Imu, cursed by Mother Nature, understood better than anyone how bizarre and troublesome the Cursed Fruit truly was. Over these eight hundred years, he had already seized that Devil Fruit for himself.
He had planned to save that curse ability for the Sun God Nika.
But he never expected Brook to reach this level in just thirty years.
He had even used the Teleport Fruit to send Brook to the moon, yet that bastard still made it back.
One backup plan after another, all the preparations Imu had built for Sun God Nika, Brook consumed them piece by piece. Even the God's Knights, trained specifically to deal with Nika, had been mostly destroyed by Brook. It would take ten or twenty years just to recover their strength.
And some time ago, the Sun God Nika Fruit was taken by Brook and fed to his sixth son, Nika.
Meaning, Brook was the father of Nika, the Sun God of this era.
Imu, who had read countless historical texts, was cursing Joy Boy in his heart, cursing the prophecy, cursing the D clan.
All the predicted timing was a lie.
Poseidon and the Sun God Nika Fruit had both appeared early.
He once thought Joy Boy was an honest man. He had even gathered historical texts just to study him.
Now he realized he had still been deceived, by Joy Boy, that sixth brother.
So Imu had to use every skill and every trick to kill Brook, the father of Sun God Nika.
And Brook's Hell God Jin form was not inferior to Sun God Nika at all.
In this era, Imu had to deal with two divine fruit powers.
No, three.
Brook also carried the Dark God Ers. That potential ran as deep as Imu's own God of Destruction power. In the future, it would not be weaker than the God of Destruction either.
…
Brook gripped the divine weapon, the Seven Star Demon Sword, and stood in the Hell God, Jin form, towering as high as Imu's God of Destruction, Beerus.
Both divine forms expanded again, their sizes surging higher, seventy or eighty meters tall. They were several times larger than Sengoku's giant Buddha form.
Still, they were far smaller than Pica's stone giant or Bullet's combined titan, and their strength was on an entirely different level.
Linlin, only eight or nine meters tall, now looked like a kitten or puppy, darting carefully between the two massive gods, dodging and striking whenever she found an opening.
"Linlin! Go help Kaido and Oden. Capture the new Elder fast!"
Brook's Hell God voice boomed across the battlefield.
At this stage, Linlin could no longer truly interfere in a clash between two gods at their strongest. Standing beside Brook, she could not play a real role.
And Brook and Imu would take time to decide a winner.
It was better for her to secure a sure win, crushing the new Elder.
"Then be careful, Brother Brook!" Linlin called back. "Once I kill that guy, I'll come help you right away!"
She did not insist. She mounted the thundercloud Zeus and shot across the battlefield, heading straight for Saint Garling, the user of the Word Spirit Fruit.
Imu did not stop her.
Instead, a hidden smile flickered in his eyes.
His chance had come.
That curse Shin cast on Brook, it should have taken effect by now.
Once Brook died, the six Hell Kings would not matter.
…
On the other side, Saint Garling was already being overwhelmed by Kaido and Oden together.
And now, the even more terrifying Linlin was closing in.
Don't bully people like this, you bastards.
He was just a new Elder. Why were they focusing on him like this?
Don't come over here!
"The secret of Word Spirit, retreat! Retreat! Retreat, retreat, retreat…"
Saint Garling screamed at Linlin as she rushed him at full speed.
But his panic created an opening, and Kaido and Oden seized it immediately.
"Thunder, One Hundred and Eight Trigrams!"
"Taoyuan, One Hundred and Eight Swords!"
Kaido unleashed his latest move.
Oden answered with his own two sword style, sword energy compressed to the limit, striking with equal force.
Linlin was repelled by the strange power of the Word Spirit Fruit, and she snapped back with a furious charge.
A dazzling arc shaped slash wave tore forward, cutting into the chaos where Saint Garling was trapped. The other four Elders could not rescue him. Their opponents held them down.
"Aaaaaaahhh!"
"The secret of Word Spirit, target swap!"
Saint Garling howled, and his figure vanished.
In the next instant, Saturn, the curly haired Elder, appeared in his place and was forced to take the fatal attacks of three Hell Kings head on.
Saturn's Devil Fruit was Gluttony, one of the Seven Deadly Sins. It could devour all attacks.
