The Tremor-Tremor Fruit, which Fleet Admiral Sengoku once called "the power to destroy the world," was also regarded as the strongest Paramecia-type Devil Fruit.
Its user could freely generate vibrations, adjust their intensity at will, make the atmosphere quake, split the sea apart, shake the heavens, and even trigger massive tsunamis. The force of those vibrations traveling through the air was enough to overturn an entire island.
Now, in the hands of the enhanced strongest man in the world, countless fissures of震动? No, translate. Countless cracks of vibration raced toward the Sabaody Archipelago, spreading like a dense web that looked ready to engulf the entire place.
Faced with such a terrifying attack, neither the Marines nor the pirates dared take it lightly.
On the Marine side, the three Admirals immediately rushed forward and used their respective Devil Fruit powers to block the attack. The pirates also sent out their own strongest fighters.
If this had been Whitebeard's attack from the past, then with so many Admirals intercepting it, it would definitely have been stopped without much trouble. But now Whitebeard had been empowered by the demon god, and his strength had risen dramatically.
So when those violent vibration patterns slammed into the Admirals, they held for only a brief instant before they were blasted away. Their bodies screeched through the air from the sheer friction, smashed through layers of hardened defensive fortifications, and crashed down into the crowd.
Seeing this, Garp's pupils shrank abruptly, and his fingers clenched the railing so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
"So strong! He's even more terrifying than when he was alive!"
Whitebeard's power had now surpassed even his own. To blow away all three Admirals in a single strike, that kind of strength probably belonged only to the shadowy figures hidden behind the World Government.
After sending the three Admirals flying, Whitebeard did not stop. He gathered power once more.
The broken tip of Murakumogiri was wrapped in a pale glowing sphere, imbuing it with overwhelming vibration force.
Boom!
Murakumogiri became a blur as it slashed into the air in front of Whitebeard.
That cracking, shattering sound rang out again. The atmosphere was torn apart by the overwhelming tremor power, and a flying slash over three hundred feet high, carrying even more destructive force than his previous attack, shot directly toward Fire Fist Ace.
Whitebeard had absolutely no intention of holding back. His goal was not to rescue Ace, but to shatter him to pieces.
Thinking back to what Whitebeard had just said, it was obvious that he had already been thoroughly bewitched by that unknown demon god. He now believed that becoming undead was evolution, and he intended to turn Fire Fist Ace into an undead creature as well.
Garp's brows twisted together as he roared, "Whitebeard, you bastard, are you trying to kill Ace?"
He shot into the sky and appeared in front of Ace, then threw a punch.
"Fist Bone: Meteor!"
Immense Conqueror's Haki and Armament Haki became lightning, wrapping around Garp's fist and bursting with a dazzling brilliance like a falling star.
The meteor plunged downward with a shrieking sonic boom and visible shockwaves, then collided head-on with the crimson Conqueror's Haki lightning and the cracks in the air.
Crack! Crack!
Thunder and vibration spread violently in every direction. The unlucky Marines and pirate grunts nearby were instantly blasted away by the aftershock.
If even the weakest participants in this battle had not possessed decent strength, those poor bastards would probably have been crushed apart by the aftershocks alone.
And Garp, who had clashed with Whitebeard head-on, did not come out well either. He might have been somewhat stronger than an Admiral, but not by much.
So when he faced an attack even stronger than the combined assault of the three Admirals, he was sent flying outright, and a shallow slash even appeared across his chest.
Still, that blow had managed to block most of the flying slash's power. Unfortunately, the remaining force was still not something ordinary Marines could withstand.
As a result, the flying slash continued toward Fire Fist Ace with unstoppable momentum, clearly intending to kill him in a single strike.
At that moment, Luffy, standing beside Harry, could not hold back any longer. Ignoring his own safety, he compressed the blood in his body and made it surge faster, entering Gear Second.
But after only a few steps, he suddenly realized he was floating in the air, completely unable to move.
He whipped his head around and saw that Harry had bound him in place with magic. He immediately roared, "Harry, let me go! Ace is gonna die if you don't!"
Harry shot Luffy an annoyed look. With Luffy's current strength, he would not be able to stop that flying slash even after most of its power had already been canceled out.
If Harry really let him take that hit, then not only would he fail to save Fire Fist Ace, it would become one slash, two corpses.
So Harry shook his head. Green runic arrays immediately appeared across the surface of his body, and his speed increased several times over in an instant. In the blink of an eye, he appeared right in front of Fire Fist Ace.
