The two of them locked eyes across the shattered battlefield—their Haki collided head-on!!
At the very instant this ultimate standoff reached its peak, a sudden anomaly erupted!
"Vmmmm!!"With Gern Reginald Sigmar at its center, the ground within a thousand-meter radius began to tremble at extreme frequency.
Every ice mirror detonated simultaneously.Kuzan's true body flickered through the storm of shattered ice, vanishing in an instant.
"I've found you!"Gern's eyes snapped open, crimson pupils locking onto a point to his left.
He leaned forward and burst into a sprint—each step fracturing the ground beneath his feet into spiderwebbed cracks.
His right fist drew back to his waist, Ryuo-infused Haki flowing around it like liquid.
"Black Quake · Instant Hell—Hundred Rends!"
The punch launched like a dragon unleashed!
Within one-hundredth of a second, over a hundred vibrating fist afterimages exploded forward.Each one ripped the air apart, compressing space itself into vacuum corridors.
Kuzan's pupils shrank violently. He crossed his arms, Armament Haki flaring as he took the attack head-on.
Bang! Bang! Bang!He was driven backward step by step, twin trenches plowed deep into the ice beneath him.
Sparks from clashing Armament Haki burst like fireworks, freezing mist and shockwaves intertwining into a storm of destruction.
"Ghh—!" Kuzan roared, detonating his freezing power with everything he had.
"Eternal Freeze · Zero Domain!"
The Absolute Zero field expanded outward!
Gern's punch speed visibly slowed, the vibrating particles themselves suppressed by the extreme cold.Frost crawled up his limbs, attempting to freeze his blood solid from within.
"I've said this countless times already…"Gern bared his teeth in a feral grin as Conqueror's Haki lightning erupted in full.
"This level of cold can't freeze me!!!"
He forcibly shattered the restraints, his left fist blasting out faster than the eye could follow.
"Black Quake · God-Felling Spike!!!"
The shockwave tore through the battlefield.
Kuzan's Absolute Zero domain was ripped open by force alone, his body sent flying hundreds of meters—crashing through three massive icebergs before finally stopping.
Within the settling dust, Kuzan knelt on one knee, his ice-crystal body riddled with cracks.
"If that's all you've got…"He drew in a breath—then laughed softly.
"You still won't beat me."
"Is that so?"The temperature around Gern began to boil.
The pale shockwaves surrounding him suddenly became violently unstable.High-frequency vibration produced extreme friction—air warped, twisted, and began to burn.
"Then in that case…"
In an instant, the blinding white fissures of spatial vibration transformed—flaring into blazing orange-red cracks that spread wildly through the surrounding space!
"Kuzan…"Gern growled, his voice distorted by the tearing resonance of his own power."Can your freezing seal the rage of vibration?!"
This was no longer simple vibration.
Gern had forcibly pushed the frequency into a mad, self-destructive domain.
Ultimate friction gave birth to catastrophic heat capable of melting everything.
Where the orange-red vibration scars passed, the ice plain wasn't shattered—it was instantly vaporized, massive voids carved out as scalding white steam erupted skyward.
The cold in the air was violently expelled, replaced by a heat that scorched the lungs with every breath.
Kuzan's expression hardened completely.
He felt it—a wholly different kind of annihilating power.One disturbingly similar to someone he truly despised.
"So…" Kuzan muttered, eyes narrowing."You've turned into a temperature I really hate, Gern."
"This fight ends now!"Gern no longer settled for long-range exchanges. He stomped down, shattering the already glassified ground beneath him, and transformed into a humanoid shockwave that charged straight at Kuzan!
Kuzan's gaze turned icy. With a violent motion of his arms, over a hundred rotating prism-shaped ice shields formed in front of him—each several meters thick.
"Useless!"Gern didn't dodge or slow down. His right fist, wrapped in pure destructive energy, slammed forward.
The prism shields exploded one after another, unable to delay him for even a heartbeat.
The instant the final shield shattered, Kuzan leapt upward—evading Gern's charge while slamming both palms downward.
"Ice River · Coffin!"
A massive ice coffin forged from Absolute Zero cold sealed Gern inside layer by layer!
"Think that can hold me?!"Gern's roar thundered from within.
Orange-red cracks instantly spread across the ice coffin—and it detonated!