Even so, with three enemies of the same tier attacking at once, it was still hard to endure.
And now he would have to face Kaido and the other two monsters as well.
Was Saint Garling trying to kill him on purpose?
Why did he not swap with Warcury, the bald Elder who held Pride? Wouldn't Pride, ignoring attacks, be far more suitable?
Were they trying to beat an old man to death with his own cane?
The truth was simple.
Saint Garling could not swap with opponents who were stronger than him, or even close to his level, unless they willingly lowered their resistance.
It was the same principle as Law. Law could easily swap someone like Luffy, but he could not swap someone like Linlin. If the opponent's Haki and strength were too strong, the Devil Fruit simply would not work.
Just now, Saturn had subconsciously not resisted Garling swap.
So he got dragged into the fire and hammered by the three Hell Kings.
Saint Garling had no choice.
Warcury, the bald Elder with Pride, resisted the ability, so Garling grabbed another Elder who did not resist and forced him to take the damage.
Otherwise, he would have died young on the spot.
-----------
The moment the enemy's focus shifted to Saturn, the battle pressure spiked.
Kaido, Kozuki Oden, and Linlin pressed in like three calamities moving as one, their attacks turning sharper and more ruthless by the second. Against Elders with abnormal superhuman abilities, the three of them didn't waste time on fancy tricks. They wrapped their strongest Conqueror's entanglement around raw, brutal strikes, aiming to end things the old fashioned way.
On another front, Shiki's eyes lit up the instant his opponent became the weakest of the new Elder.
Saint Garling.
For Shiki, it felt like the sea itself had finally stopped mocking him.
With two swords in hand, the Golden Lion shot forward, his body cutting through the air at high speed as he slashed straight at Garling. Compared to his earlier fight with Saturn, this was a breath of fresh blood.
That battle had been miserable.
He could barely call it a stall. Saturn's Gluttony swallowed attack after attack, devouring Shiki's sword pressure as if it were nothing more than wind. Shiki's three types of Haki couldn't break through. He had spent the whole time defending, getting beaten back, forced into a corner where even landing a clean hit felt impossible.
Now?
Now the new Elder held the Word Spirit Fruit, and Shiki's confidence surged back like a tide.
Garling was injured. His stamina was drained to an ugly level.
Before this, he had been besieged by Kaido and Oden, and the Word Spirit Fruit itself burned through physical strength at a frightening rate, even more exaggerated than the Op Op Fruit. On top of that, this new Elder lacked the life and death combat experience the veteran monsters possessed. His limits showed faster. His battle endurance was shorter.
In Garling's eyes, the entire war was tilting toward disaster.
There were simply too many monsters on the enemy side.
How long could Saturn, the curly haired Elder being hammered by three "Hell Kings," possibly hold out?
Elsewhere, Mars, the long haired Elder, was being driven hard by Roger and Rayleigh, his stamina also bleeding away. Mary Geoise had already fallen into chaos. Even worse, Garling had seen his own Celestial Dragon residence breached. His thoughts kept slipping, wondering if the few family members he still had left had escaped.
And that moment of distraction was all Shiki needed.
"New guy," Shiki snarled, murder flooding his voice, "what the hell are you thinking about while fighting me? You looking down on me?"
Garling's pupils tightened.
"Word Spirit, Flash!"
Spiritual power flared. In an instant, Garling forced his body to burst away, trying to keep distance, trying to avoid close range swordwork altogether.
But Shiki's blade had already arrived.
"Void Slash, Lion Valley!"
Endless golden sword energy poured down in a storm, as if Shiki had seen Garling's movement before he even made it. The air screamed. The battlefield turned into a butcher's curtain of cutting light.
Jegarcia couldn't dodge. Not in time.
"Word Spirit Shield!"
A golden spherical barrier erupted around him, swelling into place with a violent boom. Shiki's sword energy crashed into it in relentless waves, detonating again and again, but the shield held, swallowing the storm with brute force.
Shiki laughed, teeth bared.
"Haha! So this is the Devil Fruit Stussy's been hunting all this time. Damn, it's absurd!"