Calmly, he held his wand across his chest and gave it a light wave.
A transparent shield appeared in front of him, visible to the naked eye. It looked impossibly thin, almost like it had no thickness at all, and people could not help wondering whether something so flimsy could really stop a flying slash powerful enough to destroy everything in its path.
But when the shield truly collided with the attack, the seemingly fragile transparent barrier suffered no damage whatsoever. Instead, the flying slash shattered on impact like an egg striking stone. It then turned into a hurricane that blasted off to both sides, uprooting several thick trees in the process.
Kaido and Big Mom had been watching Harry the whole time. Seeing that, Kaido took a huge swig of liquor and burst into laughter.
"Hahaha! Not bad at all!"
But very quickly, his expression darkened again, and he sneered arrogantly, "Still not enough. Power like that isn't nearly on the level needed to knock out an Admiral."
Big Mom's massive body sagged against her chair in layers. Covering her mouth and pretending to act ladylike, while looking utterly disgusting, she pinched her voice and said, "Mamamama, it's fine, Kaido. The weaker he is, the better. Once the undead scourge is over, the New World will be ours."
Among these undead, the stronger they were, the more reason they retained. But even that retained reason had become twisted.
As an undead king, Whitebeard was far less steady than he had been in life. In the past, even if his attack failed, it would not have affected his emotions at all. He would have calmly searched for his enemy's opening instead.
But now, rage simply swallowed his mind, and he roared furiously, "Damn you... damn you! You dared stop me from saving Ace! I'll kill you!
Get him! I'm gonna skin that bastard alive!"
At Whitebeard's command, the enormous undead force behind him charged toward the Sabaody Archipelago.
Whitebeard believed that with the undead's overwhelming combat power, they would absolutely crush the defensive line in front of them.
Of course, it was not just the undead's strength that made him so confident, even arrogant. It was the mutated Conqueror's Haki he had gained after becoming undead.
Anyone weaker than a Vice Admiral who was struck by that Conqueror's Haki would pass out and irreversibly fall into undeath.
In order to save Ace and let Roger's son walk the path of evolution alongside them, Whitebeard had deliberately held back from using Conqueror's Haki in the earlier fighting. That meant the World Government probably still did not know the true effect of his mutated Conqueror's Haki.
And now, that Conqueror's Haki, far beyond anything the world could imagine, was finally about to make its first appearance.
"Gurararara..."
A hoarse growl echoed out from deep within his skeleton. Whitebeard's rotting brow twisted, and nearly visible ripples spread out from him at blinding speed.
The first ones to be enveloped by this bizarre Conqueror's Haki were naturally the undead closest to him. The eerie soul-fire in their eyes flared brighter at a visible rate, and their physical abilities rose by several more levels.
Even the lowest undead could now accomplish feats like taking on several enemies at once, let alone the commanders.
At that point, they had all fully reached Admiral-level combat power.
Then the Marine soldiers and pirates defending the frozen shoreline were enveloped by the wave of Conqueror's Haki. Everyone below Vice Admiral level immediately began bleeding from the nose and mouth, their eyes rolled back, and they collapsed stiffly into the sea.
At the same time, once they lost consciousness, their skin visibly darkened, the blood inside their bodies rapidly congealed, and they began transforming into evil undead at high speed.
In the blink of an eye, aside from a scattered handful of strong fighters at Vice Admiral level or above who had not been knocked out by such horrifying Conqueror's Haki, everyone else had fallen unconscious.
Noticing this, Akainu clenched both fists and said grimly, "Damn it, what kind of twisted Conqueror's Haki is this? The people it knocks out are turning into undead!
"No, we need to think of a solution fast. If we let them keep transforming, we're finished!"
The still-conscious powerhouses moved quickly, trying to wake the fallen.
The process itself was surprisingly easy, exactly the same as waking people who had been knocked out by Conqueror's Haki in the past. But no matter how hard they tried, compared to the sheer number of people who had collapsed, what they could do was no more than a drop in the bucket.
At this rate, even if they gave everything they had, by the time those people fully transformed, they still would not have woken even a tenth of them.
Marco the Phoenix, commander of the Whitebeard Pirates' 1st Division, spread his skeletal wings and laughed mockingly from above.
"You trash think you can stop Pops? Pops is destined to become the undead king of the new age. You relics of the old era should hurry up and bow out. This is the age of the undead now!"
