Savila Island let out a terrifying sound as it began to split apart.
Under the terrible power of Valthior and Garp, the island that Valthior had forcibly frozen in place with ice cracked open once again. Seawater surged up from the abyss and spread across the island.
With only one clash, the aftershock of their Conqueror's Haki and raw strength had destroyed the island's foundation.
At that moment, Chinjao and Tofu could no longer resist the Conqueror's Haki released by these two top fighters. Their bodies were swept up at once, and then both of them fell into the raging seawater that was swallowing the island.
"Tofu!" After breaking free from the pressure of the Conqueror's Haki, Chinjao plunged into the chaotic sea. His Observation Haki locked tightly onto his sworn brother, and he swam toward him.
Chinjao was not a Devil Fruit user, but Tofu was. The moment Tofu was swallowed by the seawater, his whole body lost strength and began sinking.
Luckily, Chinjao was an excellent swimmer, and he grabbed Tofu's ankle at once.
However, before he could swim upward, a figure rushed toward them through the muddy water at great speed.
"Damn it…" Chinjao naturally noticed the newcomer. Armament Haki wrapped around his fist as he prepared to fight back.
But with one hand holding Tofu and fighting underwater, he couldn't bring out his full strength.
The one charging at him was Sunbell, the powerful Fish-Man.
In the sea, Fish-Men were already extremely strong in battle, and Sunbell himself was no weak fighter.
"Sea Current Over-the-Shoulder Throw!!!"
Sanbell didn't even get too close. He simply grabbed the raging ocean current itself and hurled it straight at them.
With a heavy boom, Chinjao and Tofu were blasted out of the water, tumbling miserably through the air. The violent current followed them up and slammed into both of them.
Tofu, who had just managed to catch his breath, ended up swallowing another stomachful of seawater.
Before the two could even fall back into the sea, a shockwave from Garp and Valthior's clash swept past the exact spot where they were.
The violent blast sent both men spinning dizzily through the air before they plummeted downward again.
"You have gotten stronger, Valthior!" Garp knocked away Valthior's chain axe with a punch, a fierce smile on his face. Then his Conqueror's Haki shook violently and crashed toward Valthior.
However, Valthior was not affected by that wave of Haki. With a swing of his arm, his chain axe flew out and wrapped around Chinjao, who was falling through the air in the distance. Valthior pulled hard and dragged him toward himself.
"Galaxy Impact!"
Garp did not stop at all. He stepped on the air with Moonwalk, accelerated in midair, closed the distance with Valthior, and punched from afar.
At the same time, Valthior grabbed the still-disoriented Chinjao and laughed loudly. "Protect your head!"
As soon as he said that, Valthior forcefully threw Chinjao toward Garp, using Chinjao's pointed head to stab at Garp's iron fist.
Chinjao's mind was still a mess. Before he could understand what was happening, Garp's heavy fist wrapped in Conqueror's Haki was already right in front of him.
With no time to think, Chinjao roared, covered the top of his head with Armament Haki, and slammed his head forward toward Garp.
With a heavy bang, Garp's fist struck the side of Chinjao's pointed head. The fierce force instantly broke through the Armament Haki Chinjao had raised in a hurry. His head was bent at a ninety-degree angle, turning into a sharp hook. Unable to withstand the force, Chinjao fell into the sea again at high speed, sending up a huge splash.
"Ahahaha, satisfied now?" Valthior laughed loudly.
Garp also laughed. "You really are something, you bastard!"
But as soon as he finished speaking, he stepped on the air again. The air exploded with a sharp sound, and his body suddenly appeared in front of Valthior as he reached for Valthior's head.
"This move again!" Valthior naturally recognized it. Back on Linderland Island, Garp had almost taken him down instantly with this move.
Valthior shook his arm, and the chain spun back like a dragon, wrapping around his powerful arm in an instant. Then Conqueror's Haki covered it and grew solid.
At that same moment, Garp's five fingers clamped hard onto Valthior's arm, failing to grab his head.
The strength in Garp's fingers suddenly tightened. With his power, even a block of iron would be crushed flat in his grip.
So if he grabbed someone's head, the result would be terrifying. Crushing a skull would be easy for a man like him.
In the original story, Kuzan had nearly had his head crushed by Garp. Whether his skull was tough enough or Garp simply had not gone for the kill, no one knew.
However, with the chain wrapped outside his arm, the protection of Conqueror's Haki, and the automatic counterattack of freezing air, Garp's grip failed to break Valthior's arm.
Even so, for Garp, that was already enough.
Once he caught hold of someone, he had won half a move.
"Seabed Drop!"
