Faced with that attack, Gern's gaze did not waver in the slightest.
He didn't even shift his stance. Holding Bahuang in a reverse grip, he simply drew the blade from left to right in what looked like an almost casual horizontal sweep.
"Bzzz—!"
Where the edge passed, space itself split like cloth beneath a tailor's shears. Eight parallel rifts carved through the air, jagged and lingering, refusing to close.
The massive lion-headed earthen mountains collided with those eight fractures—
—and were silently cleaved apart.
They shattered into countless clean-cut stone blocks, their momentum erased before they could even approach Gern. The fragments collapsed in a thunderous cascade, sending up plumes of dust that soared a hundred meters into the sky.
"It's not over yet!!" The Golden Lion's eyes bulged, veins standing out as he roared. Both hands whipped wildly through the air, seizing control of everything on the battlefield he could manipulate.
Broken mast warships. Pirate vessels. Shattered artillery platforms. Enormous chunks of ice…
Anything he could command surged toward Gern in a violent storm of debris!
Gern merely lifted his eyes and cast a cold glance across the chaos.
Centered on his body, a domain of ultra–high-frequency vibrations erupted outward in an instant.
Every object that entered its range—no matter its size or material—was reduced to fragments midair.
"Golden Lion." Gern's voice rang out, devoid of emotion.
A shockwave exploded beneath his feet, stamping a deep footprint into the ground as his figure bent and then launched forward like a compressed spring released.
In a blink—faster than Shiki could react—he appeared directly before him.
His left hand spread wide, Armament Haki cloaking his fingers in jet-black sheen as it clamped down hard on Golden Lion Shiki's skull.
"Ugh—!" Shiki was caught completely off guard.
Gern twisted at the waist, using Shiki's head as a pivot point. His entire body spun like a massive windmill, accelerating with terrifying force.
The two carved a dizzying arc through the air.
"The era of the flying pirate…"
Gern's roar merged with the shrieking gale of their rotation, tolling like a final funeral bell beside Shiki's ears.
"…is over!!!"
At the very apex of the spin, Gern poured every ounce of his strength—along with the monstrous centrifugal force and the ultimate destructive power of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit—into his left arm.
Gripping Shiki's head, he hurled him downward like a falling meteor toward the already shattered earth below.
"Heavenly Tremor · Heavenfall—"
"Divine Impact!!!"
"SHH—BOOOOOM!!!!!!!!"
A collision beyond description detonated across the battlefield.
Golden Lion Shiki's body became a blurred streak of light, smashing into the half-ruined plaza below at a speed that surpassed sound itself.
A crater hundreds of meters wide and unfathomably deep formed in an instant.
A ring-shaped shockwave tore outward, flattening everything in its path and whipping up a sky-devouring storm of dust.
Even those battling near the execution platform were thrown off their feet by the quake.
At the center of the crater, spiderweb fractures stretched for kilometers. At its deepest point—
one could just make out Shiki's battered, broken form embedded deep within the rock strata, utterly still.
No sign of life remained.
"Haah… haah…"
With the battle against the Golden Lion abruptly concluded, the breath Gern had been forcibly holding finally slipped free.
But in the very next moment, a tidal wave of exhaustion and injury surged back in retaliation.
He staggered, clutching his chest. A metallic sweetness rose in his throat.
At last, the suppressed blood he had been holding back burst forth with a harsh cough, splattering onto the ground.
There was no avoiding it. His clash with Whitebeard at his absolute peak—there was no way that hadn't taken its toll.
By the latter half of that fight, his internal organs had already been damaged. His Haki and stamina had been drained to alarming levels.
And the seemingly overwhelming battle against the Golden Lion just now? That, too, had been forced beyond safe limits.
Gern possessed no special race. No extraordinary bloodline. No protagonist's miracle recovery.
So now, all at once, the delayed agony and crushing weakness flooded through him.
"Oh?! Finally tired, are you?!"
"Zehahahaha!!!"
A brazen, grating laugh shattered the battlefield's brief silence from the direction of Whitebeard's corpse.
Gern tightened his grip on Bahuang and looked up.
