Saint Saturn's colossal body slammed down like a falling meteor. The terrifying weight crushed the ground in an instant, carving out a massive crater as spiderweb-like fissures ripped outward in all directions.
Even more lethal was what followed.
Centered on the point of impact, vast quantities of viscous purple-black poison splashed outward as if alive, rapidly spreading across a wide area. A relentless sizzling hiss filled the air as the corrosive fluid melted the ground itself, dissolving it into bubbling pits one after another.
Yet Saturn Saint's inhuman, bestial eyes did not linger on the "results" beneath his feet.
Instead, they snapped sharply toward the rear, his gaze turning icy and sinister.
Not far away, Gern slowly straightened his body, casually lifting his thumb to wipe away a thin line of blood that had spilled from the corner of his mouth.
The collision earlier had caused some damage. His body bore fresh wounds, and his breathing was slightly heavier.
There was no helping it—at their level, taking a furious full-power strike from an opponent without suffering any injury at all was nearly impossible.
Seeing that Gern had not been critically wounded, Saturn Saint's cold voice rang out, laced with an air of condescending charity.
"Gern Reginald Sigmar…Withdraw from the Holy Land now, kneel in the Land of the Gods, and repent. The World Government will treat today's events as if they never happened. And we've even handed you the true culprit."
In response—
Gern suddenly burst into wild, unrestrained laughter.
"Handed to me? Hahahahaha! That sure sounds nice when you put it that way!"
The laughter carried tangible force, making the very air tremble. Loose stones rattled free from shattered walls and collapsed ruins, clattering down around them.
Then, in the very next instant, the laughter stopped dead.
The expression on Gern's face turned icy and mocking as he stared straight at Saturn Saint and spoke slowly, each word razor-sharp.
"Honestly… you're pretty weak."
Before the last syllable even faded, Gern thrust his right palm forward—
Not toward Saturn Saint himself, but straight into the air in front of him.
Vrrrmmm!
The air particles before his palm vibrated and compressed at a horrifying frequency, then were violently expelled in a single, focused direction.
"Air Shock · Finger Cannon!"
A transparent blast of air—visibly warping light and layered with rippling shockwaves—ripped through space in an instant, moving at a speed that surpassed sound itself!
Saturn Saint had no time to mount any effective defense.
BANG—SPLAT!!!
The ultra-compressed vibrating air cannon struck his left chest dead-on, piercing straight through it!
A massive hole, cleanly punched from front to back, appeared in his torso. The flesh at the edges was instantly annihilated by the terrifying vibrational force, reduced to the finest dust in a heartbeat!
"Guh—!"
Saturn Saint's body shuddered violently as he looked down at the gaping cavity in his chest. Black mist immediately surged toward the wound, writhing frantically as it began to regenerate the damage.
But Gern wasn't done.
The moment Saturn Saint began to recover, Gern activated Shock Flash, his entire body transforming into a streak of white light as he closed the distance at blinding speed!
At the same time, the air around him roared violently—
"Heavenquake · Eight Extremity Orbs!"
Eight pure-white spheres of vibration—each highly compressed and packed with devastating energy—materialized instantly around Gern's body, floating like satellites orbiting a planet!
"Go!"
With a mere thought, the eight vibration orbs shot forward as if alive, carving bizarre arcs through the air and attacking Saturn Saint from different angles at once—just as his chest finished regenerating!
Saturn Saint barely managed to raise an arm to block—
But the eight orbs did not collide head-on.
Instead, like parasitic leeches, they violently latched onto his joints and vital points!
The next instant—
Eightfold shock detonation erupted simultaneously!
Terrifying spatially distorted shockwaves bloomed like eight blossoms of annihilation, expanding, overlapping, and merging into a massive vibrating force field that completely engulfed Saturn Saint!
The ground beneath them couldn't endure the power—collapsing with a thunderous roar into a vast, sunken crater!
"ROOOOAR!!!"
From the center of the explosion came Saturn Saint's howl—agonized and furious.
The shockwave blasted away smoke and black mist, revealing Saturn Saint's miserable state within.
Seven or eight enormous holes had been torn through his massive body, the flesh writhing sluggishly as it struggled to regenerate. For the first time, his aura was clearly unstable—disordered and weakened.
The unprecedented injuries, combined with the humiliation, pushed Saturn Saint into absolute rage.
He snapped his head up, his icy beast eyes locking onto Gern's high-speed afterimage. Destructive light flared violently within them as he attempted to activate his Malevolent Eye once more!
But just as his gaze caught Gern's shadow—and before he could fully lock on—
His vision was swallowed by an extreme, lethal white radiance.
In the distance, Gern had somehow already come to a stop. His left index finger was pointed straight at Saturn Saint. Before the fingertip, a tiny pure-white particle sphere—dense with heart-stopping energy—was tightly condensed.
"Heavenquake · Resonant Light."
SHIIIING!!
A straight, razor-thin pale-white high-energy vibration beam tore across the distance between them in an instant!
The beam pierced directly into Saturn Saint's glowing Malevolent Eye—
And continued straight through his entire skull!
The next moment—
BOOOOM!!!
Saturn Saint's massive ox-demon head exploded like a watermelon smashed by a sledgehammer, bursting apart in a violent spray!
Gern slowly lowered his left index finger, still steaming faintly, and looked at the headless body that continued to twitch—its flesh already attempting to regenerate madly.
He gave a cold, detached assessment.
"As expected… most top-tier powerhouses in the pirate world suffer from the same flaw."
"Like Kaido and Big Mom—overly reliant on their monstrous bodies, used to trading blows, so lazy they can't even be bothered to dodge most of the time."
"And you—relying on Zoan awakening and so-called immortality—don't even blink when choosing to tank damage head-on in battle."
"Truly… foolish arrogance."
Gern's icy words still echoed through the air—
Yet the enormous headless body did not collapse as expected.
Instead, a presence far more terrifying, far more primal, far more violent than before erupted violently from the shattered corpse!
A tangible dark-red Haki mixed with ink-black mist, forming a pillar of energy that shot straight into the sky—instantly forcing away all surrounding smoke, rubble, and even light itself!
Gern was driven half a step back by the sudden pressure, his expression turning fully serious.
The headless body began to undergo an even more grotesque transformation.
Muscles writhed and bulged like living creatures. Bones cracked with ear-grinding crunches as the body expanded again at a visible rate!
The upper torso—still faintly humanoid before—completely lost all human shape, fully bestial now. Its skin turned scorched black-purple, coarse and terrifyingly tough.
At the shattered neck, black mist gathered wildly—
Not to reform the old head—
But accompanied by a roar that sounded like a fusion of an abyssal ox's bellow and a spider's shriek—
A brand-new, even more horrific head grew out violently!
It was an enormous ox head, its eyes blazing with molten-red light like flowing lava. A thick beard covered its body, white-hot vapor blasting from its nostrils and mouth. Two massive, twisted horns curved savagely upward, as if they could pierce the sky itself!
Below, its spider-like lower body had also grown far larger. The segmented limbs were thicker, sharper, and bristling with steel-needle-like hairs standing on end!
It merely stood there—
And its colossal shadow blanketed nearly half the ruined battlefield. Even the white vapor released with each breath carried suffocating pressure.
Its enormous eyes locked unblinkingly onto Gern.
The previous injuries seemed utterly insignificant after this full transformation—but the oppressive aura it now radiated had surpassed its former humanoid-beast form by several levels.
Zoan-type · Mythical Beast · Ox-Demon Form · Complete Beast State!
The true Ox-Demon—
Had descended upon the world.