The eastern slope broke apart.
Granite, ice, and snow tore free from the mountain's spine, spilling into the valley floor. The air turned white with dust, blotting out the pale sun as the avalanche struck the rock below.
Giovanni dropped through the whiteout, his boots kicking empty air. Sky Walk detonated in dull, rhythmic blasts beneath him as he scanned the falling debris.
He found them near the precipice: Hajrudin and Stansen. The two giant warriors were sliding toward the drop atop a cracking stone shelf.
Giovanni landed hard on the granite a second before it split.
Hajrudin gritted his teeth, his arms limp against the frost. Stansen lay unconscious beside him, a boulder pinning his leg.
"Get up!" Giovanni barked over the roaring stone.
Hajrudin tried to lever his shoulders off the stone, but his legs collapsed beneath his weight. His broad chest heaved against the cold air, his strength drained from the earlier clashes on the plateau.
Giovanni sheathed Ace, dropped beneath the stone, and set his forearms against the granite. Dark Armament Haki turned his skin black. He heaved upward, shattering the rock off Stansen's leg, then grabbed Stansen's harness with his left hand, hauled Hajrudin over his right shoulder, and flexed his core.
The air exploded beneath his boots. Giovanni launched into the sky, carrying both giants.
The sheer physical mass of two massive warriors pressed down on his spine like an anvil. Every foot of height gained required an explosive burst of compressed air beneath his heels. The shoulder cut Mihawk had opened earlier tore wider, hot blood soaking his coat sleeve and running down his ribs, but he kept kicking, driving his heels against the empty air to clear the falling rock.
Below them, an arching root of the Adam Tree groaned under the landslide. A detached cliff face was falling straight toward its base. If that anchor snapped, the valley settlement below would be buried.
Loki landed heavily near the root's base, coughing blood into the snow. His chest throbbed where Mihawk's blade had marked him, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He looked at the falling cliff, then at the valley floor where his people lived.
He threw his giant greatsword into the snow, stepped directly beneath the falling stone, and drove his bare hands into its underside.
His knees buckled. His spine groaned under the weight. Sharp stone cut his palms, streaming blood down his forearms, but the giant prince set his feet and held the rock off the Adam Tree root with his bare hands. Muscles tore in his chest and back, his teeth grinding until copper tasted rich on his tongue, but he refused to yield an inch of ground.
Above them, drifting through the debris, Dracule Mihawk adjusted his grip on Yoru.
Yoru swung twice.
Two razor-thin lines of black light cut the sky. The granite wave split cleanly down its stress lines, dividing into three channels that slid past the ledge and into the chasms on either side.
The dust settled. The mountain quieted into a low rumble.
Mihawk landed on an outcrop fifty paces away, Yoru resting at his side. He looked over the scene: Loki holding the stone root steady, Giovanni kneeling in the snow beside the unconscious giants, his right sleeve dark with blood.
Neither man moved.
Giovanni lowered Hajrudin and Stansen onto a stable shelf of frost-covered granite. His lungs burned, his shoulder dripping steady red drops onto the white snow beneath his boots. His hand rested near the hilt of Ace.
Mihawk stood with his back half-turned. The path between them was open. The air between them remained taut, charged with the residual static of two supreme wills. If Giovanni pushed his body past its limits, he could restart the exchange. He could force the blade in his hand to seek the answers he had chased across the Grand Line.
A faint groan sounded from the snow behind him. Hajrudin stirred, his heavy fingers twitching against the frost, while distant voices from trapped giant civilians echoed from the rubble further down the slope.
Giovanni looked at Mihawk. Then he looked back at the rubble.
He let go of Ace. He turned away from the World's Strongest Swordsman, walked to the nearest slab of granite, and began hauling the stone away.
Mihawk paused, turning his head slightly.
"The duel is unfinished," Mihawk said over the settling dust.
Giovanni did not stop clearing the rubble. He braced his bloodied shoulder against a two-ton block of shale, shifting its weight to clear an opening for a trapped elder beneath the shelf.
"You bound your stillness," Mihawk said, his eyes lingering on the thin line drying on his own cheek. "You drew blood. Not victory."
Giovanni wiped sweat from his eyes, his breathing heavy but even. He looked back, his face plain.
"I know," Giovanni said. "You held back."
Mihawk's jaw tightened slightly. The hawk-like golden eyes held Giovanni's gaze for a single, quiet heartbeat, measuring the depth of the man's resolve.
"Next time," Mihawk said, sliding Yoru into the sheath on his back with an iron click, "there will be no mountain. And no mercy."
Mihawk turned and walked into the fog. His silhouette vanished into the high pass, leaving only the sound of his boots vanishing against the frozen stone.
Giovanni went back to the stone, lifting a granite slab off an injured elder. He worked methodically, using his legs to drive through the pain in his torn shoulder, setting a steady rhythm against the cold air.
Loki watched him from the Adam Tree root. The giant prince stood silent, blood dripping from his raw palms onto the trampled snow. For the first time in his life, the loud royal boasts died before reaching his lips. He looked at the human who had saved his warriors, then down at his own bloodied hands.
Without a word, the giant prince let go of the rock and began hauling debris alongside him. Together, the human pirate and the Prince of Elbaf cleared slab after slab, digging through the shattered ridge in absolute silence.
The immediate danger of the collapse had passed. The mountain settled, leaving only the whistling wind cutting through the high canyon walls.
Then, from the dark fissures left by the collapse, the shadows moved.
They did not burst forth with a sound or a shockwave. Ink-black tendrils rose silently from the deep chasms where the sun never reached. They crept across the frost toward the unconscious giant warriors lying across the lower ledge.
The tendrils moved like living oil, cold and weightless, sliding beneath leather armor and iron greaves. They wrapped tightly around wrists, knees, and ankles, anchoring themselves in the flesh of the helpless giants.
Before Giovanni or Loki could react, the tendrils tautened, dragging the massive, unconscious warriors inch by inch into the dark below.
---
Find 10 early chapters on my patreon
[Patreon.com/tenten100?]