He knew the story. Stussy had wanted the Word Spirit Fruit for Katifa, and because of that, the Fourth Princess hadn't eaten the Gold Gold Fruit until she was nineteen. She had been the last of all the princes and princesses to take a Devil Fruit.
A power that made reality bend to spoken words was enough to make anyone greedy.
Shiki lunged again, strength surging, because he'd just seen familiar figures slip into the battlefield. The timing was perfect.
He knew it.
The opportunity had arrived.
"Imprisonment Secret!"
Wang Zhi, the Imprisoned Swordsman, had quietly entered the clash between the Five Elders and Hell Kings. Behind him came several Seraphim, their presence cold and surgical.
This was the Old Six Team, formed and guided by Brook himself.
Abilities ignited in a coordinated burst.
"Gravity Suppression!"
"Slow light waves!"
"Imprisonment!"
And among the Seraphim, there was even one bearing Wang Zhi's bloodline factor, carrying the same confinement ability.
Wang Zhi had been watching for a long time.
The four veteran Five Elders, those who held Gluttony, Pride, Greed, and Envy, were not easy to ambush. Their reactions were too sharp, their defenses too strange. A premature strike would only expose Wang Zhi and the Seraphim for little gain.
So they endured. They waited. They let the monsters burn stamina. They watched for a flaw.
Then the new Elder appeared, and the target became obvious.
Saint Garling, the Word Spirit user, had weaker Haki, less combat experience, and worst of all, he had already been forced into a heavy stamina deficit under Kaido and Oden. He was the easiest to lock down.
Once Shiki drew Garling's attention and pinned him under sword pressure, Wang Zhi's squad moved.
The instant Garling was forced into a defensive standstill, they struck.
As long as a single control effect landed, it would become a chain. Absolute control, layered again and again, leaving no gap to breathe.
Back then, even Uranus had fallen to this exact tactic.
Shiki's laughter exploded across the battlefield as he rushed in.
"Ahahaha! Your time's up!"
An enemy under control couldn't do anything. Couldn't run, couldn't counter, couldn't twist fate at the last second.
Brook had already killed Ethanbaron.
Now Shiki would claim his own Elder's head, even if it was only a new one.
Garling panicked.
His body wouldn't respond. His speech slowed into fragments. Even the very thought of activating the Word Spirit Fruit dragged like it was being forced through mud.
"Word… Spirit… Ta… rget…"
He tried to trigger the Secret of Words, Target Swap, but the sentence never finished.
Shiki's blades hammered the shield again, mercilessly, madly. The barrier trembled, cracks spiderwebbing across its surface.
If Garling didn't regain movement before that shield shattered, it was over.
Then more lights hit him.
A slow pink wave rolled over his limbs.
Two golden confinement beams snapped into place.
A purple gravity suppression ring locked down his center.
Garling mind spiraled, confusion rising into terror as every layer stacked.
And then came the most horrifying part.
Two Seraphim released strange power, one exhaling pale pink gas, the other radiating a purple pink glow. Garling body warped under the effect, his form forcibly reshaped, his age dragged backward as if time itself had been yanked by the throat.
In a blink, Saint Garling became a young girl.
"Aaah… I… I'm… fa… ll…"
The voice that came out was soft, feminine, trembling. Garling felt his chest swell, felt the weight of it, felt something vital disappear from between his legs, and the humiliation struck harder than any sword.
He was the patriarch of the strongest Celestial Dragon family.
A new Elder.
And he had been turned into a woman.
Even dying in battle would have been kinder than this.
His heart cracked.
His Word Spirit Shield shook violently, and in that split second of rage and panic, it finally broke.
Shiki didn't hesitate.
The Golden Lion showed no mercy, not for titles, not for bloodline, not even for the fact his enemy had been transformed into a girl. He gripped two newly promoted supreme blades, Oto and Kogarashi, their edges drowned in pitch black Armament and Conqueror's pressure.
He drove both swords forward.
They pierced straight through the girl's chest, through flesh and bone, and the impact carried the blades out the back in one savage motion. Blood flooded Garling's mouth.
But under the power of the Slow Fruit, even the spray came out in a cruel, dragged out rhythm, crimson droplets floating across a pale, pretty face.
Everything about it looked tragic.
And unbearably beautiful.
.....
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