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"There's no such thing as impossible," Rowen said.
He reached out and caught the Thunder Dragon Halberd as it spun back to him, the metal still humming from the impact. He gave it a sharp, practiced whirl, tracing a jagged arc of lightning in the air that looked like a crown of thorns. "Lirisk told me everything I needed to know about his father. Did you really think I'd step into your backyard without doing my homework?"
Imu stopped his backward momentum abruptly. He righted himself in the air, his gaze dropping from the stars to lock onto Rowen. He spat a single, heavy word:
"Awakening."
"It's the only way to play at this level," Rowen replied.
Only Awakening could counter Awakening. It was a matter of frequency, the fundamental vibration of the Devil Fruit's origin. Though all fruits sprang from the same source, two awakened souls could not occupy the same space; they repelled one another like magnets.
In Imu's sight, Rowen was no longer just a man. He was a pillar of white, corrosive lightning, a radiant blaze that clung to his skin like a second nervous system. He hadn't expanded his power to create a "Black Prison" or a domain of thunder; he didn't need to. The energy was overflowing from within him, spilling out from his pores like water from a shattered dam.
Every strand of Rowen's muscle and every drop of his blood was now saturated with the Goro Goro no Mi's frequency. He was a closed circuit. Any external power trying to invade his mind or body would have to fight its way through a literal storm of divine interference.
If Rowen's fruit were still under Im's tether, this would have been a suicide move. But as Rowen saw the frustration flash in the God-King's eyes, he knew.
"Looks like I bet on the right horse," Rowen grinned, his teeth flashing white against the blue glow of his skin.
With the massive Eye of Heaven hanging in the void behind him, Rowen looked less like a Marine and more like a celestial executioner. His mastery had reached the point where he could ignore the deceptive, mystical "hacks" of lesser fruits. To touch Rowen now, an ability had to survive the lightning first.
"Impressive, Soryu (Azure Dragon)," Imu said, wiping the smear of blood from his chin. The Deep Gate punch had been a world-shaking strike, yet the old man stood as if he had merely tripped. "To stand before me based on nothing but a 'conjecture', you truly are a gambler."
"That's the difference between us, Lord Imu," Rowen said, sliding his left foot back and settling into a wide, powerful bow stance. He leveled the halberd. "I've told you before: a man who fears death, no matter how strong he is, is just a coward with a long life."
"Is that so?" Imu's eyes turned into cold, dark slits. "Then let me show you the true spectacle of death."
Suddenly, a thick, suffocating black mist erupted behind Im. It wasn't the shadows of a sunset or the darkness of a cave; it was the purest void Rowen had ever seen. It didn't just block light; it felt as though it were hungry, waiting to devour reality itself.
From within that ink-black shroud, silhouettes began to peel away. One by one, six humanoid shadows emerged, fanning out in a lethal arc to surround Rowen.
CRACK.
The air near the shadow on the far left suddenly splintered. A jagged white fissure, like a crack in a frozen lake, ran from the sky down to the horizon.
"The Tremor-Tremor Fruit?" Rowen's grip tightened.
He looked to the others. To his right, clouds and mist defied the vacuum of ten thousand meters, swirling into a massive dragon-vortex that pulsed with a life of its own. A face manifested in the vapor, cackling with a hollow, high-pitched glee.
"Father, is this the one we kill?"
"The Soul-Soul Fruit," Rowen muttered. "This is getting out of hand."
The other shadows were just as recognizable: the Dream-Dream Fruit, radiating a sickeningly sweet aura; the Vampire Fruit, with bat wings that seemed to drink the moonlight; the Yamata no Orochi, its eight heads swaying in a grotesque rhythm; and Shiki's Float-Float Fruit, hovering in weightless silence.
The six greatest "monsters" Rowen had ever encountered were standing before him. And at the center stood Im, wreathed in the dark void of the Yami Yami no Mi.
Seven. Seven calamities.
Even standing still, their overlapping pressures made the air feel as solid as lead. Rowen didn't for a second think these were mere puppets. They held the full power of their original hosts, perhaps more. He was standing alone against an army of legends.
Yet, Rowen let out a short, sharp laugh. "One's missing, isn't it? Where's the Mera-Mera Fruit? You've clearly been collecting these for centuries. You even managed to grab the Float-Float Fruit recently."
Rowen raised an eyebrow, mocking the god. "Could it be that you can only harvest the 'seed' once it has fully ripened? Or is it that Ace's fruit grew a little... crooked? Maybe you can't pick a fruit that's already rotted on the vine."