Kuzan's pupils contracted.
As the light faded, Gern burst out from the explosion's center, steam coiling around his body.But his speed faltered for a split second—the orange-red vibration patterns on his body dimming slightly.
Continuous combat and sustaining high-frequency vibration had consumed an enormous amount of stamina.Of course—Kuzan was no better off.
And so, in that fleeting instant—when old strength was exhausted and new power had yet to surge—
Kuzan's figure vanished like a ghost, refracted through ice crystals, appearing at Gern's blind spot!
"Eternal Touch."Kuzan's cold voice rang out.
This touch sought only one thing—a single strike of eternal freezing!!
Gern's Observation Haki screamed a warning.He forcibly twisted his body mid-motion!
Kuzan's hand missed his chest—and instead landed on his left shoulder.
In that instant, extreme cold invaded, attempting to freeze him completely from the inside out!
And Gern—accepted Kuzan's blow head-on to seize a chance at close range!
"Got you!"Gern's left hand burned like a red-hot brand as it shot forward, fingers spread wide.
The energy wrapped around it was no longer pale—or orange-red.
"Was this… intentional?"Kuzan's pupils trembled. His elementalization instinct activated—
Too late.
"Stamina loss makes both of us rely on instinct instead of thought.You only wanted to touch me—like a beast locking onto prey, not caring where its fangs landed."
Gern's voice was calm. Absolute.
"But the target in my mind…was always just one."
Ignoring the ice crystals spreading from his shoulder to his chest,Gern slammed his palm squarely against Kuzan's chest.
"Quakeflame · Molten Core Detonation!"
There was no earth-shattering opening blast—only a deep, heartbeat-like hum.
Gern's palm became a black hole, forcing ultra-high-frequency vibration energy—without restraint—directly into Kuzan's elemental body!
Kuzan's body went rigid.His pupils flooded with orange-red light bursting from within.
Time seemed to freeze for three seconds—or perhaps only a single instant passed.
Crk… crk-crrrk—!
The teeth-grinding sound of shattering didn't come from outside—but from deep within Kuzan's body itself!
Countless molten-vein-like orange-red cracks erupted from Gern's palm, spreading wildly across Kuzan's ice-crystal body, multiplying in an instant until they covered him completely!
He looked like a glass sculpture on the verge of collapse—yet inside surged the power of an erupting volcano!
The light grew too bright to look at directly.The heat was so intense it began vaporizing Kuzan's own freezing power!
The next second—
"BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!"
The ultimate explosion erupted from the inside out!
A blazing orange-red sphere of annihilation expanded violently, swallowing both figures whole.
What followed wasn't a shockwave—but a silent ring of pure white vibration spreading outward.
Where it passed, all matter was instantly reduced to its most primitive particles.
Only then did the eardrum-shredding roar arrive—along with a towering pillar of molten-colored energy blasting into the sky!
The entire island wailed under the strain.Massive fissures tore through the crust, as though the land itself were being dragged into the abyss.
The light slowly faded.Dust—if dust even still existed—drifted down…
At the blast's center lay a colossal crater nearly a kilometer wide, bottomless and dark.Its edges were lined with glowing, glass-like crystallization.
Gern knelt on one knee at the crater's edge.His entire left arm hung limp, charred black and steaming faintly—the price he'd paid was enormous.
And on the other side—
Kuzan still stood.
Blood spilled continuously from the corner of his mouth, dripping to the ground—only to evaporate instantly with a hiss from the lingering heat.
"…Honestly…"He wiped the blood away, looked up at Gern, and smiled faintly.
"Looks like you smashed me into crushed ice."
Before the words fully settled, the hand clutching his chest finally slipped free.
Thud.
His tall frame collapsed forward, striking the scorching glassified ground.The terrifying molten cracks across his body slowly dimmed—
Until they became nothing more than blackened scars.The ice-crystal body did not reform.
The Devil Fruit user had completely lost consciousness.
Gern watched Kuzan fall, his violently heaving chest gradually calming.
Then, dragging his battered body forward, he stepped to Kuzan's side—and simply lay down beside him, letting out a soft laugh.
"Looks like…"
"Today…"
"my 'vibration'…pressed just a little harder than your 'freezing,' Kuzan."