Rumble...
As Darren's strike cleaved the island in two, earth-shaking roars boomed without end.
The split landmasses heaved violently as colossal waves surged into the newborn chasm like a burst dam, erupting upward in towering geysers of seawater.
"The island… it's been split in half!"
"What kind of power is that?!"
The two CP0 agents staggered backward in unison, chests heaving.
Bruised and battered, they stared at the ruined landscape in utter disbelief, the broken earth stretching away beneath them. The ground trembled so violently they could barely stand.
It was almost impossible to accept—a single human had split an entire island open with nothing but brute force.
"Did you see that?"
A figure emerged slowly from the emerald tornado up ahead.
Dragon strode out with effortless arrogance, wind swirling around him. His hands slid toward the opening stance of the Dragon Claw Fist as a faint, smug smile tugged at his lips.
"This is the Dragon Claw Fist I personally developed," he said gravely. "A technique that will shatter the World Government's tyranny with unstoppable, overwhelming force."
The two CP0 agents looked from Dragon… to the crimson-streaked figure rampaging in the distance amid thunder and lightning like some primordial beast.
Then they looked back at Dragon.
Silence.
Their expressions all but shouted: You sure that thing over there is called Dragon Claw Fist?
Dragon's smile froze. A vein throbbed at his temple; his face flushed with anger and embarrassment.
"You dare doubt me?!" he snapped. "Fine then—watch closely. I'll show you what the true, original Dragon Claw Fist looks like!"
With a roar, half his body dissolved into a howling gale as he shot forward. Both hands turned pitch black as Armament Haki surged, his three-fingered Dragon Claws flickering with wind and thunder, carried by the storm.
His speed exploded.
A suffocating sense of danger crashed over the two CP0 agents. Their faces twisted in terror as their hearts pounded madly.
Had Darren been free to glance their way, even he would have been surprised to see Dragon unleash a formidable high-speed movement of his own.
Channeling the speed and agility of the Wind-Wind Fruit, Dragon condensed the storm into a lethal, focused surge. It was a refined, high-end technique that only an experienced Logia user could wield.
"The storm of revolution will sweep across the world!"
"You lapdogs of the World Government will be ground to dust in its wake!"
The raging tempest behind him twisted into the phantom of a colossal Wind Dragon. Dragon's outstretched Dragon Claw hands—like the beast's fangs—dragged its surging tail across the battlefield as the dragon roared past.
"Wind Fury: Dragon's Breath!"
The attack swallowed the two already-crippled CP0 agents whole, offering them no time to react.
---
Sea spray rose in tsunamis, collapsing and reforming into a raging azure tide.
For a moment, it felt as though the entire world was trembling.
"You're starting to dodge…"
Darren's breathing came in ragged bursts. Steam-like heat poured from his nostrils with each exhale.
His body was undergoing a monstrous transformation. Every exposed muscle stood out in sharp, cut lines, like something sculpted from dark iron. Crimson veins bulged beneath his skin, pumping furiously.
Under the strain of the Magnetic Field Rotation, his cells were being forced to operate at a terrifying level.
Sweat and blood had long since burned away. Dehydration hollowed him out, shrinking his once-burly frame into something gaunt and sharp.
Deeper nasolabial lines, slightly lengthened eyes, a more angular jawline—and that feral grin curling the corners of his mouth—turned him into something that barely passed for human.
"This just proves… you're afraid."
"And here's the thing—if you were truly immortal, you wouldn't be afraid of anything."
Boom.
The fractured ground beneath their feet gave way again as Darren shot forward once more, streaking across the air like living lightning.
Several kilometers away, Saint Michael clawed his way upright. Gritting his teeth, his bloodshot eyes flared with crimson light as he pushed his Observation Haki to its limit, glimpsing the coming moment.
A jet-black Dragon Claw appeared in his precognition, crashing toward his face.
A suffocating chill stabbed through his spine.
My speed is dropping. My stamina's bleeding out… This state is collapsing. If I can just maintain this pace, I can still dodge—
The future he foresaw shattered like glass.
Saint Michael froze for a heartbeat.
In the very next instant, a pitch-black fist wreathed in crimson lightning materialized out of nowhere.
Like a meteor streaking across the sky, leaving a red trail burning behind it, the fist slammed into his abdomen.
BANG!!
"—Guh!!"
Blood spurted from his lips as Saint Michael remained frozen in his evasive posture, head thrown back, eyes wide in disbelief.
The future he'd seen… hadn't happened.
"I read your reading," Darren rasped, gasping for breath as he held his finishing pose, lightning still crackling faintly across his body.
"You… outpaced the future?" Saint Michael whispered, voice shaking.
Slowly lowering his gaze, he saw it—Darren's arm buried deep in his abdomen.
Even without turning his head, he knew. That fist had punched clean through his back.
"I… I can't feel my body…"
"That's because I cut your nerves," Darren snarled, baring his teeth in a bloody grin.
Anyone who saw what came next would have been sick with horror.
Darren's black Dragon Claw hadn't just pierced through Saint Michael's spine—it was now gripping a slick, pallid segment of vertebra, still dripping with blood.
"So you're not quite the same as those five undying fossils after all," Darren sneered.
"If it were them, even blowing their heads clean off wouldn't put them down."
"What are you saying?!" Saint Michael roared, eyes blazing red.
He seized Darren's arm with his newly regenerated hands and wrenched his body backward with insane determination.
"Aaaaaaaahhh!!"
Against all logic, he forced himself away, letting Darren's Dragon Claw rip his spine free as he stumbled back.
Clatter…
A thick, wet sound accompanied the fall of bone and tissue.
Blood and fluids gushed from his ravaged torso as Saint Michael staggered, swaying on his feet.
Black flame erupted wildly, devouring what remained of his life force and strength as it raced to repair the gaping hole in his body.
"You still can't kill me!! Hahahahaha!!"
Saint Michael's entire body trembled. Yet an eerie, spectral aura burst from him, wrapping his form.
He glanced once in Darren's direction just as a roaring dark green hurricane surged in from afar.
Gritting his teeth, Saint Michael kicked off the crumbling ground and rocketed upward.
The silver-white ring of icy fire around his body burned brighter, swirling like Kaido's flame clouds, lifting him into the sky.
"You can't kill me!!"
He laughed wildly, blood trailing behind him like a crimson comet.
"Is that so?"
A hoarse, cold voice rasped across the air.
Saint Michael's laughter died abruptly. His pupils shrank.
He couldn't move.
His body hung in the sky, frozen in place as if seized by an invisible giant hand. No matter how he urged the icy flames, his ascent stopped dead.
"This… This is impossible…"
Face draining of color, Saint Michael forced his head to twist, eyes shaking.
Purple-blue arcs of electricity crackled across his fur and skin.
On the shattered earth below, the black-haired youth stood swaying, barely upright, as if a breath of wind could topple him. His hand was raised, fingers loosely curled into a claw.
A vicious grin split his bloodstained face.
"You didn't think I went berserk just to beat you up, did you?"
To be continued...