He was referring to Ace's descent into "Awakening Rage." It was a corruption, a fire that had burned the soul of the fruit itself.
Imu's smug composure shattered. His face turned a livid, bruised purple. "Kill him!" he roared.
The world shook.
The Tremor-Tremor shadow moved first. It wasn't fast, but speed was irrelevant when your every movement shattered the atmosphere. It struck the air, and a wall of pure kinetic vibration tore across the sky toward Rowen, a natural disaster condensed into a single point.
The sky shattered. A wall of kinetic force slammed into Rowen, the vibration so intense it threatened to liquefy bone. The shockwave caught his Marine cloak, tearing the heavy fabric from his shoulders; the white flag and black cross, symbols of the authority he had once served, disintegrated into a cloud of ash and drifting threads.
"Perfect timing!"
Rowen's eyes flared with a manic, predatory heat. He didn't retreat; he stomped the empty air with a thunderous Geppo, his legs kicking off the atmosphere like a launchpad.
Heaven-Resisting Thunder Cry: Cloud Dragon Slaughter!
The Thunder Dragon Halberd vanished, replaced by a pillar of blinding white radiance that pierced the vacuum. The tremors rolled over him like a tidal wave hitting a cliff of diamond.
On the sea's surface, such an attack would have cracked a continent, but here, ten thousand meters up, the vibration couldn't even make the lightning flicker.
Im's face twisted. He saw the truth that would have broken the spirit of any other warrior: the Goro Goro no Mi was no longer his.
Years ago, Rowen had been the World Government's most loyal hound. Imu had watched his growth with interest, but Lirisk, driven by a jealous need to destroy a rising star, had sabotaged Rowen's awakening, pushing him into the death-trap of Awakening Raging. Imu had welcomed the result, assuming Rowen would either die or become a mindless beast, effectively removing the piece from the board.
But Rowen had defied the natural order. He had survived the madness, vented his fury upon Big Mom, and in that crucible of blood and fire, he had seized the reins of the storm.
At that moment, the tether had snapped. Imu had realized, in a shock that still burned, that his divine connection to the lightning had been severed. The power hadn't just been used, it had been stolen. Rowen had become a parasite that outgrew its host, a bone wedged deep in the God-King's throat.
Now, even the shadows Im summoned, warriors who once traded blows with Whitebeard, found their authority failing. Usually, Imu's presence would suppress any Devil Fruit, making magma run cold or ice turn brittle. But Rowen's lightning didn't care for Imu's permission.
Boom... Crack!
The Eye of Heaven pulsed above them. For a fraction of a second, the divine gaze exerted its own pressure, freezing the atmospheric vibrations in place.
It was less than a heartbeat, but for Rowen, a heartbeat was an eternity.
The Thunder Pillar, previously mired in the Tremor-Tremor's distortion, surged forward. The halberd lunged toward the Tremor shadow with the weight of a falling star.
"So that's it," Im hissed, shielding his eyes from the glare. "The evolved Heart Network... the Eye of Heaven."
It was a qualitative leap. It was no longer just "Observation Haki" or "high-voltage electricity." After Rowen turned his back on the Holy Land, his power had evolved from a physical phenomenon into a divine manifestation of annihilation. It was an unstoppable force that refused to be governed.
Imu and the shadows shared one mind. Sensing the danger, the Vampire shadow, the fastest of the group, snapped its wings, diving to intercept.
But they were too slow.
Pū chī!
The halberd tore through meat and shadow, but it wasn't the Tremor warrior that screamed. It was the Dream shadow, positioned at the very rear, waiting for a chance to strike.
Rowen hadn't attacked the front line. Using the momentary suppression from his Eye and a lightning-fast Blink, he had reappeared in the shadows' blind spot. The halberd had sheared through the Dream shadow's shoulder, taking the arm and half the torso with it.
"The secret to fighting a crowd," Rowen growled, lunging forward and locking the wounded shadow in a brutal, bone-snapping chokehold, "is that it's better to cut off one finger than to scratch ten!"
Imu's face flushed a deep, indignant red. He felt the phantom pain of his creation being dismantled. Rowen leaned into the shadow's ear, his grin wide and feral.
"Great Electricity Producer!"
BOOM!!
A pillar of pure, white-hot energy erupted, connecting the heavens to the earth. From the cold silence of outer space, it looked as though a needle of light had been driven through the heart of the blue planet, piercing the world from top to bottom.
(End of Chapter)
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