There stood Marshall D. Teach—Blackbeard—who had appeared beside Whitebeard's body without anyone noticing.
A grin of naked triumph spread across his face as he reached out and mockingly patted Whitebeard's cold arm.
"Zehahaha! I thought you'd die here too, 'Heavenly Tremor'!" Blackbeard cackled, baring his broken teeth. "After all, Pops at his peak was a monster! Didn't expect him to be the one who'd fall instead."
Without waiting for a response, his eyes locked onto Gern, whose breathing was clearly unstable.
"But you're tired now, aren't you?! Zehahaha!! Even the strongest have moments when they falter, don't they? Heavenly Tremor. Especially… in a situation like this!!"
At his words, the savage criminals he had freed from Impel Down Level 6—and his original crew—stepped forward in unison, subtly encircling Gern.
"A vicious king's hunt begins…" Avalo Pizarro, the "Corrupt King," hefted a scavenged weapon over his shoulder, cruelty etched across his face.
"Careful. That's Heavenly Tremor." Former Head Jailer Shiryu of the Rain slowly drew his famed blade, Raiu.
"So beautiful… even dead, the corpse would make a lovely addition to my collection." Catarina Devon, the "Crescent Moon Hunter," licked her lips, eyes gleaming like a predator spotting prey.
Behind them loomed Sanjuan Wolf, the "Colossal Battleship," raising the half of his palm that Gern had once severed.
"Long time no see… Heavenly Tremor."
Hidden beneath a hood, the "Plague Doctor" Samuel Cronos radiated an ominous, grotesque aura. Fungal tendrils spread subtly around him.
"I never forgot you… not once in prison."
And alongside them stood Blackbeard's original core: Jesus Burgess. Van Augur. Lafitte. Doc Q.
The Blackbeard Pirates—fully assembled.
Facing the undisguised malice and encirclement of the entire Blackbeard crew, Gern showed not the slightest hint of fear.
Instead, he let out a soft chuckle.
He slowly straightened, despite the throbbing pain in his chest. His eyes remained sharp—so sharp that few could bear to meet them.
"A pack of hyenas." His tone was flat, edged with contempt. His gaze pierced through them all and settled directly on Blackbeard.
"So you hid all this time… and only now crawl out of the gutter. You've had your sights on me, haven't you?"
Exposed, Blackbeard showed no irritation. Instead, he spread his arms wide and burst into his trademark laugh.
"Zehahaha!! That's right, Heavenly Tremor! Your ability… that battle just proved its worth to the entire world! Such overwhelming power—even if I don't use it, I'll gladly… take it for myself!!!"
Greed and ambition burned in his eyes, as if Gern were already prey in his grasp.
"Is that so?"
Gern swept his gaze across the infamous monsters before him—criminals who struck terror even in the New World.
"Then tell me…"
"In this condition…"
"How long do you think it would take me…"
"…to kill every last one of you?"
The instant his final word fell—
"BOOOOM!!!!"
Conqueror's Haki erupted.
Not as a sweeping wave meant to knock out the masses—
—but as a hyper-condensed, razor-focused assault.
Dark violet lightning-like currents manifested almost physically, carrying a crushing pressure that seemed capable of pulverizing the soul itself.
They coiled precisely around every member of the Blackbeard Pirates.
"Ghh—!"
"What—?!"
"This Haki…!"
Moments ago they had stood arrogant and unchallenged.
Now, every single one of them—from the savage Level 6 convicts to Blackbeard's original commanders—had their expressions violently twisted.
The weaker among them—Burgess, Doc Q, and others—let out muffled groans, faces drained of color as they collapsed to their knees, eyes wide with shock.
Even monsters like Pizarro, Shiryu, and Catarina felt their pupils constrict and their bodies stiffen.
No one had imagined Conqueror's Haki could be wielded like this—coiled and used to restrain others so directly.
And just like that—
With nothing but a single surge of Haki—
Gern forcibly suppressed the newly formed Blackbeard Pirates at the height of their swelling ambition.
Not one of them dared step forward to become the first to challenge him.