged back through the blade, knocking it slightly off line and freezing Shanks' offense for a split second.
"Looks like someone's hand went numb."
A sharp gleam flashed in Gern's eyes.
Bahuang shifted instantly from defense to offense, its blade wrapped in clearly visible pale-white energy.
With the will to shatter everything—
A single, brutally simple horizontal slash, fast beyond perception.
"Heavenquake · Rend!"
There were no flashy visuals.
Only the sound of space itself tearing apart where the blade passed.
The moment he sensed the strike, every hair on Shanks' body stood on end.
An overwhelming sense of danger made him snap Gryphon back and raise it vertically in front of him.
Dark-red Conqueror's Haki flooded wildly into the blade.
"BOOM—!!!"
Bahuang slammed down hard against the spine of Gryphon!
This collision far surpassed the previous ones.
A terrifying shockwave expanded outward in a sphere. The ground beneath them caved in and fractured, stone and dust hurled skyward by the pressure.
Shanks felt an indescribable force surge through Gryphon—mixed with an eerie, penetrating vibration.
His palm trembled violently. His entire arm went numb with pain.
He could no longer hold his ground.
He was forced backward more than ten meters, carving two deep trenches into the earth.
Gern pressed the advantage without mercy.
His figure surged forward, Bahuang rising again. The pale glow around the blade condensed further—clearly signaling an even more terrifying next strike.
Shanks forcibly suppressed the turmoil in his blood and made an instant decision.
I can't take this head-on.
In that instant, a red glint flashed deep within his pupils.
His unique ability—Observation Killing—was pushed to its limit.
An invisible interference spread outward, forcefully disrupting and suppressing Gern's Observation Haki.
Then, at the very moment Bahuang's next slash was about to land—
Shanks' body slid sideways at an impossible angle, narrowly allowing the blade to skim past the tip of his nose!
"BOOM—!!!"
Bahuang crashed down into empty space, slamming into the solid ground of Partha Island.
There was no explosive blast—only a deep, heavy thud.
At the point of impact, a massive fissure instantly formed and began racing forward at a speed the eye could barely follow.
Where the crack passed, rock and soil did not simply shatter—
They were pulverized into the finest dust by an invisible oscillating force.
The bottomless裂痕 tore through the land without resistance, cutting through forests, crossing hills, and racing straight toward the distant coastline.
CRASH—!!!
The sea itself was split apart by the extending force.
A ten-kilometer stretch of seabed was laid bare in an instant. On both sides, seawater surged upward into waves thousands of meters high, as if a god had cleaved the ocean in two with a colossal axe.
The divided waters refused to close, leaving a vacuum filled with raw destructive pressure between them.
The power of that single slash was… this great.
Shanks stared at the ten-kilometer-long trench and swallowed unconsciously, his throat dry.
If he had taken that attack head-on, Gryphon might have stopped the blade—
But the terrifying vibrational force riding along it would have crippled him instantly.
A chill ran through Shanks as he became even more certain his judgment had been absolutely correct.
After all—
Having lost an arm, in a pure contest of frontal power…
There was no way he could surpass Gern, who could exert force with both hands and wielded the Heavenquake Fruit.
Even Captain Roger, at his peak, needed both hands to face Whitebeard's strikes.
So—
He had to rely on speed, technique, and… his advantage in Observation Killing.
Meanwhile, Gern stood firmly at the origin of the裂痕, staring at the spot where Shanks had evaded.
His brow furrowed almost imperceptibly.
"…Something's off."
At the instant he released the slash, his Observation Haki had caught Shanks' evasive trajectory—he had even foreseen at least ten possible future directions.
But the sensation was strange.
It was as if the once-clear paths had suddenly been veiled by a thin layer of gauze.
He could still see—but details were blurred, directions uncertain.
"Some kind of interference… suppressing my Observation?"
Gern's eyes sharpened as he analyzed rapidly.
He could tell—it wasn't that his Observation Haki had failed.
It was that his opponent's presence had become elusive at the critical moment, like a chameleon blending into its surroundings, deliberately disrupting his view of the future.
What Gern didn't yet know was that this was Shanks' unique Observation Killing effect.
By leveraging the special properties of his supreme Observation Haki, Shanks could forcibly suppress and interfere with his opponent's foresight, preventing them from seeing a complete future.
And only because Gern's Observation Haki had also reached its peak—
Was he able, under that suppression, to glimpse fragmented, blurred pieces of the future instead of being rendered completely blind.
But even a momentary disruption and loss of information—
At their level—
Was more than enough to decide life and death.
"So… I can't rely entirely on Observation Haki to predict his movements."
Gern adjusted instantly, shifting more of his focus to subtle muscle tension, airflow disturbances, minute vibrations—
And to pure, instinctive combat intuition.
Shanks, too, keenly caught the change in Gern's expression and murmured under his breath,
"Just a single instant… and he noticed already?"
...…
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