Chapter 93: The End
The guard, clad in armor and holding a halberd, as if not believing what he was seeing, lifted the visor of his helmet and looked again at the spot where the Vivre Cards were kept.
The card that had been burning was now completely reduced to ashes, signifying that the person it corresponded to was completely dead.
Seeing this, the guard's scalp tingled. He dared not delay and immediately took out a Den Den Mushi to report to his superior.
Geyr Island, in the shattered battlefield.
Louis slowly withdrew his spear, took the black wings, and left, leaving Cabanha's body kneeling before the giant rock.
He walked unhurriedly across the scorched earth. As he walked, wisps of golden light scattered from the wings on his back, merging into the chaotic wind. The next moment, a humanoid creature born from the wind stepped forward, took the pair of black wings from Louis's hands, and flew toward the sky.
Then, Louis's gaze fell on the underground space where the giant stone monument was stored. After a brief moment of thought, Louis summoned the nearest prototype Flügel and gave the order to move the Poneglyph.
"..."
Suddenly, a hurricane, carrying rolling smoke, dust, and shockwaves, swept over from the distance, lifting Louis's golden hair.
"That's Yelena's battlefield..." Louis turned his head thoughtfully, looking in the direction the hurricane had come from. "I should go take a look," he said in a low voice. After a moment of contemplation, Louis finally decided to go.
Not long after, Louis stopped at the edge of a shattered beach littered with icicles, vines, and the corpses of giant beasts.
What appeared before him was a terrifying battlefield that surpassed the cognition of an ordinary person.
Ice and snow were everywhere, and giant trees grew horizontally. The entire beach and the nearby sea were once again frozen under an extremely cold climate. On the shattered ice field, giant trees and verdant vines slithered like pythons. Under the command of the forest spirit with the goat skull, they swept toward the white figure in heavy armor. Amidst the plants that occupied a large swath of the ice field, the figures of giant beasts were faintly visible.
Yelena, holding her war hammer, charged rapidly, each step leaving a deep, shattered pit in the ice field beneath her feet. The heavy and cold World-Breaker war hammer was swung repeatedly, shattering the massive brown trees and turning them into palm-sized wood chips that scattered.
In the distance, the goat-skull, seeing the arrival of the main culprit behind Cabanha's death and that the new blood he had brought seemed to have been completely wiped out, no longer had any intention of fighting to the death here. He stood atop a giant man-eating flower, and while manipulating the plants to attack Yelena, he gradually moved toward the sea.
Yelena saw this, and a sharp glint flashed in the red eyes beneath her special gas mask. She then ignored the plants rushing at her from all directions, leaped up, and landed on top of a vine that was coiling like a giant python, running rapidly toward her opponent. As she advanced, the low temperature spread again, freezing the vine beneath her feet.
In the distance, the goat-skull saw this, and a shadow of gloom flashed in his eyes. While manipulating the giant trees by the sea to form a sailing ship, he raised a hand and summoned another batch of giant beasts. One by one, strange circles appeared out of thin air, and tall, dark figures rushed out from them, pouncing straight at the approaching Yelena.
Yelena took a deep breath, then sidestepped to dodge a claw the size of a normal person. She then shattered the frozen vine beneath her feet and leaped high into the air. Gripping the war hammer wreathed in Armament Haki with both hands, she dived straight toward the goat-skull.
Just then, a pair of furry claws tore out from an unfrozen vine. Immediately after, a brown-furred bear, dozens of meters tall, stood up on its hind legs, directly blocking the path between Yelena and the goat-skull, and let out a terrifying roar. Although the giant bear's body was massive, its agility was not to be underestimated. From its appearance to blocking their path, it was all completed in an instant.
The giant bear opened its cavernous mouth, filled with sharp fangs, and bit directly at Yelena.
To this, a look of annoyance flashed in Yelena's red eyes. She once again coated her war hammer in a thin layer of white mist. With a lightning-fast swing, she smashed the war hammer heavily onto the giant bear's head.
BOOM—
Where the cold war hammer met flesh, a white light instantly exploded, sending the dozens-of-meters-tall giant bear flying. The upper body of the flying giant bear was dyed white by the explosive low temperature. Then, countless cracks appeared out of thin air, and it exploded violently, turning into countless ice blocks that scattered like hail.
