In the heart of the Sandstone Basin, two figures stood across a massive crater carved out by Aeridar's last attack. Across the chasm, Aeridar and Syrons locked eyes, a silence crackling with tension.
Aeridar took a sharp breath, grounded his heel, and then launched. In an instant, he shot forward through the air like a black blur. A shadow, here and gone.
"Speed—
"Impact Razor!!!"
It was a technique combining Soru and Geppo of the Rokushiki with the destructive energy of the Impact-Impact Fruit. Within that short burst of midair acceleration, he reached blistering, near-untraceable speed.
"What?!"
Caught off-guard, Syrons swung his massive hammer in defense.
BOOM—
The hammer smashed into the earth, shaking the terrain. A slab of ground gave way beside the crater's edge, chunks of stone crumbling into the depths below.
But he'd missed.
Aeridar had twisted midair, changing his trajectory in a blink, vanishing and reappearing behind Syrons. With a violent twist of the hips, he drove his Armament-Hardened right leg toward the back of Syrons' skull.
Thud—Clang—!
The dull impact rang out. Syrons didn't even glance back. He simply turned his body slightly and caught the blow with one shoulder.
The force of the collision distorted the air, a whirlwind bursting outward from the point of contact, blasting debris in every direction.
"Not that easy, brat. Don't get cocky." Syrons sneered over his shoulder.
"We'll see about that."
Aeridar's fingers snapped together into a knifehand strike. Veins bulged along his arm as he swept it forward with a whip-crack of force.
Syrons' eyes narrowed, instinct screaming. He threw himself sideways.
SHRIP—!
A formless, invisible blade of compressed air sliced through the earth, leaving a ragged scar stretching tens of meters, bisecting the crater below.
"Rankyaku: Hand Style—Palm Shock Slash!!!"
Before Aeridar's arm even finished its arc, Syrons had already countered. His warhammer came roaring at Aeridar's chest, cutting through the air with a shrill howl.
"Too fast!"
Aeridar didn't have time to evade. He crossed both arms, blackened by Armament Haki, in front of him.
CLANG—!
A massive force slammed into him. The impact rattled his bones, splitting pain down his arms and crushing the air from his lungs. Blood welled in his throat. Then he was flying.
CRASH—CRUNCH—SMASH—
He smashed through two slabs of sandstone before finally skidding to a halt before a third, gasping, coughing up blood.
"Cough... cough..."
The pressure in his chest eased slightly with the blood expelled.
"This guy..." Aeridar winced, arms trembling.
"His fighting style's similar to Whitebeard's, sheer brute force. Every strike with those twin hammers is tight, flawless. Add in mastery of Armament Haki and the Rokushiki... there's no weak point to exploit."
He narrowed his eyes.
"Don't let the fruit fool you."
Syrons' powers seemed unimpressive on paper, just turning his limbs into hammers. But that simplicity was precisely what made him so dangerous.
He didn't need flash. He just pulverized everything in his path. Long-range attacks? He simply generated shockwaves by punching air with enough raw strength to make the sky bleed. Brutal. Direct. Efficient.
Just like Whitebeard. Nothing fancy, just pure, overwhelming force.
The philosophy was ancient: "A heavy sword needs no edge." No matter how intricate your technique, one well-placed strike ends everything. And if one punch doesn't kill you? Then it just takes two. Or three. Or four.
At that moment, Syrons didn't charge in. He twisted his torso, shifted his weight, and kicked.
His leg compressed like a coiled spring, then snapped.
FWASH—
A sharp, shimmering blue-white slash tore from his foot, condensing midair into a colossal, tiger-shaped shockwave.
"Rokushiki: Rankyaku—Feral Tiger!!!"
The beast roared silently as it charged forward, paws thundering across the ground in a blur.
Aeridar didn't meet it head-on. He leapt upward, dashing skyward with Geppo.
SHRIP—SHRIP—SHRIP—!
The sandstone terrain offered no resistance. The shockwave tiger shredded everything in its path, carving through the landscape like a living blade. Within moments, it had rampaged far beyond the battlefield, leaving behind a clear trail of devastation.
High above, Aeridar flipped midair. White rings of compressed air burst beneath his feet as he raised a leg, and brought it down in a clean arc.
The air wavered.
FWOOOOOOM—
A crescent-shaped shockwave, blue and white, cleaved downward like a divine blade. And as it fell, it expanded. Five meters. Six. A colossal, sweeping arc.
"Rankyaku: Crescent Moon Slash!!!"
The slash screamed toward its target: but Syrons was already gone.
SHRIP—!
The ground split as if cleaved by a divine sword, a massive fissure appearing instantly. It stretched dozens of meters across and plunged deep into the abyss below.
Syrons, however, was already airborne, right in front of Aeridar again.
And just like that, the fight resumed in midair, fists and hammers trading blow after blow, shockwaves cracking the sky.
From air to earth and back again, their clash echoed like thunder. Even a full kilometer away, the people in Rainbase could hear the cataclysm.
Suddenly, a white beam of energy, five meters in diameter, tore across the field in a horizontal sweep. The land collapsed in its wake, forming a vast trench as the force stormed outward like a tidal wave. Anything in its path was obliterated, reduced to powder.
Then—
BOOM—
A black hammer struck the ground with the force of a meteor. The resulting shockwave blasted outward, carving a crater fifty meters wide and webbing the ground around it with fractures. Air burst outward like a hurricane, hurling entire sandstone boulders skyward.
Outside the Sandstone Basin—
Oliver flinched as the ground trembled beneath his feet. Frowning, he turned, and his face blanched. Without hesitation, he yanked Gorbo backward.
SHRIP—!
Gorbo stumbled, surprised. He opened his mouth to complain—
—but a streak of blue-white light slashed across their vision, followed by a wave of hot wind that sent dust and sand whipping around them. Everyone nearby ducked or sneezed as the storm passed.
As the dust cleared...
Gasps broke out.
Whether it was Arlan's group or the assembled Marines, everyone stared, stunned, at the scene before them.
A massive chasm had been carved straight through the battlefield, stretching several hundred meters long. It ran perfectly between the two groups. Over a meter wide. So deep they couldn't see the bottom.
The silence that followed was filled only by awe, and dread.
"If that had hit one of us…"
"We'd be dead. No question."
No one argued.
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