On the Red Line, silence fell like a shroud.
Five mythic beasts stood like living calamities, turning the land into a killing ground that even gods would fear to tread.
Their auras overlapped and interwove into a net, sealing sky and earth alike. Every inch of air hardened into a blade, sharp enough to grind to dust anything foolish enough to step into this place.
The World Government's highest authority, the Five Elders, all present, finally bared their most vicious fangs.
At the center of the encirclement, Kael slowly straightened.
His scar-laced upper body was carved in firelight and eerie glow, a silhouette as hard and unyielding as stone.
He exhaled, a white breath tainted with blood.
In those golden eyes, there was no fear at all.
Instead, a blaze he had not felt in a long, long time ignited.
How many years had it been?
Since he'd climbed to the top of this sea, how many years since he'd felt his heart hammering like this, his blood boiling, every nerve singing?
He rolled his numb wrist, cracked his neck, and the air answered with a series of crisp pops.
Then he bared his teeth in a grin, wild and pure.
Kael lifted a finger and drew it lazily across the five colossal horrors before him. Then the fingertip returned and tapped his own chest.
"Listen carefully."
His voice was not loud, but it landed cleanly in every Elder's ears.
"You're the ones surrounded."
The moment the words fell, his body shattered into countless points of light. He became a streak that tore through the dark, charging straight into the death net built from monsters.
"Lightwave, Ten Thousand Starfall!"
As he surged forward, countless light motes peeled off him and condensed in an instant into a rain of densely packed light bullets, pouring outward in all five directions like a storm.
Each shot carried heat and impact enough to punch through steel.
In that heartbeat, the sky itself was blanketed by a dazzling downpour of death.
Screech!
Saint Mars, in Itsumade form, let out a piercing cry. The enormous wings slammed downward, raising a gale violent enough to blow islands aside.
At the same time, the beast opened its beak and spewed a rolling flood of ominous black fire.
Wind fed flame. Flame rode wind.
Black waves of fire crashed head-on into the radiant rain.
There was no earth-shattering explosion.
The instant the light bullets touched the black flames, they were swallowed in silence, erased without a sound.
The violent clash of energies kicked up a storm of dust and smoke, shrouding a wide stretch of battlefield.
Kael burst out of the choking haze like a spear.
His target was blatant to the point of insult.
Among the five, the relatively smaller one.
Saint Saturn, in Gyuki form.
Pick the softest target first.
"Sound Cleave, Phoenix Burst Cry!"
The black-gold naginata Nidhogg was wrapped in Haki and high-frequency sonic vibration. Along the path of the slash, air was torn open, compressed, then detonated. A domineering, phoenix-shaped arc lunged straight for Saturn's face.
But cold light was faster than the slash.
Clang!
Saint Nusjuro appeared like a ghost, flashing through at extreme speed. The Shodai Kitetsu met Kael's strike with surgical precision.
At the instant their blades collided, extreme frost crawled along the metal. The ground around them froze in a blink, and a glacier hundreds of meters tall erupted from the earth, trying to lock Kael inside.
Being treated as the "soft one" made Saturn's ugly face twist with a very human kind of anger.
All eight legs moved at once. Its massive body hopped backward with awkward bulk, and it spat a thick stream of purple venom.
Where the poison swept, even the Red Line's hard rock hissed and melted.
"Malevolent Gaze!"
The moment Saturn's eyes met Kael's, an invisible mental spear stabbed into Kael's mind.
Kael's pupils tightened. His vision blurred for a fraction of a second, the kind of shock that would shatter anyone below an Emperor tier on the spot.
But he only paused for that single beat before clarity snapped back.
Kael snorted.
A ripple of high-frequency vibration expanded from him, knocking the corrosive venom aside, then washing over the glacier.
Crack… crack crack crack…
The "unbreakable" ice bloomed with fractures from within, then detonated with a thunderous roar, bursting into a blizzard of shards.
"Mirage of Light, Thousandfold Bodies!"
Using the ice mist and smoke as cover, Kael's figure split. One became two, two became four.
In the blink of an eye, more than a thousand Kaels filled the battlefield, each holding a naginata, each rushing a different Elder.
These clones carried only a portion of the fruit's power. They could not deal real damage.
That was never the point.
The instant the swarm of clones dragged the Five Elders' attention away, Kael's true body appeared in front of Saturn as if he'd teleported.
Pshk!
A black-gold flash.
Saturn let out a pained shriek.
Two spider-like legs were severed cleanly at the root.
But Kael did not even have time to savor the hit.
An irresistible force slammed in from the side.
Warcury's Fengxi body, a mountain of muscle and brutality, charged in with momentum that promised to crush everything in its path.
From the other side, Nusjuro's freezing blade struck again, a perfect pincer with Warcury.
At that critical instant, a razor-green slash tore through the air, cutting precisely at Nusjuro.
Boom!
Nusjuro had to turn his blade to block. The impact shoved him back several steps, and the pincer collapsed.
Hawk-Eye Mihawk stood on a boulder not far away.
The tip of Yoru gleamed with murderous cold.
Kael threw his head back and laughed. "Hahaha! Beautiful work, little Hawk-Eye! I'm giving you a raise when we get back!"
He turned to face Warcury's onrushing bulk.
Not retreating, but stepping into it.
He condensed Haki and the Wave fruit's force into Nidhogg's blade, then swung at those two massive tusks with savage intent.
"Divine Departure!"
Boom!!!!
Conqueror's Haki, braided into the shockwave, slammed head-on into Warcury's brute charge.
The ground beneath Kael fractured inch by inch. The sheer force pushed him back, skidding hundreds of meters and carving two deep trenches across the Red Line.
The struggle had not even ended when the ground beneath Kael suddenly trembled with violent intensity.
Alarm screamed through him.
He abandoned the contest with Warcury without hesitation and launched himself into the sky, using the recoil to rise.
The next instant, where he had stood, a sandworm's giant, tooth-lined maw erupted from the earth and snapped shut, pulverizing stone into dust.
Saint Peter.
What a hungry little bastard.
Kael flipped once in midair and landed lightly beside Mihawk.
The two of them stood back to back, eyes cold, staring forward.
Skeletal warhorse.
Fengxi.
Sandworm.
Itsumade.
And the Gyuki that had just lost two legs.
Saturn remained where it was, glaring at Kael with eyes ready to burst.
At the severed wounds, flesh and chitin writhed and surged at visible speed.
In only a few breaths, two brand new pincers had already regrown, whole and flawless.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't forget to add this story to your Library, drop a review, and leave a Power Stone if you enjoyed it!
If you're itching to see what happens next, check out the advanced chapters on my Patron!
[email protected]/_theon
Change @ to "a"