Gern Reginald Sigmar's pupils turned completely pale.The vibrating particles coiling around his body froze all at once—so utterly still that even the air itself seemed to solidify.
"Heavenquake…"
He slowly raised his right hand, palm facing downward.Then his five fingers clenched without mercy.
"Spatial Dominion · Universal Collapse!!"
Humm—!
A pure-white ring of vibration erupted from beneath his feet and expanded outward at blinding speed, swallowing the entire battlefield in an instant!
Within the ring, space convulsed violently. Gravity was twisted and distorted by high-frequency shockwaves; shattered stone lifted against all logic, only to disintegrate into dust in the next heartbeat.
Light refracted and fractured inside the ring, splitting into countless prism-like pale fissures, as though the world itself had been sliced into fragments.
Roger's body lurched heavily downward, as if trapped in an invisible quagmire. Every movement slowed by more than tenfold.
What was truly terrifying, however, was how clearly he could feel it—
His bones, his muscles, even the blood flowing through his veins were gradually resonating with the vibration frequency of the space itself.
"Damn it… my body… is it breaking down?!"
He looked down.
Fine cracks had already surfaced across the skin of his arm, spreading like fractures in porcelain.
Gern's figure slowly emerged at the center of the vibrating ring, his voice cold and merciless.
"Sink into the vibrations, Roger!!!"
"Supreme Frame!!"
Roger roared as his Conqueror's Haki exploded outward like a volcano!
Dark-red lightning tore through the white vibration field, forcibly prying open a path of resistance. His muscles bulged, veins standing out as every step he took crushed the ground beneath his feet.
Ace, his saber, blazed with unprecedented Haki as he brought it crashing down toward Gern!
Gern's pale pupils narrowed slightly.
"To think you can resist the disintegration effect with Haki alone…"
But in the next instant, a cold arc curled at the corner of his lips.
"A pity. You won't last."
The vibration ring contracted again—
And the rate of spatial collapse suddenly accelerated!
For a time, within this vast underwater battlefield forcibly carved open by Gern's Heavenquake Fruit, the roar of Haki and the tearing scream of vibration never ceased.
Every collision between the two felt as though it might overturn the entire sea. Water surged backward, clouds scattered, and even space itself warped under the relentless high-frequency tremors.
Gern and Roger had long since lost themselves to the battle.
Their figures crossed and clashed amid the shattered battlefield, blade light and shockwaves shredding everything into ruin.
"Using Fruit Awakening to level the gap between us?" Roger laughed wildly as he descended from the sky.
Ace was wrapped in boiling dark-red Haki; even before the blade arrived, the violent pressure had already raised towering waves, as though the entire ocean were bowing before this single strike!
"I don't have a choice!" Gern snarled, black blade Eight Desolations raised horizontally to block.
"My opponent is the strongest man of this era!!"
Clang—!!
The instant the blades collided, an ear-splitting metallic shriek detonated. The shockwave burst outward in a ring, the crystallized ground beneath them shattering inch by inch as shards rained down like a storm.
Gern's arms swelled with power, pale vibration energy surging along the blade, attempting to shatter Roger's Haki defense from within.
Yet the dark-red Haki on Ace erupted like a volcanic blast, stubbornly resisting the侵蚀 of the shockwaves!
Between sea and sky, pale white and dark crimson flames intertwined, tearing the heavens into fragments.
They separated in an instant.
Roger skidded backward, sparks screaming from his boots against the crystallized ground.
Gern, meanwhile, retreated with the rebound force, arms slowly spreading wide, palms up, fingers trembling faintly.
"Humm—!!!"
The air twisted.
The first vibration ring expanded soundlessly!
"Heavenquake · Ring · Dance of the Shaking God!"
Within ten meters, rock, seawater, dust—every form of matter was silently decomposed by the pale shockwaves, dissolving into crystalline particles that floated gently in the air.
Like a pouring galaxy—beautiful enough to suffocate, yet terrifying beyond words.
"So this is Heavenquake…!" Roger's pupils shrank, but the grin on his face only grew more unrestrained.
He stomped the ground hard. The crystallized surface exploded as his body launched skyward like a cannonball, Ace wrapped in surging Haki as he slashed straight toward the core of the vibration ring!