"!!" The goat-skull saw this and subconsciously extended a vine behind him, wrapped it around the ship's mast, and pulled himself rapidly backward. In just an instant, he had once again put distance between himself and Yelena.
However, the next second, his face changed drastically. He proactively cut the vine connecting him to the ship, causing himself to fall to the edge of the beach. At the bow of the ship, a figure clad in gold and red heavy armor, holding a sword in one hand, had appeared at some point and was quietly watching him.
Seeing this, the goat-skull was instantly covered in a cold sweat. If he hadn't caught sight of Louis in his peripheral vision and had stepped straight onto the ship, he would have been dead for sure. Even Cabanha hadn't been spared; he didn't think he would be an exception. But his current situation wasn't much better; he was caught in a pincer attack.
In the end, he chose to turn around and face the white figure attacking from behind. He had heard of Louis's speed; there was no use in running. The only way was to first defeat this weaker Oni and then try to stall for time.
"..."
Amidst the falling hail, Yelena's figure fell rapidly, her legs stamping heavily on top of a man-eating flower that was snapping at her.
BOOM—
The giant man-eating flower was instantly stomped into the ice field by Yelena. The massive impact, its force undiminished, shattered the glacier in a hundred-meter radius and, from a distance, shattered the frozen vines. Under the huge recoil, Yelena leaped up again, turning into a white streak of light that flew close to the ground. Accompanied by a piercing whistle, she charged straight for the goat-skull at the edge of the beach.
The goat-skull mobilized the plant roots spread across the battlefield, wrapping his spirit form in layer after layer. He then merged his spirit form into them, forming a giant, hundreds of meters tall and composed entirely of plants, similar to a Logia Devil Fruit user.
"The great power of nature! A lowly, inferior species like you cannot possibly stand against it!!"
This move allowed the goat-skull to "elementalize," turning his body into plants and moving rapidly between the various parts of the giant's body. His attack power was immense, and he also possessed great survivability. Armament Haki could hit his real body, but one had to find him, moving rapidly within the seamless tree-man, first.
To this, Yelena gave the most direct response.
A storm swirled around Yelena, who had transformed into her beast form, spinning rapidly. Ice and snow gathered, forming a sky-blotting blizzard that enveloped her. The raging blizzard swept toward the hundreds-of-meters-tall giant, as if to swallow it and freeze it in place.
The goat-skull saw this and, in complete contrast to his arrogant words just now, raised his vigilance to the extreme. In his Observation Haki, the Oni's aura in the storm had become even more dangerous. The next moment, he manipulated a giant hand and, guided by his Observation Haki, swept it with hurricane force toward Yelena in the blizzard.
Just then, a giant hand of ice and snow, identical in appearance to a woman's arm but massive in size, holding a spear forged of ice but shrouded in an ominous gray mist, emerged from the storm. It stabbed directly into the giant's chest, piercing its massive body and making it stagger backward.
Immediately after, a figure of equally impressive size emerged from the storm. Its body was entirely forged from ice and snow. Its lower half was the translucent body of a deer, and its upper half was the appearance of a fully armored human female.
Yelena, in her beast form, was perched high within the ice and snow head, which was identical to her own appearance. A bone-chilling voice came from beneath her bone-white skull.
"The Stag of Withering..."
Louis was momentarily dazed. He had never seen Yelena use this move. But this technique, of using her ability in her beast form to make herself even bigger, gave him a strange sense of déjà vu.
"How is this possible..." The pierced goat-skull felt a sharp pain in his chest, as if his own chest had really been pierced. "She clearly didn't hit my body?!"
He endured the sharp pain and manipulated the plants of his body to pull out the crystal-forged spear, attacking again. A giant arm turned into a vine and, with a terrifying sonic boom, whipped straight toward the half-human, half-deer crystal monster.
However, the Stag of Withering, its entire body translucent and radiating a biting chill, seemed not to see this attack at all. It stepped forward on its four legs, and its Valkyrie-like upper body swung the spear, which was coated in a gray mist, and smashed it straight into the giant's massive form.
The next moment, the vine that had torn through the sound barrier was frozen by the biting chill surrounding the stag, shattering in mid-air and scattering everywhere.
"!"
An intense pain instantly swept through the goat-skull's entire body, making him feel the pain of a severed arm.
"This person... she can actually harm me through these vines!" The goat-skull's face changed drastically. He subconsciously wanted to dispel this giant form to reduce the possibility of injury.
