"Ice Fist Impact."
Kuzan unleashed a punch from a distance. A beam of light-like force instantly bridged the gap between him and Loki, striking directly at the giant's face.
Bang!
Freezing air and ice blocks slammed into Loki. While not entirely ineffective against the Lie-Lie Fruit, their power was significantly diminished.
But Haki was different.
As the strongest means of countering Devil Fruits, Haki could suppress any fruit ability, regardless of its nature, provided the user's Haki was strong enough.
Kuzan was one of the three Logia Admirals, ranking among the top in Marine history. Despite lacking Conqueror's Haki by birth, he could still contend with the Four Emperors.
His Haki strength was undeniable. Born without Conqueror's Haki compared to the Emperors, to match them, he naturally needed Armament and Observation Haki that surpassed theirs—specifically, surpassing Charlotte Linlin and Kaido.
Bang!
The Haki-infused beam, like a blue laser, struck Loki's face. It exploded into dozens of streams of Haki light, like a rain of freezing stardust, striking the ground of Mary Geoise. Wherever it passed, ice formed and shattered.
Loki—already enormous and amplified by his Nika form, his mountain-like body piercing the sky—was sent flying. His feet left the ground, his entire body frozen solid, and he was propelled like a shooting star ten kilometers away.
In mid-air, his body was encased in ice like an iceberg. Thanks to the Lie-Lie Fruit's power, the freezing air—strong enough to destroy human functions—couldn't cause him significant harm.
But the ineffectiveness of freezing air didn't mean Haki was useless.
The iron fist inherited from the hero Garp, combined with incredibly powerful Armament Haki, sent Loki flying ten kilometers through the air and caused him to vomit blood uncontrollably, staining the sky and ground crimson.
"Kuzan!"
Loki lay in a deep pit, eyes wide, pupils bloodshot and contorted in a ferocious display. Combined with his Sun God form, he lacked any of Luffy's comical charm, displaying only savage brutality.
But before he could rise, a sonic boom pierced his ears.
Whoosh!
Kuzan dashed through the air using Geppo, catching up with Loki mid-flight. Before the giant could land, Kuzan raised his arm and clenched his fist above Loki's head.
Sizzle!
A torrent of Armament Haki flowed forth, swirling around his arm and gathering in his fist. Freezing air coiled with it.
"Galaxy Impact!"
Kuzan swung his fist through the air, unleashing his full Haki. Like an eagle soaring through the sky, he delivered a punch of Haki power as sharp as blue lightning.
Bang!
Faced with the overwhelming force descending from the sky, Loki had no time to rise. He could only clasp his arms together to block, but the mountain-like force crushed his hands, pinning them to his chest.
Even in his powerful Nika form, with his incredibly tough rubber body, Loki felt excruciating pain under Kuzan's overwhelming force.
"So cold!"
What Loki found even more unbelievable was that he had clearly used the Lie-Lie Fruit to lie that Kuzan's freezing air would only give him a cold shower at most. Now, he felt increasingly cold.
"Cold is to be expected," Kuzan said, watching Loki's arms freeze. Instead of shattering the ice instantly, he saw the giant's arms tremble slightly from the extreme cold.
"You're lying again, calling yourself the Sun God, and bragging that my Ice-Ice Fruit can only give you a cold shower. I really want to know—can your Lie-Lie Fruit truly cover everything? Maintaining the lie that you're the Sun God is already difficult enough for you, let alone anything else."
"Even if you can really cover everything, that's fine," Kuzan continued, flexing his fist. "Besides the Ice-Ice Fruit, I also know a little bit of hand-to-hand combat, and some rudimentary Haki."
Before he finished speaking, Kuzan clenched his fist again. This time, it wasn't Armament Haki or freezing air. Instead, streaks of black and red lightning danced and raged around his knuckles.
"Conqueror's Haki?!" Loki's eyes widened. "Impossible! How do you know Conqueror's Haki, and even mastered Entanglement!"
Loki slammed his hands on the ground, using his Nika form to influence the surrounding environment, transforming it into a rubber-like substance. Using the elasticity, he launched himself upward, throwing a punch—but he froze, stunned by Kuzan's Conqueror's Haki Entanglement.
"Just learned it," Kuzan said calmly. "Please, Your Highness, have a look."
After saying that, Kuzan unleashed another powerful punch from his superior position. It was another Galaxy Impact—except this time, it combined Armament Haki with Conqueror's Haki.
Bang!
A black lightning bolt, piercing through the void like skyward thunder, descended. A terrifying pressure, like the collapse of the heavens and the earth, left Loki with nowhere to hide.
"Damn it!" Loki didn't hesitate and immediately threw a punch to meet the attack.
"Mighty Strike!"
The technique known as the Elbaf Spear—usually requiring a weapon for giants—didn't need one for Loki. He was already the strongest among giants, and with his Nika transformation, this punch compressed the atmosphere in front of him to its limit, then transformed it into a terrifying shockwave that pierced the clouds, colliding with Kuzan's Galaxy Impact.
Boom!
A deafening roar shook the universe. The surging impact, like a missile explosion, burst forth in all directions in the void, forming a ball of light wreathed in black lightning that lingered for a long time before releasing terrifying shockwaves.
"Nothing special!" Loki roared, standing on Mary Geoise and raising his fist to the heavens like the Sun God who scorned the Celestial Dragons eight hundred years ago.
But the next second...
Bang!
A deafening roar echoed across the Red Line. The energy sphere formed by the stalemated forces exploded.
"Ah!" Loki stared intently, but before he could react, a black and red lightning bolt, like a raging dragon, crashed down upon him. It struck his head with the force of a mountain, causing excruciating pain, making him see stars, and forcing him to cough up blood.
