"Young man Ragnar, although you haven't committed any crimes yet, you're far too dangerous."
"I'm not worried about what you've done—"
"—I'm worried about what you can do."
"No one in the Navy can rest easy with you alive."
Aokiji climbed out of the shattered icicle. His breath was ragged, blood frozen at the corners of his mouth.
He staggered toward the massive pillar of ice that encased Ragnar, his steps crunching over fractured frost.
"So... I can only ask you to die here."
He exhaled slowly, then stomped the ground.
Boom —
The weakened ice shelf split open, a huge crater collapsing into the frigid sea below. The frozen Ragnar, still trapped in a jagged crystal coffin, plunged into the depths with a rumbling splash.
Aokiji stared into the swirling abyss.
He didn't speak. He didn't blink.
Not until the last glint of that massive icicle was swallowed by black water.
"Is that so?"
"I didn't expect the great Admiral of the Navy to be this afraid of me the first time we met."
A cold voice echoed from behind.
"—Ragnar is flattered."
What?!
Aokiji's pupils shrank. The surge of killing intent behind him was overwhelming.
Even with years of war-hardened instinct, he barely had time to react.
But he didn't flinch.
In a flash, his back hardened with Busoshoku Haki, reinforced by years of mastery. The flow hardened into layers — a second skin of willpower.
Then came the second layer: a burst of Ryūō — an advanced emission of Armament Haki that created an invisible armor, extending slightly from his back.
Six Powers: Tekkai!
All this was done in the span of a single breath.
"Raimei Hakke: Ō no Ōgi!"
(Thunderclap Eight Trigrams: King's Secret Technique!)
Ragnar flashed into view behind him, completely unscathed. His entire right arm, now draconic in form, was shrouded in black lightning — tendrils of Haoshoku no Haki (Conqueror's Haki) violently crackling through the air.
His claws, plated in obsidian-colored Busoshoku, gripped the air like they were holding the essence of a storm.
He thrust forward —
—but the claws halted just short of Aokiji's body.
BOOM—!!
The unleashed Haoshoku-infused shockwave detonated like a natural disaster. The impact didn't just strike the body — it crushed the will.
A blast of pressure erupted out, leveling everything within a 300-meter radius. Icebergs fractured. The sea trembled.
Aokiji winced. Blood trickled from his nose.
His layered defenses groaned under the pressure.
Crack—
The glass-shattering noise echoed in his mind. His internal Ryūō barrier had shattered.
"So even this won't hold..."
"...against someone his age?"
He wanted to laugh.
He did laugh — just a bitter, short exhale.
"This kid..."
"He's not just a prodigy... He's a monster."
"Devil Fruit mastery, physical strength, swordsmanship, all three forms of Haki..."
"Even Haoshoku infusion, at this level...!"
"Overflowing."
He clenched his teeth — too late.
Bang—!!
Ragnar's punch — or rather, the force projected from it — slammed into Aokiji's chest.
Crack!
The force split the air, and the Haoshoku no Haki tore like a thunderstorm down Aokiji's spine.
He was flung backward like a meteor.
But even as he spiraled through the air, even as blood spurted from his mouth in an arc—
The heavy clouds, churned by the thick white fog above, were suddenly shaken loose and scattered to more distant skies.
Before they could even settle—
Another burst of domineering will exploded from below.
This time, the clouds didn't even have the chance to retreat. They were shredded like fragile paper under the weight of the terrifying aura.
The sky over the New World... was torn open.
At the same moment—
The shattered ice sheet below had already collapsed entirely.
Colossal chunks of ice and jagged rocks were hurled into the air, forming towering icebergs that loomed like frozen mountains.
Suddenly—
A figure shot up like a bolt of lightning from the depths of the pit, piercing through the dense fog.
It smashed through several hundred-meter-tall icebergs without resistance, before crashing down onto the glacier like a broken kite.
Crack!
The impact caused a massive ice block to splinter and detach from the glacier, cascading into the sea.
Lying atop the fractured ice, a blood-soaked figure drifted in the cold wind.
"Agh..." Aokiji, chest caved in from the last blow, felt like his brain had turned into a flock of birds flapping in chaos.
Dizzy and reeling, he endured the searing pain. With trembling fingers, he clutched an ice blade formed in his left hand, stabbing it into the glacier beneath him as a makeshift crutch to rise.
But—
The moment he lifted himself halfway, a violent cough forced a mouthful of blood and ice shards from his lips, spraying into the air.
The white ice under him was instantly stained crimson.
"That move... That's the same one Kaido used to seriously injure Sakazuki...!"
Aokiji's eyes flared red for a split second, his body freezing up.
He sensed it clearly.
Ragnar's presence was soaring back at a terrifying speed.
Even though the last attack had sent him flying nearly a thousand meters—
With Ragnar's current speed, in less than two seconds—
He'd be face to face with death itself.
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