The razor-sharp slashing waves, upon touching the thick Reiatsu surrounding him, completely shattered and deflected, acting as if colliding with a high-speed meat grinder.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Though a few stray slashes still managed to cut straight through his skin and splatter thick blood, Zaraki didn't even flinch.
The red glow in his eyes grew increasingly eerie.
The distance between the two fighters closed to its limit in the blink of an eye.
Shiki, watching this blood-soaked monster charging straight forward with a mad laugh, finally realized that basic conventional attacks could no longer halt this frenzied beast's brutal advance.
His eyes sharply focused right on the massive floating rocks around them.
'If mere slashes aren't enough, then I'll bury you with the heavy weight of the entire earth!'
Shiki slammed his palms together, unleashing a terrifying wave of power right from within him.
The chaotic, freely floating giant rock formations entirely around them seemed to heed a supreme command, frantically gathering and compressing straight above Zaraki's head.
The sky darkened completely.
Before the suffocating pressure could fully spread, the hundreds of tons of heavy rock formations overhead completed their final, grand transformation.
Coarse rock surfaces ground harshly against each other, emitting a low rumble like the roar of ten thousand wild beasts.
Under Golden Lion's direct control, the countless heavy boulders morphed flawlessly into over a dozen ferocious stone lions, each at the size of a warship.
No longer haphazardly crashing down, they opened their massive maws wide enough to swallow the world, converging completely from all directions to crush Zaraki right at the center.
"Lion's Might: Sky Coil: Rampaging Lion Dance!"
His vision was instantly filled with heavy gray-brown rock, the last sliver of sunlight mercilessly swallowed.
In this despairing gloom, Zaraki could even smell the earthy scent of the stone and the scorched odor of air compressed at extreme speed.
'There's no place to hide.'
'This old bastard was truly a grandmaster at manipulating the terrain—this move cleanly sealed off every single escape route!'
'Since there was no retreat, i would just carve a straight path right through it all!'
Zaraki's hands clenched the hilt of his sword with a death grip, the thick veins on his arms bulging right into a purplish-red from the excessive heavy strain.
He ignored the massive stone lions assaulting him directly from the flanks and rear.
Instead, he stomped down hard right on the last foothold beneath him, propelling himself not backward but forward—like a thick golden nail driving straight against the current—right toward the largest "lion king" directly above.
Shriiip—
That wasn't the standard sound of something being cut, but the highly mournful shriek of space itself seeming to tear apart!
At the exact moment of heavy contact, the colossal stone lion split cleanly straight down the middle as effortlessly as a thin bubble, severed totally without the slightest resistance.
The cut surface looked as smooth as a polished mirror, immediately shredded completely to fine dust by the violent golden Reiatsu.
A massive sky full of thick stone powder exploded outward, like a turbid downpour.
And at the far end of that heavy downpour, Shiki's completely stunned face rapidly expanded right in Zaraki's pupils.
'This lunatic... actually charged straight through the attack with a smile on his face?!'
Shiki had no time to change his stance as his body reacted entirely on pure instinct.
Hanging upside down, he crossed the two famed swords Oto and Kogarashi right in front of his chest.
Pitch-black Busoshoku Haki instantly hardened straight to its limit, attempting to fully block this unreasonable slash.
Clang!
Blades collided heavily.
Zaraki felt a deep numbing sensation right in his palms, as if he had just struck a solid iron mountain.
But immediately after, the pure frenzy in his heart completely overwhelmed the pain.
'Not enough.'
'Not deep enough!'
"Fall!"
A crimson gleam trailed from Zaraki's eyes as he roared, looking as if he was trying to expel every last breath right from his lungs!
The black Haki and thick golden Reiatsu on the Sandai Kitetsu intertwined flawlessly into a dark golden torrent of pure destruction.
In that instant, the output of power surged straight past its peak once more.
Crack.
A faint yet highly heart-stopping crisp sound clearly pierced both their ears.
Shiki's Armament Haki defense, under the heavy strike of the definitely not-quite-top-tier cursed sword, actually cracked open a hair-thin fissure.
A thousand-mile dike can easily collapse straight from a tiny ant hole.
The exact moment this fissure completely appeared, the heavy scales of victory had already tilted.
The dark golden blade light ruthlessly forced its way right through the crack and slashed fiercely onto Shiki's broad chest.
Thick blood sprayed wildly right in the raging wind.
Shiki felt an irresistible force completely smash into his chest, sending him flying like a home-run baseball.
He tore straight through the atmosphere, leaving a white sonic boom cloud right in his wake, plummeting like a dying meteor.
Boom!
The floating main island below let out a pained, heavy groan.
Thick dust and massive debris erupted hundreds of meters high, blooming like a colossal mushroom cloud right at the island's center.
Shattered rock fragments shot out like heavy cannonballs in all directions.
The entire massive island shook violently under the terrifying impact, its edges even beginning to crumble and break entirely away.
Mid-air, Zaraki gasped heavily for breath, his broad chest heaving violently.
With that brutal slash finally unleashed, the explosive sense of power throughout his entire body receded slightly, replaced by the soreness of torn muscle fibers.
He casually flicked the thick blood droplets clinging tight to the blade, letting his body hover freely in the highly chaotic air currents, his gaze fixed intently right on the bottomless crater below.
The surrounding heavy rock lions, now totally out of control, disintegrated completely one by one, reverting totally to lifeless debris as they plunged heavily into the sea.
For a brief moment, the world seemed to fall entirely into a dead silence, with only the howling wind remaining.
'Is he dead?'
Zaraki narrowed his eyes, his tongue licking the dried blood right at the corner of his mouth.
The sharp metallic taste kept his nerves fully taut.
If a legendary pirate of that caliber could be completely taken down so easily, that would truly be unbelievable.
The thick dust deep within the crater still churned wildly, but he could clearly sense it—right at the heart of the massive ruins, a highly chaotic yet arrogantly unsettling aura was slowly gathering once more.