Crack!
The ground beneath his feet couldn't withstand the overwhelming force. It first cracked a thousand meters wide, then collapsed downward, forming a fissured basin. As for Loki, he was like a nail, buried deep within it.
"As expected," Kuzan hovered in mid-air, glancing at his right fist. "Using freezing air instead of Conqueror's Haki isn't entirely unacceptable. However, this is Garp's technique after all. It needs Conqueror's Haki combined with Armament Haki to be considered the authentic Galaxy Impact."
As Garp's first disciple, Kuzan had long mastered all the techniques, from Fist Bone Strike to Galaxy Impact. However, due to the lack of Conqueror's Haki born with him, he couldn't perfectly replicate them.
Therefore, he took a different approach: combining the Ice-Ice Fruit with Armament Haki, replacing Conqueror's Haki to form his own version of Galaxy Impact. If Garp's version pursued ultimate instantaneous burst, Kuzan's combined instantaneous burst with massive area-of-effect and sustained damage.
There was no inherent superiority in techniques; it depended on the user.
Unfortunately, Kuzan faced Loki, who had eaten the Lie-Lie Fruit. Loki's overpowered ability significantly reduced the Ice-Ice Fruit's freezing power, rendering it almost useless. Therefore, the freezing version of Galaxy Impact was far less effective against Loki than Garp's original.
"You! Kuzan! I am the Sun God—you cannot kill me!"
Just as Kuzan was savoring the original version of the Galaxy Impact, Loki—who had just slammed his fist into the ground like a nail—unleashed his power, tearing the earth of Mary Geoise apart and emerging from the ground.
"The Ice-Ice Fruit is useless against me. Physical skills are worthless. Haki can't kill me either! In this battle, you have absolutely no reason to win!"
Loki roared, simultaneously activating the Lie-Lie Fruit's power. By this point in the battle, he had roughly grasped Kuzan's limits. In a one-on-one fight to the death, he couldn't defeat Kuzan with dual-type Haki, and he was even less likely to win against Kuzan, who had transplanted Conqueror's Haki and possessed all three types.
However, the Lie-Liar Fruit's overpowered nature, coupled with his Nika form and the Liberation Drum's near-immortal abilities, meant that Kuzan wouldn't be able to defeat him without a fight lasting at least a day or two.
Regarding this, Loki firmly believed it—but still felt uneasy. So...
He lied. He told the lie that Kuzan couldn't beat him.
"Ara ara ara ara! The Ice-Ice Fruit can't kill you. Physical techniques still won't kill you. Haki still won't kill you. What if it were the Ice-Ice Fruit, physical techniques, Armament Haki, and Conqueror's Haki?"
Kuzan calmly countered.
"You!" Loki's expression changed drastically.
"Galactic Impact. I used it on you twice—once with Armament Haki and the Ice-Ice Fruit, once with Armament Haki and Conqueror's Haki. I'm curious: if the two were combined, how would you, Prince, respond?"
As Kuzan spoke, Armament Haki transformed into a purple stream of light, Conqueror's Haki into black lightning, and extreme cold into icy blue mist.
Sizzle
The instant he clenched his fist, Armament Haki, Conqueror's Haki, and freezing aura merged, coiling around his knuckles like a serpent.
"Glacier Impact!"
Kuzan roared to the sky. His fist struck out like a dragon, shattering the atmosphere before him and unleashing a three-colored shockwave, like a rainbow spanning the sky. It carried the heavy pressure and mental attack of Conqueror's Haki, the ultimate piercing power of Armament Haki, and the freezing aura and ice-sealing power of the Ice-Ice Fruit.
The three forces combined into one, surging down like a dam bursting.
"Jörmungandr's Spear!"
Loki dared not be careless. Using his Nika form's imagination, he envisioned his own fist as a giant serpent capable of devouring even the World Tree. Already three hundred meters tall, he now wielded a fist with a diameter exceeding one thousand meters, like a colossal serpent swallowing the heavens, devouring everything in its path.
Bang!
In a flash, a terrifying fist—comparable in size to an island and extending outward like a colossal serpent—collided with the vast, all-freezing, all-crushing, all-piercing glacier. First, it tore a massive hole in the thick sea of clouds above the Red Earth Peak, then unleashed a powerful storm that swept across Mary Geoise, instantly flattening a third of the buildings.
"It's blocked!" Loki was overjoyed.
But just then, Kuzan's voice, transcending the glacier and the fist, reached his ears.
"By the order of Admiral Rosen, Prince Loki is to depart."
The moment Loki heard Kuzan's words, he felt an intensely cold aura erupt from the tip of the fist. Even the Lie-Lie Fruit couldn't completely neutralize this freezing power.
"No—impossible!" Loki opened his mouth to scream, but before the words could leave his lips, a vast glacial blast of freezing air engulfed his fist, larger than an island, and his Nika body, towering like a mountain.
Crack
Under the glacial onslaught, Loki—fist and all—was transformed into an ice sculpture. Previously, after being frozen time and again, he could shatter the ice, treating the freezing air as nothing. But this time, after being frozen solid, he was like an iceberg standing in the extreme cold.
Completely motionless.
Not only him, but even a third of Mary Geoise was frozen solid.
Thud
Kuzan stepped on the air, descending like a staircase, landing in front of the iceberg-like Loki. He gently exhaled a breath of freezing air.
"Ara ara ara! Grandpa Garp—I think I've surpassed you."
—-
Enjoying the story? You can read 3-5 chapters ahead right now on Patreon!
New chapters drop there much earlier than Web Novel.
Join P@treon & Read Ahead → https://[email protected]/c/Ren_Saga
Thank you for your support! ❤️