Rumble! Rumble! Rumble!
The roar of thunder shook the entire coastline of Crystal Island.
Aiden floated in midair with one hand raised.
Pale blue lightning twisted and compressed in front of him, quickly forming a massive tiger of lightning with wings on its back.
The tiger looked almost alive. Every stripe on its body was formed by tightly woven arcs of electricity, giving off an overwhelming sense of destruction.
ROAR!!
With a deafening roar, the tiger shot toward Viktor below like a streak of light.
But faced with an attack powerful enough to turn a giant Sea King into charcoal in an instant, Viktor simply raised his cane and tapped the air calmly.
"Crystal World: Kaleidoscope."
Crackle, crackle, crackle!
Countless particles of dust in the air crystallized at once, forming hundreds of irregular, transparent crystal prisms in front of him.
The tiger slammed straight into that field of prisms.
The moment the violent current touched the crystals, it was like light being forced into a maze. It split apart, scattered, and was redirected down different paths.
Bzzzzzt!!!
The tiger collapsed instantly, breaking into tens of thousands of tiny sparks that shot out in every direction.
The nearby rock walls were scorched and cracked, and the surface of the sea began to boil. But Viktor, standing in the middle of the prisms, did not even have a single thread of his clothes burned.
"It is useless."
Viktor stood behind that forest of crystals, looking at Aiden in the sky through his monocle. A refined, mocking smile curved at his lips.
"Brat, your understanding of my power is far too shallow."
"Lightning, at its core, is only a wave of energy. A form of intense light."
Viktor spread his arms as if embracing the sky filled with electricity.
"In my Crystal World, I decide where light goes. Your attacks will do nothing more than light up my stage."
Aiden looked down at that perfect defensive net without a change in expression.
"So blue lightning gets refracted, does it...?"
He showed no frustration. If anything, he looked more like someone who had found a new problem worth testing.
A faint spark of curiosity flashed in his eyes.
"Then let's try a higher frequency."
Aiden raised his right hand, spread his fingers, then suddenly clenched them into a fist.
The lightning filling the air vanished instantly, all of it condensing into the palm of his hand.
He stopped trying to make the attack bigger. Instead, he took the terrifying pressure of hundreds of millions of volts and compressed it again and again.
As the voltage climbed, the color of the lightning changed drastically.
The original blue disappeared. In its place came a strange and dangerous violet.
A long spear of purple lightning formed in Aiden's hand.
The air around it visibly twisted under the terrifying heat and magnetic field.
Aiden twisted his waist, drove his arm forward, and hurled the spear with all his strength.
SHOO!!!
The strike was terrifyingly fast. It even outran the thunder itself.
It carved a straight purple vacuum trail through the air, aimed directly between Viktor's eyes.
If a wide-area attack could not break through, then he would use one point of overwhelming force to punch through it.
Crackle!
More crystals appeared out of thin air. They stacked over one another in front of Viktor, instantly forming a crystal wall several meters thick.
SCREEECH!!!
The purple lightning spear slammed into the crystal wall with a sharp, piercing shriek.
The outer layers of crystal melted instantly under the heat, turning into a liquid, glass-like substance.
But right after that, the remaining lightning was refracted and redirected by the complex crystal structure inside.
In the end, it scattered into light and vanished into the air.
The fight looked deadlocked.
To anyone watching, it looked like a terrible matchup. The overwhelming power of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit seemed completely restrained by this Crystal-Crystal Fruit, which could control light refraction itself.
"Damn it... are Aiden's attacks not working?"
Below, Smoker gritted his teeth as he watched.
He could not stop himself from getting anxious.
"Now's the chance!"
At the exact moment Aiden's two attacks in a row had been blocked and all his attention was on Viktor, the eyes of the two masked CP0 agents behind Viktor sharpened.
As the World Government's top intelligence agents, they had no interest in honor. They only cared about getting the job done.
"Soru!"
Two white shadows vanished where they stood. Using the thunder as cover, they appeared like ghosts behind Aiden, one on each side.
Two fingers coated in Armament Haki shot straight toward Aiden's heart and throat, cutting through the air with a sharp whistle.
Finger Pistol!
But Aiden did not even turn his head.
Because someone moved faster than they did.
CHING!!!
A sharp pink slash cut across the air and dropped between Aiden and the two CP0 agents with perfect timing.
The blade was sharp enough to cut steel, forcing both CP0 agents to abort their attack. They twisted awkwardly in midair and landed on the shore.
Gion stood at Aiden's side with the famous blade Konpira in hand, her Justice coat snapping in the wind.
She did not look back at Aiden. Her cold eyes stayed locked on the two agents in front of her, and her blade gave a clear ring.
"These two who only know how to ambush are mine."
At that same moment, a loud, arrogant shout came from the other side of the battlefield.
"Did you see that?! Did you see that!!"
Nelson, who had been trembling on the ground moments ago, found his courage again after seeing Viktor stop Aiden's attacks so easily.
He peeked out from behind cover, and the fear on his face instantly turned into joy and cruelty.
"That so-called Thunder God can't even scratch the Duke! That's absolute defense!!"
