"Ahahahahaha——!"
On the deck of the Underworld-ship, Gol D. Roger felt the surge of countless auras rushing in from every direction.
At once, he burst into a hearty laugh.
When the laughter ended, he glanced at the back of Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo, baring two rows of snow-white teeth.
"Sage of Six Paths, looks like your words have provoked them!"
"No matter what is said, the result would be the same."
Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo shook his head helplessly.
Then he turned back to look at Mu and Uchiha Kagami.
"Then I'll leave this to you all. Just hold this ship and the estuary."
"Yes, Sage of Six Paths!"
Mu and Uchiha Kagami nodded respectfully in agreement.
Roger, after they finished speaking, suddenly drew from his waist the longblade Ace—identical to the one he had wielded in life. Laughing, he declared: "Of course! For a pirate, the most important thing is to protect the ship and your crewmates!"
Soon after, Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo vanished without a trace—
Leaving only Roger, Mu, and Kagami standing on the deck, facing the horizons on both banks and the specks of black shadows gradually emerging in the sky.
They were an army of the dead—tens of thousands, dense and unending.
"I'll take the left side. How about it?"
Roger, grinning from ear to ear, looked toward Mu and Uchiha Kagami.
The two exchanged a glance, then nodded.
They knew well that Roger's strength truly surpassed their own.
"Wahaha, then let's begin!"
Roger threw his head back in laughter, then sprang high into the air.
With a resounding boom!
He landed nearly 50 meters from the Underworld-ship onto the frozen earth, shaking the ground beneath him into cracked fissures.
Red light flickered in his eyes as he scanned the endless swarm of dead rushing toward him.
The next instant, he roared out the battle cry he had spoken countless times in life: "Come!"
"Leave behind everything you own!"
[Swoosh——]
The blade Ace in his hand was swiftly coated in a layer of black, the edge instantly consumed.
Then arcs of black and crimson lightning began leaping across it, clearly visible to the naked eye.
[Boom!]
His right foot stomped forward, shattering the frozen ground beneath.
Roger swung Ace, brimming with terrifying power, straight into the undead horde.
[Boom——————]
In an instant—
A brilliant purple-red light blossomed across the heavens and earth of the Underworld.
In the blink of an eye, it transformed into a colossal blade of light, cleaving sky and earth as it surged forward.
"Divine Departure!!!"
Within several hundred meters around Roger, the frozen ground quaked violently, fracturing into rubble.
Behind him, the once calm black waters of the River Styx surged into roaring waves.
On the ship, Mu and Uchiha Kagami, who had just been about to act, froze in place at the overwhelming sight before them.
Their eyes widened, mouths hanging open, yet unable to utter a sound.
What a terrifyingly powerful man!
"Heh… Starfish truly is a wondrous world, to have birthed so many formidable beings."
Far above in the distant sky, Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo turned his head at the noise behind him.
Even he was moved as he watched the force unleashed by Roger's strike.
"I had best quicken my own pace as well."
Hagoromo turned back, his Rinnegan gazing once more toward the location of the Black Ice Fortress.
He too was curious. Just how strong was the opponent, and what strange powers did they wield?
"Roar!"
"Rooaar!!"
Not long after, Hagoromo's line of sight filled with massive Frost Dragons, each with vast skeletal wings unfurled, their entire bodies glowing faintly blue, emanating icy chill.
There were at least a hundred of them.
And swarming around them were tens of thousands of smaller White-Scaled Wyverns.
A glint flickered in Hagoromo's eyes. At once, he saw through Hardy's plan.
"Still relying on so-called strength in numbers? Utterly tedious!"
Hagoromo gave a cold snort.
He stretched out his right hand. In his palm swiftly condensed a jet-black sphere, dark as ink.
...
"What is that?"
From high above the Black Ice Fortress, Hardy furrowed her brow.
What unsettled her most, however, was the anxious, uneasy feeling that had been gnawing at her since earlier.
