The Western rapier thrust upward. Against a shell of a body that had already exhausted its Haki, it seemed impossible to block.
At least, that was how it looked from Garling's perspective.
"Shanks's Observation Killing? So the source was with you. But—time's up."
Ren did not struggle. Instead, with mockery in his eyes, he vanished.
Saint Garling's heart jolted in terror. His Observation Haki swept the surroundings, yet he could not find even the faintest trace.
Because that had not been teleportation, nor any kind of displacement or movement technique.
It was disappearance on the level of time itself.
The Ren summoned from another timeline by the Space-Time: The Creator card had returned to his original timeline.
And the Ren of the present was now in an even higher sky.
"Above!"
Saint Garling snapped his head up. His Observation Haki and his eyes simultaneously caught sight of it—
A bursting cross-shaped star!
"Collapsing Star Roaring Cannon!"
The radiant cross-star suddenly erupted with blinding light. In that brief instant, its brilliance even surpassed the sun.
For a moment, it almost made people think there were two suns in the sky.
A roaring plasma torrent burst forth within the intense light. A dazzling pillar of light descended from the heavens like a sword.
The electromagnetic field surrounding the sword-like pillar of light accelerated and guided it, granting it terrifying speed.
The moment Saint Garling saw it, his figure vanished into that brilliant light.
The pillar of light continued unabated, piercing straight into the sea.
Boom—!
The plasma torrent released tremendous heat and energy as it spread. In an instant, the sea was blasted open into an abyssal hole more than twenty kilometers wide and dozens of kilometers deep.
A wave of fire comparable to a nuclear mushroom cloud rose from the ground, forming a massive mushroom cloud above the giant hole.
Immediately afterward came a chain of secondary disasters. A supermassive tsunami surged outward in all directions along with raging storms.
Of course, none of that could threaten Ren.
Premonition Perception and Observation Haki swept over the area in overlapping layers, allowing him to confirm one fact.
Saint Garling—dead!
The opponent had barely appeared in the original storyline, but his position within the plot could be determined as one comparable to legendary pirates like Whitebeard and Roger.
Of course, that was from the perspective of the Celestial Dragons in the original work. Whether or not there was a fan filter involved was another matter.
But judging from their current clash, Saint Figarland Garling truly did possess the level of a peak powerhouse.
His Haki mastery and swordsmanship were at least on Mihawk's level. As for who was stronger, that was another question entirely.
However, his weakness was also very obvious.
He was too old.
His physical capabilities had declined. In a one-sided suppression, that would have been fine, but in a battle of attrition against an opponent of the same level like Ren, it was not enough.
Moreover, Ren had used tactics.
A single Ren had applied fast-paced pressure against Saint Garling, exhausting his Haki and baiting him into going all-out, forcing him to spend what little Haki he had left on offense.
Then, at the very end, Ren finished him off in one shot with the Collapsing Star Roaring Cannon.
Without tactics, Ren had to admit that even he would not have been confident in killing Saint Garling.
No matter what, this battle was over.
"Farewell."
Ren did not return to Sphinx Island. In his Premonition Perception, that place had already been swallowed by the tsunami.
Fortunately, Whitebeard had transferred the residents in advance. Otherwise, it would have been a natural disaster capable of wiping out the entire island.
Even so, that tsunami was more than enough to interrupt the battle between both sides.
Saint Garling was dead, the God Knights had been almost completely wiped out, and the Marines had no top-tier combatant capable of breaking the situation.
Sengoku alone could not possibly take on Shanks and Benn Beckman by himself.
Even if Garp came to join forces with him, it still would not be possible. The difference in strength brought about by their age gap was enormous.
If nothing unexpected happened, Saturn had probably intended to call the other Five Elders over to attack together.
However, Whitebeard's strategy of striking their base had ruined that plan.
And now, Ren shifted his gaze to the battlefield on the Red Line.
It was time to go there and end everything.
The one-against-five battle had continued for a very long time. Whitebeard and the Five Elders had fought to the point of madness.
Every single one of the Five Elders was terrifyingly powerful when taken alone. Devil Fruit Awakening was already powerful enough, yet all of them were Mythical Zoans.
On top of that, they were united. They cooperated with one another in their encirclement, their coordination so seamless that they seemed like one entity.
Whitebeard was injured again and again and again.
But Word Spirit: Don't Die supported wounds that should have killed him several times over, allowing him to remain in his peak state.
However, the injuries accumulating on his body had already reached an irreversible point. The only reason he could still move was because his will had withstood the trial, continuously delaying the arrival of death.
What he received in exchange was crushing the Five Elders again and again.
And yet these strange monsters—yes, strange monsters—were always able to recover.
Whitebeard keenly realized that it was definitely not the self-healing power of a Zoan.
It was more like some even more powerful Devil Fruit ability being applied collectively to the Five Elders.
Or perhaps it was simply something beyond the scope of his understanding.
On the other hand, the Five Elders were equally confused by Whitebeard.
"Why won't he die?"
"The Paramecia-Type Tremor-Tremor Fruit shouldn't have this kind of vitality."
"His Haki is almost exhausted, and its intensity is no longer as high as before. So why can he still move after taking a hit from me?"
"I can't understand it. Even a Lunarian couldn't endure this. How can one human monster do it?"