Nelson waved his officer's sword and shouted at the surrounding Marines and pirate elites, who had already been scared out of their wits.
"Attack! There are only three of them! He's just bluffing!"
"Kill them! Everyone involved today will get double rewards! Follow me and the Duke, and you'll have more wealth and glory than you can ever spend!"
"Charge!!!"
Driven by money, fear, and the need to survive, the hundreds of soldiers who had retreated rushed back again. Their eyes were red as they screamed and charged at the three of them like a flood.
But the contrast with the others was obvious.
On the brilliant Diamond Queen, the armed pirate elites stood by the rail with their hands on their weapons, watching coldly.
None of them made any move to get off the ship and help.
Viktor had not given the order.
In the eyes of that elegant Duke, since there were already hundreds of free fools willing to die for him, there was no reason not to use them first.
"For glory and wealth! Kill!!"
Watching the crowd rush in, people being used like disposable tools by the very man they were helping, Aiden frowned slightly as he floated in the air.
To be honest, his mood was a little complicated right now.
Not because the enemy was strong.
Because of something closer to regret.
Since coming to this world, he had already reached a level close to the top of the sea.
And yet Conqueror's Haki, the mark of someone born with the qualities of a king, still showed no sign of awakening.
"If I had Conqueror's Haki right now, I could end this with a single look..." Aiden clicked his tongue in annoyance. "They say only one in a million has it... am I really not enough?"
"Smoker."
Aiden did not turn around. His voice was cold.
"Those pieces of trash are in the way. I'm leaving them to you. No problem, right?"
"Tch, stop ordering me around!"
The two cigars in Smoker's mouth glowed bright red. A huge mass of white smoke burst out from his body and instantly covered half the pier.
"I've been disgusted by these pieces of trash for a long time!"
"White Vine!!"
The white smoke turned into countless giant vines. Like huge snakes, they smashed into the charging soldiers and sent them flying in every direction.
The battlefield split apart in an instant.
Smoker blocked the soldiers alone.
Gion locked down the CP0 agents.
In the middle of the harbor, only Aiden and Viktor remained.
Viktor glanced once at the chaotic battlefield, but did not care. He looked back at Aiden in the sky and straightened his collar.
He seemed to have lost patience with this little game.
"It seems your lightning is useless against me."
Viktor slowly raised his right hand. The countless floating crystal prisms around him shattered at once, then gathered onto his body at high speed.
Crackle, crackle, crackle.
The crystals wrapped around him, compressed, and hardened.
In the blink of an eye, Viktor's entire body was covered in a thick, brilliant layer of transparent armor. He looked like an indestructible crystal giant.
"Crystal Battle Armor."
Viktor clenched his massive crystal fist, feeling the strength surging through it. He looked up at Aiden, his eyes full of mockery.
"Your attacks can't even leave a scratch on my armor. This farce ends now."
"It's over, Thunder God."
Viktor's huge body burst forward at shocking speed. The deck beneath his feet exploded as he launched himself toward Aiden in the sky like a cannonball.
Faced with that heavy, direct strike, Aiden shifted from his elemental state back into a physical body.
He simply hovered there, watching Viktor get closer and closer.
There was no panic on his face.
Only boredom.
Since obtaining the Rumble-Rumble Fruit, Aiden had been looking for a suitable opponent to test the finer control of his power.
He had finally found someone who could barely take a few hits and let him experiment with the limits of his lightning.
He had not expected the man to be in such a hurry to throw his life away.
"What a waste."
Aiden's voice was so calm it was almost chilling.
"I actually wanted to play a little longer."
"What?!" Viktor froze.
Play a little longer?
Before he could even process the meaning behind those arrogant words, Aiden had already raised his right arm.
There were no flashy lights.
No earth-shaking sound.
His right arm began to turn dark.
"This flashy stuff..."
Aiden did not dodge. Facing Viktor's bright, glittering crystal fist, he answered with one simple punch of his own.
"Is too weak."
The two fists collided in midair.
For a split second, everything seemed to stop.
CRACK!!!!
A sharp, brutal sound drowned out even the wind.
The cruel smile on Viktor's face froze.
To his horror, the crystal armor he was so proud of filled with thousands of cracks the instant it touched that black fist.
"No... impossible!!"
BANG!!!
With a violent explosion, the giant crystal fist and the armor covering his entire arm shattered into powder.
The impact went straight through Viktor's body with nothing left to stop it.
Pfft!!
The pirate who was about to become one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea spat out blood and flew backward, crashing onto the deck of the ship even faster than he had launched himself.
BOOM!
The structure of the ship collapsed, and dust exploded into the air.
Aiden shook the crystal dust from his hand. He slowly descended and landed on top of the ruins, looking coldly down at the blood-covered Viktor, whose face was now full of terror.
"What? Surprised?"
Aiden looked down at him, his voice cold.
"No matter how hard crystal is, in front of Haki, it's just fragile glass."
"By the way..."
A look of disgust flashed in Aiden's eyes.
"I don't like the name Thunder God. It sounds stupid."