Whitebeard laughed savagely. "Worororororo! That's right! Just what I'd expect from my son. Garp, Akainu, Aokiji, Kizaru, all of you leftovers from the old era should be swept off the stage already. This world should be ruled by the more perfect undead!"
While Whitebeard was still reveling in his triumph, Harry had already used those few seconds to observe the essence of Whitebeard's Conqueror's Haki.
Whitebeard's Conqueror's Haki was actually somewhat similar to Harry's own, because both operated on the soul.
Harry's Conqueror's Haki blasted his enemy's soul out of the body, while Whitebeard's Conqueror's Haki injected a strange higher-dimensional energy into the enemy's body and knocked them unconscious.
That way, once the enemy passed out, they could no longer resist and would be forcibly transformed into undead.
Which meant Harry's Conqueror's Soul Projection was the perfect counter to Whitebeard's Conqueror's Haki.
As long as he knocked the soul out of the body and then restored it, Whitebeard's Conqueror's Haki would be broken immediately.
So Harry's pupils suddenly contracted. He drew in a deep breath, magic surged rapidly through his body, and he activated Conqueror's Soul Projection with all his might.
As he exhaled, a vast force came roaring out of him.
The originally quiet air was instantly ripped apart, giving off a shrill howl like countless blades slicing across the void.
Centered on Harry, rings of visible shockwaves spread outward in all directions, and in the blink of an eye, everyone within several miles was engulfed.
Aside from the still-rational powerhouses at Vice Admiral level and above, every single soul was forcibly blasted out of its body.
The Marine-pirate alliance, however, did not seem to suffer any harm. It was as though Harry's Conqueror's Haki had failed to affect them at all.
Standing at the bow of his ship, Kaido looked at the scene and sneered.
"So the rumors really were all lies. Conqueror's Haki strong enough to knock out an Admiral? I'll admit his Conqueror's Haki really is powerful, maybe even on par with Red Hair's, but it's nowhere near the level people claimed."
Big Mom was just about to join him in mocking Harry, but then both of them suddenly noticed something strange in the distance through Observation Haki.
The endless tide of undead had suddenly stopped moving.
Because most undead were basically rotting flesh, and most had been soaking in the sea for a long time, they could float even without swimming, so Kaido and Big Mom had not noticed anything strange at first.
But now they finally saw the difference.
The undead had not stopped because the waves had swept them away.
They had stopped because they had all passed out.
What shocked Kaido and Big Mom even more was that even the dozen or so commanders, who were now comparable to Admirals, had all collapsed into the water without exception.
In a single instant, aside from Whitebeard, who possessed Conqueror's Haki, every other member of the Whitebeard Pirates lost the ability to fight.
And just when Kaido and Big Mom thought that was the end of it, they realized the effects of Harry's Conqueror's Haki went far beyond that.
The changes happening to the unconscious Marines and pirates suddenly stopped.
Their descent into undeath had been halted.
Then, just a few seconds later, all of them shuddered and woke up one after another.
Damn it, what the hell was going on?
Since when could Conqueror's Haki cancel out the effects of someone else's Conqueror's Haki?
Was there really a use for Conqueror's Haki like this?
It was not just Kaido and Big Mom who were stunned. The people aboard the Red Hair Pirates' ship were just as shocked. Garp, the three Admirals, and the other Vice Admirals on the Marine side were equally confused.
But after only a moment of hesitation, they all charged at Whitebeard without the slightest delay.
At this point, every undead on Whitebeard's side except Whitebeard himself had lost the ability to fight. So if they could just kill Whitebeard, this war would end quickly.
But the one who was most shocked and bewildered was obviously Whitebeard himself.
He simply could not understand it. Victory had been within his grasp, so why had the situation suddenly flipped upside down?
What exactly had that terrifying Conqueror's Haki just been? Through Observation Haki, he had even sensed that if he had not possessed Conqueror's Haki and thus been spared that effect, then even he might have been knocked unconscious.
Damn it!
Could that Conqueror's Haki really knock out even someone like him, someone beyond Admiral level?
Who was that guy with the lightning-shaped scar on his forehead?
Why had he never heard any information about him before?
Wait...
A sudden possibility came to Whitebeard's mind.
Could he be Imu, the true supreme leader of the World Government, the one hidden away in the Room of Flowers in the Holy Land of Mary Geoise?
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