"Divine Evasion · Break!"
The instant blade and shockwave collided, dark-red Haki and pale vibration light crashed violently together. Sparks burst like a torrential downpour!
Ace shuddered violently. The metal ornaments on its hilt shattered inch by inch, dissolving into fine golden powder that drifted away.
Roger spat a mouthful of blood—
Only for it to be torn into a crimson mist before it could even fall, pulverized by the high-frequency vibrations.
After all, this was Gern's Heavenquake Domain.
To say it had no effect was impossible.
Even though Roger relied on his overwhelming Haki to erase the Fruit's influence on himself—for powerful Haki could indeed negate Devil Fruit effects—
And even though Gern, despite awakening and deploying his domain, still couldn't fully restrain Roger—
As time passed, Roger would inevitably reach the moment when his terminal illness made continued resistance impossible.
"Call it despicable. Call it underhanded…"
Gern's black hair floated upward against gravity itself. Pale fractures spread across the muscles of his arms, as though he were bearing a power far beyond his limits.
"I cannot lose this battle!"
"Because… I need this victory!!"
The second vibration ring expanded violently!
Within a hundred meters, the ground collapsed like fragile glass. The fragments disintegrated into dust before they could even fall!
Immediately after—
The third vibration ring swept outward!
Within a thousand meters, waves froze in place, land crystallized, and under the sunlight, prismatic auroras refracted everywhere. The entire battlefield transformed into a colossal mirror spanning heaven and earth!
Roger's pupils contracted sharply—
Yet the grin on his face grew even more feral.
He yanked his blade free, his body flashing like lightning as he left a dark-red afterimage across the crystallized ground, dodging wildly.
Facing an attack of this scale, there was no way he'd be foolish enough to block it head-on!
"Dodging?" Gern released Eight Desolations, letting it hover at his side.
He raised his right hand as if gripping something invisible. High-frequency particles raged and converged in his palm; pale light twisted and compressed—
Until it formed a vicious, nearly two-meter-long longbow.
The bow was wrapped in spiraling shockwaves. Its string was composed entirely of pure vibration energy, each tremor tearing open fine cracks in space itself.
"Then experience it—the annihilating arrow that pierces all things!"
"Heavenquake Skybow…"
Gern pulled back the string with his left hand. Vibrating particles within space collapsed and compressed on their own, condensing into a spiraling arrow at his fingertips.
The shaft was built from countless layered pale vibration rings. At its tip, blinding violet-black lightning crackled constantly; merely existing caused surrounding light to warp and collapse.
As the string was drawn, ripples spread through space.
"Starfall!"
The instant the string released, the arrow tore free—dragging a spiraling pale comet tail as it ripped across the battlefield!
The atmosphere split open into a vacuum corridor in its wake. Space shattered layer by layer like breaking glass.
Faced with this attack, Roger slammed on the brakes, gripping Ace with both hands, preparing to cleave it apart—
But—
"Starfall · Thousand-Ring Quake!"
The arrow abruptly split!
Hundreds—thousands—of vibration rings exploded directly in front of Roger!
"Not good!" His pupils shrank violently.
Wherever the rings penetrated, his muscles, bones, and blood vessels began vibrating internally at insane frequencies!
His skin fractured instantly. Blood hadn't even time to seep out before it was pulverized into red mist.
Worse still, the vibration rings surged along his meridians, spreading through his entire body!
Gern slowly lowered the longbow. Reflected in his pale pupils was Roger's body gradually coming apart.
"Shattering everything at the structural level…That is the true meaning of Starfall."
"Aaaargh!!"
Dark-red Haki and pale vibration light clashed violently within Roger's body. Spiderweb cracks spread across his skin.
"Kh—!"
He grunted, blood spilling from the corner of his mouth—yet he laughed madly as he drove Ace straight into the ground!
"Soul Anchor!"
Dark-red Haki poured from the blade's tip into the crystallized earth. The entire battlefield detonated!
The shockwave surged upward in reverse, forcibly dispersing the rampaging vibration rings inside his body.
The crystallized ground shattered like a broken mirror, scattering into the air and refracting countless blinding rays of light.