Thump… thump… thump…
A deep, heavy, rhythmic pounding echoed across the frozen wasteland.
It was the sound of a heartbeat—but vast, like ancient war drums resounding through time.
Aokiji turned his gaze toward the towering ice mass over ten meters tall.
At its center stood Luffy.
Even sealed within the glacier, the ten-meter Thunder Giant radiated a suffocating pressure.
His mid-level Diamond body was a perfect battery of energy. The lightning that had been locked down by the freezing cold now erupted violently in response to that war-drum heartbeat.
Countless silver-blue arcs burst from within the ice like enraged serpents, turning the entire glacier into something on the verge of detonation.
BOOM!!
A deafening explosion erupted from within.
Under the crushing pressure and lightning assault from both inside and out, the entire glacier didn't just crack—it was pulverized into a cloud of icy mist.
Luffy stepped out through the shattered frost, white steam surging off his body.
That steam hissed violently in the subzero air, like molten iron plunged into water—he looked like a demon born from magma and thunder.
Then two explosive sounds rang out almost simultaneously.
Zoro gripped Wado Ichimonji, his blade flashing cold as his supreme sword intent sliced open the frozen prison.
Sanji, meanwhile, transformed into a spinning mass of blue flames, using pure heat to vaporize the ice around him into drifting crystals.
Four figures stood once more upon the deathly white frozen plain.
Ronan held his spear horizontally, its tip angled toward the ground. The inner energy within him caused the surrounding ice to melt and refreeze in unstable waves.
Luffy stood like a towering giant, steam coiling around him.
Zoro and Sanji flanked him on either side, their auras condensed like steel.
The four mid-level Diamond Indestructible presences intertwined—forcing open a zone of life within the Admiral-level "Ice Age" domain.
Their breaths came out in white plumes, hissing like red-hot iron plunged into freezing water.
It wasn't cold—it was the burning vitality roaring within their bodies.
Aokiji silently watched the four of them, unharmed.
His hands, once casually in his pockets, tightened unconsciously.
As one of the Navy's greatest powers, he had seen countless prodigies, countless pirates who fought to the death.
But breaking free from absolute zero using nothing but raw physical force…
He had only seen that among the monsters at the very top of the world.
"What kind of rookies… are these?"
He let out a breath, the laziness gone from his eyes, replaced by caution toward equals.
Looking at Luffy's lightning-wreathed body, a figure surfaced in his mind—
"BIG MOM," Charlotte Linlin.
"This level of durability… this near-indestructible resilience… it's just like that old woman's 'iron balloon.'"
Aokiji slowly raised his right hand as cold gathered once more.
He understood now.
These four were no longer mere monstrous talents—
They were monsters with true, terrifying power.
The cold howled through the air. Ice shards danced beneath the dying sunlight, gleaming with a mocking chill.
Ronan, Zoro, and Sanji stood amid rising white mist of inner energy, resisting the extreme cold.
But when their gazes followed Luffy's rigid line of sight behind them—
Their hearts clenched violently.
Across the endless white plain stood four lifelike ice sculptures.
Nami, frozen mid-swing with her golden staff—her once-bright eyes now dull beneath transparent ice.
Robin, her intelligent yet sorrowful face blurred behind thick frost.
Usopp, his expression of terror locked in place.
And Chopper—small, delicate, like a porcelain doll, yet lifelessly cold.
"Nami-san! Robin-san!"
Sanji let out a desperate scream. Forgetting Aokiji entirely, he burst forward in a streak of blue flame.
His trembling hands reached toward the frozen surface—only to recoil the instant they touched it.
"No… there's no life left! Their hearts… I can't hear anything!"
His eyes turned bloodshot as he spiraled into near-madness.
"Don't touch them!"
Ronan's roar exploded like thunder.
"Sanji, step back! If the ice cracks from external force—they'll shatter completely!"
But reason could not reach a soul already swallowed by darkness.
Luffy's ten-meter Thunder Giant body stood frozen in place, like stone.
In his mind, Sanji's words—"no life left"—echoed over and over, shattering the last remnants of his sanity.
"Nami… Usopp… Chopper… Robin…"
His voice was hoarse, faint, yet filled with bone-chilling despair.
The light in his eyes faded, replaced by a manic, dark crimson glow.
"You dared… kill my companions…"
"You dared… kill them right in front of me!!!"
BOOM!!!!!
An unprecedented aura—so violent it twisted space itself—erupted from Luffy's body.
The white steam around him, driven by overwhelming rage, turned dark red as blood vessels burst and vaporized into a crimson mist.
Even more terrifying—
The silver-blue lightning transformed under his fury into savage crimson thunder, raging wildly around his body.
The ten-meter giant shrank violently under immense compression—
Down to around six meters.
But this smaller form was far denser—its power condensed to an unimaginable level.
His upper body was coated in obsidian-black Armament Haki, muscles coiled like dragons.
Every inch of his skin looked like divine steel forged in the fires of hell.
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