In the sea, Louis felt the hurricane generated by the collision, and a flash of understanding crossed his eyes. He knew what the gray mist coiling around Yelena's spear was. It was the witchcraft curse of the Wendigo, an ability that specifically targeted the soul.
The next moment, the goat-skull controlled all the roots and vines of his body to explode, shrinking his size. But Yelena, who had the upper hand, gave him no such opportunity. The extreme low temperature spread, covering his body in a layer of hard ice and preventing him from separating. Then, she seized the opportunity and, with grim determination, gripped the spear imbued with the power of witchcraft and pierced straight through the head of the plant-composed giant.
The goat-skull, his stamina and Haki greatly depleted, was completely unable to stop the power of the witchcraft curse from tracing its way to his head. He could only watch in fury as it all happened.
Splat...
A faint sound was heard, and the flame of his soul was extinguished. The goat-skull's eyes lost their light, and his body reverted to its aged human form.
CRACK...
The ice crystal shattered. A body that had not yet lost its warmth fell amidst countless roots and vines, crashing heavily onto the hard layer of ice.
Then, the Stag of Withering, forged from crystal, gradually disintegrated. Yelena, who had returned to her human form, descended on the falling blocks of ice and finally landed steadily on the ground.
Yelena smashed her World-Breaker war hammer into the ice field, raised her head slightly, and her profound gaze fell into the distance. Behind her were the continuously falling giant blocks of ice and the sky-filling ice mist kicked up by the impact.
When she saw Louis walking toward her, Yelena gathered her thoughts, took off her special gas mask, and gave him a gentle smile. "How was that?"
"Very strong." Louis met Yelena's smile, not stingy with his praise.
Just then, a flash of lightning appeared, and the tall, twin-winged figure materialized before them.
Yelena was taken aback for a moment, then asked, "Arcordon, have you dealt with the one you took away?"
Arcordon nodded. He held up a katana for the two to see and said in a light tone, "Not everyone in the God's Knights has the strength to match a top-tier monster. That old thing with the gas mask was just so-so..."
With that, Arcordon looked at the severely damaged earth not far away and couldn't help but click his tongue. "Louis, your partner is really amazing! The one I killed didn't have this kind of destructive power!"
To this, Louis nodded. "She is a partner I was willing to wait two years for. Strength is just one of her insignificant advantages."
Just then, Uta, pulling along a Kuina dressed in a military uniform, appeared before them with a grin. The group looked at Kuina's attire, and their expressions changed subtly. If they remembered correctly, this looked like the uniform style of the God's Knights.
To this, Kuina looked a little unnatural and explained with a strange expression, "I found this on the wreckage of those sailing ships."
The group heard this, smiled, and said nothing.
THUD~ THUD~
With a series of heavy footsteps, the giants, led by Dorry and Brogy, also arrived with heroic smiles.
"Kabababababa!"
"Gegyagyagyagya!"
"Little bro Louis, you're really capable!"
"We haven't seen this level of power in many years!"
"Over a hundred years ago, in the depths of the New World, it seems only one person had this kind of strength."
To this, Louis looked up at them and replied flatly, "This level is just barely enough to qualify for the unprecedented great event of the future."
Then, Louis looked up at the rapidly descending Avant Heim. "Let's go. Since we've already chopped off the World Government's claws, there's no reason for us to stay here any longer."
With that, Louis turned and walked into the parted gate. The others saw this and followed without hesitation.
It wasn't until Geyr Island had disappeared from their sight that the giant with the horned helmet, as if he'd thought of something, subconsciously asked, "Those residents... after we leave, will they be silenced by the World Government again?"
To this, Uta, who was sitting on Louis's shoulder, waved her hand nonchalantly. "I had the Ex-Machinas remind them! I told them they had just experienced a Buster Call and should leave Geyr Island as soon as possible and live in anonymity."
Not long after, in a wilderness on Geyr Island.
Four mysterious circles containing geometric patterns appeared out of thin air. Four figures, completely covered in black cloaks, slowly materialized on the ravaged island.
An old man with graying hair, his hair and beard both combed into a crescent moon shape, rested one hand on the hilt of his saber and scanned his surroundings. After a long while, he frowned slightly. "Are we too late?"
Beside him, a young man with red hair tied in a short ponytail looked at the kneeling corpse not far away, a hint of dissatisfaction flashing in his eyes. "A bunch of trash..."
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