The Five Elders communicated with one another in their minds, while their attacks became increasingly vicious.
No matter what ability it was, it should have a limit.
Only, before that limit arrived, a third party descended upon this battlefield.
A blazing sun hung in the sky, overlooking the battlefield below.
The Six-Winged Angel held Heavenly Might. While the More-More Fruit amplified the scale of his energy, the hilt of Heavenly Might smashed into his chest.
The hilt was driven into his chest cavity. Fine cracks spread across his chest, forming a rift like an abyss.
In the next instant, endless light ignited into a giant cross-star!
"Super Collapsing Star Roaring Cannon!"
A roaring plasma torrent blasted toward the fragment of the Red Line, showing no concern whatsoever for the fact that Whitebeard was still on it.
In fact, Whitebeard acted directly as well. Terrifying quake force obstructed the Five Elders' attempts to dodge.
He wanted to see whether these bizarre creatures could still recover in the face of an attack like this.
In the next instant, brilliant light erupted atop the Red Line fragment.
Under the restraint of the electromagnetic field, the light collided and spread, finally transforming into a growing hemispherical mass.
The entire Red Line fragment was enveloped within it, and rapidly rising temperatures devoured everything.
Earth and rock melted into magma under the extreme heat, and the magma boiled until it sublimated into vapor. Vast amounts of high-energy power sustained the entire refining process.
"Let's see whether this method can kill you."
Ren clenched one hand from afar. Under his manipulation, the magnetic field restrained the entire sphere of light, making the temperature within even more terrifying.
Premonition Perception and Observation Haki alternated in probing the area. Then, as though he had sensed something, he directly released the magnetic field's restraint.
The enormous sphere of light instantly erupted. Blinding radiance illuminated the entire world.
Then, a massive fireball appeared along with the sound of the explosion. The place where the fragment had been, together with the Red Line itself, had been bitten open into a circular gap spanning nearly a hundred kilometers!
This was an enormous change in the terrain. A hundred kilometers of coverage was almost equivalent to the area of a large city.
All sorts of secondary disasters were triggered immediately after, causing an impact like a natural calamity.
But those things no longer had anything to do with Ren.
He dove down, found Whitebeard just as he was about to sink into the seabed, then tore open a scroll and teleported him away.
After that, Ren activated Combat Dispatch and returned to Kuja Island. Whitebeard was waiting there.
He sat cross-legged on the ground, his broad chest bare. His body was covered in dense wounds, and half of him was stained with blood.
Yet his expression remained calm and composed, without the slightest trace of weakness.
"How was it?" Ren asked, looking at the tall and burly man before him.
"Can't kill them."
Whitebeard shook his head. "I sensed it just now. Although they lost their physical bodies, they still existed.
"They're almost like shadows. As long as the source doesn't die, they won't die."
"That exaggerated?" Ren frowned slightly.
"I'm the world's strongest man, and the one with the greatest destructive power."
Whitebeard said, "No one has ever taken my all-out attacks in close combat and survived.
"I tried chopping them into pieces, cutting them apart, even crushing them completely, but none of it could stop them from recovering.
"There were signs of stamina consumption, though. At least it doesn't seem like their stamina can recover too."
"Looks like I need to make a decision."
Ren recorded the intelligence and roughly understood what direction his next draw should take.
After finishing that, he stared at Whitebeard and continued asking, "Then what about you?"
"I'm dead for sure."
Whitebeard said it without the slightest concern. "But those guys didn't have it easy either. At the very least, I crushed them five times."
At this point, he looked at Ren and suddenly changed the topic. "How did things go on your side?"
"Sphinx won't have any problems."
Ren said, "As for the other places… they're maintaining a balance, but I'm about to go over and add more weight.
"If nothing unexpected happens, the World Government will choose to back down.
"After Saturn returned to Mary Geoise to participate in the encirclement against you, they lost their method of collectively arriving somewhere quickly.
"That magic circle requires one of the Five Elders to reach the location before the others can be pulled there.
"Under these circumstances, with the Three Admirals being blocked and Mary Geoise having been struck by an earthquake, the safest choice is to abandon the operation and have the Admirals return to stabilize the situation."
"I see. Looks like everything is still within your calculations."
Whitebeard revealed an expression of relief. "Impressive. So this is the power of a prophet?
"I wonder if you can see the futures of my children."
"That's too distant. I can't see it."
Ren shook his head, then seemed to realize something. "Are you planning to make your exit?"
"I'm too tired."
Whitebeard said, "That thing is testing me more and more often. Now I have to undergo its trial every second.
"Seriously… I never thought there would come a day when I couldn't endure pressure either. Looks like I'm still just an ordinary man after all."
"Ordinary people couldn't have lasted this long."
Ren's tone carried some emotion. As the one who had released the Word Spirit, he knew far too well both its strength and its limitations.
Although the Limited Wishing Machine consumed an enormous amount of money, that was still an external, tangible object.
But willpower was something that could not be quantified, nor could it be replenished from the outside.
The idea that one could indefinitely delay death as long as one passed the willpower trial indefinitely was nothing more than a false proposition.
"Doesn't matter."
Whitebeard grinned. "I've already lived long enough, and gloriously enough."
"I understand."
Ren nodded gently. "Good night, Edward Newgate."
(End of Chapter)