If you pretend to be a harmless pig for long enough, you eventually become one.
In just two brief exchanges, the catastrophic flaws born from decades of lurking in the shadows were laid completely bare. Hiding aboard Whitebeard's ship without testing himself against true life-and-death masters had dulled Teach's instincts. His physical reactions lagged behind his thoughts, leaving his massive three-meter frame surprisingly clumsy against pure supersonic speed.
First sent flying by an overwhelming punch, and now having his left ear sheared clean off by Kiyotsuki, the searing agony pushed Teach's temper past the point of sanity.
The curse of the Dark-Dark Fruit (Yami Yami no Mi) magnified all physical trauma twofold. Even an experienced New World veteran would collapse in shock from having an ear severed under that level of amplified pain. Yet Teach didn't scream this time; he clamped his remaining teeth together so violently they nearly cracked. His thick neck muscles spasmed, and the blood boiling within his veins threatened to burst through his skin.
Blood gushed freely from his severed ear, coating his scarred cheek, his hairy chest, and his torn pirate coat in thick crimson. Driven by pure, unadulterated hatred, Teach looked less like a man and more like a cornered, bloodthirsty demon.
Hovering on his iron-sand wings, Darian didn't let his guard down for a single fraction of a second. His supersonic strike aimed at Teach's throat had been partially deflected by Teach's dense Armament Haki; the severed ear was merely collateral damage from the blade passing by.
Teach's offensive technique was unrefined, but his monstrous baseline constitution and thick defensive Haki made him the most durable opponent Darian had faced since arriving in this world.
"DIE!"
Teach's roar tore across the coastline. His massive fist, coated in an impenetrable layer of pitch-black Armament Haki, drove forward with the force of an artillery shell. The sheer pressure wave compressed the air before him into a violent, cone-shaped sonic boom, erupting into a localized shockwave.
Wary of the Dark-Dark Fruit's gravitational pull, Darian didn't attempt to trade raw physical blows. Instead, he gripped Kiyotsuki with both hands, channeling his thin layer of Armament Haki along the steel while superimposing the energy-draining aura of the Preta Path.
The snow-white blade glowed with a faint, translucent white halo over the blackened steel. Darian met the incoming fist with a precise, vertical cleave.
HISS—
The collision produced no deafening explosion. The moment the hardened blade met the pressurized fist, the colossal kinetic shockwave and concentrated Haki melted away like fresh snow thrown into an open furnace. The howling gale and roaring sound waves vanished into thin air, absorbed directly into Darian's pathways. Teach's charging momentum ground to a sudden, jarring halt right before the blade's edge.
'What the hell just happened?!' Teach's eyes widened in confusion.
He could feel the blunt vibration reverberating through his knuckles, yet the destructive output had inexplicably dissolved before it could cause impact. If he hadn't spent decades searching for the Dark-Dark Fruit, he would have sworn Darian had just used the power of darkness to swallow his attack.
Standing at 1.86 meters, Darian only reached Teach's waist. Taking ruthless advantage of his opponent's momentary disorientation, Darian dropped his stance and slashed Kiyotsuki horizontally toward Teach's groin.
Teach snapped back to reality, his instincts screaming as he threw his hips backward in a desperate scramble.
RIP!
The sharp tip of Kiyotsuki sliced clean through Teach's heavy trousers, leaving his inner garments shredded and exposing his thighs to the sea breeze. A cold sweat broke out across Teach's back at how close he had just come to being castrated on the sand.
"You dishonorable bastard!" Teach bellowed, humiliated rage burning in his eyes.
Darian remained completely expressionless. In a life-or-death battle against a ruthless pirate, moral chivalry was entirely worthless.
Teach exhaled a hot, ragged breath. Crimson veins spider-webbed across his sclera as he channeled every ounce of his remaining stamina into a furious, close-range barrage. Despite his massive bulk, his arms blurred into motion, throwing over a dozen heavy, Haki-clad punches in the span of a single second.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The air shattered under the rapid assault, whipping up a gale-force storm of sand and debris that engulfed the beach.
Darian stood his ground calmly in the center of the tempest. Using his newly awakened Observation Haki to read the trajectory of every strike, he swung Kiyotsuki in fluid, defensive arcs. With every parry, the Preta Path greedily swallowed the kinetic energy and dispersed Haki, converting Teach's furious output directly into fresh stamina for Darian's own body.
While Teach was rapidly burning through his stamina reserves in a frantic frenzy, Darian was actively recharging his cellular energy with every parry.
After several dozen heavy exchanges that gouged deep trenches into the shoreline, Teach's barrage abruptly slowed. He stepped back heavily onto the sand, his shoulders heaving as he gasped for air.
'Just as I thought,' Darian analyzed with a cold smirk. 'His baseline power is high, but his active stamina is complete garbage.'
True high-tier combatants like Akainu and Aokiji could wage high-intensity warfare for ten continuous days and nights. Teach, by contrast, had spent decades avoiding intense combat; his burst output was terrifying, but he gassed out in minutes.
"Is that all the stamina you have, Blackbeard?" Darian taunted, flicking the blood off Kiyotsuki's fuller. "You talk about conquering the world, but you're wheezing after a two-minute warmup."
Teach glared through his matted hair, his chest heaving painfully. "Shut your arrogant mouth, rookie... I'll crush you into dust!"
"Let me show you something you might recognize," Darian said smoothly.
He sheathed Kiyotsuki at his hip and cocked his right fist back, bending his knees into a wide, grounded stance. Tapping into his spatial-manipulation capabilities, a dense, glowing white sphere of hyper-compressed kinetic vibration enveloped his fist.
Teach froze, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks in sheer, unadulterated horror.
'That stance... that white light sphere...' Teach's mind screamed in absolute denial. 'That's Pops' power! The Tremor-Tremor Fruit (Gura Gura no Mi)!'
Before Teach could process the impossible sight, Darian punched directly into the empty air before him.
CRACK!
The atmosphere shattered. Visible, jagged white fractures spider-webbed across the empty sky, accompanied by the deafening sound of ripping space.
BOOM!!
An apocalyptic shockwave detonated outward, tearing the beach apart as a localized tsunami of pressurized air and shattered earth roared straight toward Blackbeard!