It was a sensation she had not known since the day she became a goddess—
Not since Emroy had slain the former God of War and Madness and seized his divinity.
...
"Chibaku Tensei!"
On the other side, the sphere flew forth to meet the probing frost breath of a Frost Dragon.
But the seemingly surging, frigid gale had no effect on it at all—
Instead, it was absorbed completely, leaving nothing behind.
And that was not all. When the distance closed within one kilometer—
Those Frost Dragons and White-Scaled Wyverns suddenly realized there was an invisible, tyrannical force at work.
It was binding their massive bodies, dragging them irresistibly toward the black sphere.
"ROOOAARRR!!!"
They thrashed madly, wings beating in desperate struggle.
Yet despite all their efforts, the distance between them and the Chibaku Tensei sphere still shortened at a speed visible to the naked eye.
[Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!]
In the blink of an eye, one Frost Dragon after another, along with their White-Scaled Wyvern retainers, were pulled tight around the black sphere, pressed together by the crushing gravity.
Their massive dragon bodies twisted and snapped, bones splintering piece by piece as they were compressed into ever greater density.
...
"T-This! This! This—!"
The Goddess of the Underworld, Hardy, was utterly shocked.
Covering her lips with one hand, she stared unblinking at the "masterpiece" Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo had created.
Fortunately, she still had plenty of dragons on her side. A technique of such power—surely the opponent could not use it many times.
Yet just as Hardy thought this, Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo smiled faintly and spread his arms wide.
Before him, one after another Chibaku Tensei spheres condensed into being.
When their number reached nine, Hardy was completely dumbfounded.
Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo said, "If you surrender now, it is not too late."
His words jolted Hardy awake, and her rage only grew more furious.
She saw it as nothing less than an insult, an act of contempt.
"I am a goddess!!!"
Head thrown back, the goddess let out a furious, piercing scream, her body erupting with ghostly blue divine radiance.
The next moment—
The dark clouds across the Underworld sky churned like boiling water.
In an instant—
Beams of interlaced blue and black light, containing vast reserves of ultra-low-temperature energy, shot downward.
So cold were they that even the void itself cracked into fissures of frozen space.
One after another, they tore through the thick clouds and rained down upon Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo.
"In that case, this old man will no longer show restraint."
His gaze grew colder still.
He first sent the nine Chibaku Tensei spheres surging into the dragon host.
Then he raised his head, his Rinnegan fixed upon the descending barrage of light.
"If this is all you have, then you will not escape what comes next."
A pitch-black Sage's Staff appeared in Hagoromo's hand.
Behind him, nine black orbs had emerged once again at some point.
[BOOM!!!!]
The next instant, the first pillar of light struck down, engulfing Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo completely.
"That's it?"
"Hehehehe…"
Seeing this, the Goddess Hardy let out a crisp, silver-bell-like laugh of pure delight.
Her laughter rang with nothing but disdain and mockery.
Heaven and earth trembled as a colossal ice pillar appeared—over 100 m wide and nearly 1 000 m tall, piercing straight into the sky.
For a moment, the world fell silent.
"Hmph, so that's all he had? He made such a big show earlier, boasting about capturing this goddess. But what was that about—Lord Imu? The master of the World Government?"
Hardy crossed her arms beneath her chest, her proud figure heaving with fury as she spat her words.
"If he truly is the ruler of the World Government, then why was there no trace of him in the soul memories of those officials?"
The thought left her shaken, uncertain.
[Crack!]
Suddenly, a sharp sound rang out. Hardy's expression froze instantly.
When she lifted her gaze toward the towering ice pillar that reached into the heavens, she was shocked to see countless cracks spreading rapidly across its surface, racing outward at frightening speed.
"How could this—"
[BOOM————]
Before Hardy could finish her words, the sky-piercing pillar of ice exploded on the spot.
The unimaginable shockwave transformed into a dense, surging tidal wave of icy air, flinging countless fragments of frost and ice in every direction across the Underworld.
[Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang…]
They fell like meteorites across the snowfields.
"So it is. You are not weak, enough to rival the might of a General."
Under the goddess Hardy's dumbstruck gaze, Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo emerged unscathed from the slowly dispersing black membrane of the Truth-Seeking Orbs. His steady, calm voice carried across as he addressed her.
"This is impossible, impossible, impossible—it can't be true!"
The goddess Hardy's once-pale face turned deathly white, her eyes filled with terror and disbelief. Her frame trembled uncontrollably as she staggered backward.
"I am a god! A god!!"
"Even if you are a god as well, you shouldn't be this much stronger than me! That last attack—even Emroy wouldn't have withstood it so easily!"
The "Goddess of the Underworld and Souls" was now utterly panicked.
First came her murmurs, then her screams.
At the same time, the ghostly blue radiance of her divine power burst forth again, preparing to unleash another round of all-out assaults.
But this time, Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo had no intention of giving her the chance.
He raised his right palm toward Hardy.
"Universal Pull!"
[Woom————]
At once, Hardy felt her entire body ensnared by an invisible force, dragging her forward with overwhelming strength.
"Ahhh! Let me go! You damned, vile thing!"
"You dare go this far?!"
Gone was the composure of a goddess.
Her hair flew wildly, her face twisted in rage as she shrieked.
Only the dazzling brilliance of her divine light still marked her as something beyond mortal.
But no matter how fiercely her divine power erupted, it could not withstand this terrifying pull.
Still, Hardy would not give up so easily.
She invoked the divine authority granted her by the will of the Underworld, summoning forth the waters of the River Styx.
In an instant, torrents of pitch-black water—thick as ink and crawling with wandering specters—burst out around Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo.
This water might not bring instant destruction to a god.
But if touched too deeply, it would inflict no small burden upon the soul.
Even as her body was dragged helplessly forward, Hardy fixed Hagoromo with a venomous glare.
She was the ruler of this Underworld. Even if the waters stained her, she could wield her authority to banish them again.
At most, her soul would suffer some pollution, leaving her in torment for a few years.
But he was different.
Once contaminated, he would have no choice but to retreat to his own Underworld to cleanse himself.
Whether she allowed him to leave was one matter—but even if he did, the pollution would by then have deepened.
It would no longer be a question of years, but of decades—or even centuries!
Faced with the surging waves of the Styx coming at him from every direction—
Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo showed not a trace of panic. He simply lifted his right palm slowly.
In the next instant, a faint purple gleam flickered within his Rinnegan.
"Shinra Tensei!"
[BOOOOM————————]
The invisible shockwave erupted violently from Hagoromo's body.
That ferocious blast instantly spread outward, forming a spherical ripple that expanded in all directions.
In the blink of an eye, the incoming Styx waters collided head-on with the outward-rushing shockwave.
[KRASHHH!!!]
The deafening sound, as if the very heavens were collapsing, thundered across the darkened skies of this Underworld.
Hardy, caught in the same impact, felt an indescribable, crushing pressure bear down upon her entire body.
The pain was so excruciating it nearly tore her soul apart, making her long to scream—
But her face had already twisted grotesquely, her skin wrinkling under the crushing force, leaving her unable to open her mouth and utter a single sound.
When her vision cleared, she found herself already dragged before Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo.
Hardy desperately unleashed all the divine power within her.
Her entire form turned into a blinding sphere of radiance that no mortal eye could look upon directly.
Like a blazing blue sun!
And yet, for all that overwhelming power, she could not break free from the golden rope binding her body.
Hagoromo regarded the frenzied goddess with calm eyes.
"Come. Whatever judgment awaits you, you must face Lord Imu's decree."
With those words, he flicked his hand. At his side appeared the Crimson Gourd, which sucked Hardy inside despite her terrified, desperate screams.
"Nooooo!!!!"
Hardy's shrill, despairing cry echoed through the entire Falmart Underworld, chilling the hearts of every spirit that dwelled there.
What had just happened?
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