Still in mid-air, Garp exerted force with his legs. The air cracked with ripples. Muscles bulged across his thick waist and torso, making his suit look like it had expanded. In an instant, he completed a half-body spin in the air, reversing their positions so that Valthior was now on the bottom.
For years, Garp had thrown iron balls larger than warships around like toys whenever he had nothing to do. His arm strength was unmatched across the seas. With one powerful throw, Valthior fell like a meteor toward the sinking island below, which was already being swallowed by seawater.
As expected, even though Valthior had often fought Roger, Gaban, and the others over the past few years, and his battle experience was not weak at all, but rather very rich, Garp still had an overwhelming advantage in close combat.
After all, close combat was what he lived by.
Even people like Roger would not dare say they could beat Garp in hand-to-hand fighting.
Moving at extreme speed, Valthior smashed into the seawater. His back slammed violently into the submerged island with a thunderous boom, sending up massive sprays of water and chunks of mud and rock.
Before the seawater could rob him of his strength, the freezing air automatically counterattacked, instantly turning the surrounding water into solid ice.
Garp had clearly anticipated this. The moment he delivered the slam, he used Moonwalk again, exploding the air as he shot straight after Valthior's landing point.
Almost at the exact instant the sea surface froze, Garp arrived. Facing the frozen ice, his heavy fist wrapped in savage Haki came crashing down.
"Heavenly Justice!"
However, before Garp's fist could truly land, the ice surface shattered first. Right after that, a giant fist made from Valthior's deep-blue Conqueror's Haki Susanoo burst through the ice. The fist was even larger than Garp's body, and it shot upward from below, colliding with Garp's heavy punch in an instant.
Then the ice layer burst open into a cloud of ice mist like fireworks. It first covered the surroundings, and then Garp's figure was sent flying into the air by the skeletal uppercut formed from the Susanoo.
Before Garp could remove the force and adjust his posture, the temperature dropped sharply, and a silver-white beam of frost energy rose along the Susanoo's heavy fist.
"Frost Breath!"
Even though Garp covered himself with Haki right away, the moment the pale frost struck him, his entire body was frozen into a huge block of ice.
After a brief pause, Conqueror's Haki shattered the ice around him, and Garp's figure appeared again.
But that short pause was already enough.
Wrapped in the deep-blue Susanoo, Valthior had already appeared in front of Garp.
"You showed an opening, Mr. Garp!" Valthior said with a fierce smile.
The moment the words left his mouth, he threw a devastating punch straight into Garp's face. Garp's head snapped to the side, his lip split open, his expression twisting in pain. A mouthful of blood sprayed out.
The powerful impact twisted his neck and sent his body flipping backward through the air.
But Garp was a top-tier fighter who had battled countless powerhouses. The instant the punch landed, his body reacted instinctively without any conscious thought. While being sent spinning, his right hand shot out at lightning speed along the rotational force and grabbed the arm that hadn't yet been pulled back from his face.
Conqueror's Haki erupted from his fingertips, directly shattering the hastily formed Susanoo on Valthior 's arm and locking onto his wrist like a vice.
At that exact moment, Garp's body — still riding the momentum of Valthior's punch — flipped into the perfect angle.
"Go!" Garp roared.
He swung a whipping kick and hooked it into Valthior's waist. The strike shattered the Susanoo and kicked Valthior flying.
Yet just as that strike sent Valthior away, Garp immediately felt something tighten around his foot. At some point, Valthior's chain axe had already wrapped around his ankle.
"You go too!" Valthior roared.
With a powerful swing of his arm, he used the chain wrapped around Garp to drag him down and smash him toward the sea.
Almost at the same time, Garp and Valthior crashed into the seawater.
After that brief exchange, the two seemed evenly matched.
Unlike Chinjao and the others, who got thoroughly beaten by Sunbell after falling into the water, when Garp fell in, Sunbell didn't even consider interfering. He immediately turned and swam far away without a word.
Clearly, no one was going to step into the one-on-one fight between Garp and Valthior.
Ice pillars shot up from the sea surface. In an instant, dozens-of-meters-tall ice columns stood above the water. Valthior appeared at the top of one. The moment he steadied himself, the sea where Garp had fallen exploded in a massive wave. Garp's muscular figure used Moonwalk to rise into the air. Valthior considerately raised another ice pillar for him to land on.
Garp didn't hesitate. He landed on it without worry that Valthior would pull any tricks.
The two looked at each other. Garp wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, now thinned by seawater, and said, "You really are qualified to sail this sea and claim territory now, kid…"
"Isn't that right?" Valthior laughed, raising a hand to rub the side of his waist where Garp had kicked him.
Last time, on Linderland Island, Garp had nearly beaten him into a dead dog in a single exchange.
But this time, as he fought Garp, at least for now, Valthior had not fallen behind at all.
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