Whitebeard did not have time to keep thinking about Harry's true identity.
At that moment, he was being besieged by several Admiral-level fighters.
The first to charge in was naturally Whitebeard's old rival, Garp. The two of them had been entangled in grudges and clashes for decades, and now was the perfect time to settle things once and for all.
From the previous exchange, Garp had already judged that he was no match for undead Whitebeard on his own, so he decisively abandoned any sense of fair play and attacked together with the three Admirals.
"Fist Bone: Impact!"
"Meteor Volcano!"
"Ice Spear Rain!"
"Lightspeed Kick!"
Four powerful attacks closed in on Whitebeard from four different directions.
Faced with that kind of assault, even undead Whitebeard had to take it seriously. Swinging Murakumogiri, he roared, "Air Quake!"
Whitebeard whipped Murakumogiri around himself in a swift arc. Just as the attacks of the four Admiral-level fighters were about to land, they were stopped cold by transparent cracks spreading all around him.
Boom!
A deafening explosion thundered beside Whitebeard. Garp and the three Admirals' combined attack had been blocked with ease.
And even after stopping their joint assault, Whitebeard clearly still had power to spare.
He gripped Murakumogiri with one hand and clenched his other fist, then slammed both the blade and his free hand into the air before him as he rasped, "Get the hell out of my way! Dual Quake!"
Visible Conqueror's Haki condensed into lightning, and together with cracks that flashed like bolts, it struck Garp and the others instantly, blasting all four of them away again.
Whitebeard was about to pursue them at once, hoping to kill one or two while he had the opening and make the rest of the battle much easier.
But just as he moved to chase, he was intercepted by Red-Haired Shanks, Kaido, and Big Mom.
Kaido blocked Whitebeard's path, cutting off his pursuit of Garp and the others.
Under normal circumstances, Kaido would have loved to watch Garp and the Admirals die on the spot. But when the survival of the world was at stake, even an Emperor like Kaido was not stupid enough to ignore reality. He knew that only by gathering the strength of the entire world did they have any chance of winning a war that would decide the world's fate.
"Thunder Bagua!"
"Ikoku Sovereignty!"
"Divine Departure!"
Knowing just how monstrously strong undead Whitebeard had become, Kaido, Shanks, and Big Mom did not dare hold back. All three immediately used their strongest techniques.
Even so, they still were not Whitebeard's match. Just like Garp and the others, they were blasted away.
Still, with the addition of three Emperors of the sea, the battle finally settled into a deadlock instead of remaining a one-sided domination by Whitebeard.
Sensing the shift in the fight, Whitebeard laughed and mocked them.
"Gurararara! The undead have endless stamina. I've already won this battle. In the end, all of you will join us!"
As the fight dragged on, Garp and the others' stamina began to wear down, their power slipping little by little, while Whitebeard remained completely unchanged. Because of that, what had briefly become an even battle slowly started tilting back in his favor.
Seeing that, Whitebeard grew even more arrogant.
"Gurararara! Garp, the undead scourge cannot be stopped. This world will ultimately be ruled by the great &%&*!"
Whitebeard's pronunciation was perfectly clear, but the moment he spoke the name of the demon god behind him, his tone suddenly twisted into something warped and unnatural.
Garp, who was closest to him, frowned hard. Just hearing that name felt like countless rusted iron scraps were scraping back and forth inside his skull, shedding rust straight into his mind and grinding his thoughts to a halt.
And even though Whitebeard's voice became badly distorted when he said that name, Garp could still make out its rough shape.
But as the seconds passed, only a few moments later, he could no longer remember exactly what it had been.
It was as if his brain instinctively rejected the name, as though some inner warning kept screaming that only by forgetting it could he escape the influence drilling into his mind.
If Garp had still been fully lucid, he would have immediately realized that it was not just him. The Four Emperors and the three Admirals were all showing the same look of pain.
Aokiji, Kizaru, and the others who did not possess Conqueror's Haki even lost all fighting ability for the moment, clutching their heads and groaning in agony.
Seeing this, Whitebeard curled his rotting lips into a sly smile. He had long since known that the name of the demon god he now served carried a degree of mental corruption.
Anyone who was not one of the demon god's servants would suffer splitting pain in the brain upon hearing that name and lose the ability to fight for a short time. Only those with Conqueror's Haki could resist it at all.
As one of the demon god's followers, Whitebeard would not deliberately use that name as a weapon in combat. But if he happened to mention it by accident, the demon god would not care.
And now, with just a single mention of that name, he had practically secured victory in this battle.
Whitebeard seized the chance and attacked at once.
Murakumogiri swept across the chests of the three Admirals in an instant, carving deep wounds into them so severe that bone could be seen.
Then, using all his strength, he wrapped Murakumogiri in jet-black undead power, crimson lightning-like Conqueror's Haki, and Armament Haki, then swung it savagely at Kaido, Big Mom, and Shanks.
Crack!
The sound of bones breaking rang out like a string of firecrackers. Even though Kaido, Big Mom, and Shanks possessed Conqueror's Haki and could keep some of their strength, they were still badly wounded by Whitebeard.
After dealing with them, Garp, who also had Conqueror's Haki, finally snapped out of his daze.
The moment his eyes focused again, he saw Murakumogiri slashing toward him. He retreated without hesitation and barely dodged at the last possible second.
Whitebeard immediately pressed the attack and completely overwhelmed Garp, sneering as he did.
"Gurararara... Garp, look at your fragile alliance. I shattered it with ease. You can't stop me anymore. I will rule this world in the end, and I will slaughter every last one of those damned Celestial Dragons!"
To Whitebeard's surprise, even now, Garp was not panicking. In fact, he visibly relaxed and grinned.
"Whitebeard, if you want to slaughter those Celestial Dragon bastards, I definitely won't stop you. But ruling the world? That's not happening."
Whitebeard sneered. "Gurararara! A loser like you isn't stopping me."
Garp did not get angry. He only shot back, "I can't stop you. But someone can. Did you forget about one person?"
Whitebeard: "???"
Whitebeard suddenly remembered the one who had released that terrifying Conqueror's Haki earlier.
He had not joined the siege against him at all.
Then, because he was finally close enough, his Observation Haki picked up movement behind him. A figure under Invisibility had already reached a point just a few yards behind him.
For fighters at their level, that distance could be crossed in the blink of an eye.
Drawing on his vast battle experience, Whitebeard instantly made his judgment.
There was no longer time to turn around and block Harry's attack, but he could still try to interfere with him by speaking the demon god's name.
So Whitebeard coated his entire body in Armament Haki and shouted, "You cowardly bastard, && my lord, grant me your protection!"
But it did nothing.
With a wet stab, his chest, hard as steel, was pierced clean through, and a flood of dark, foul black blood poured down from the wound.
Whitebeard's body froze on the spot. He could feel the green disintegration sword that had impaled him continuously releasing a strange energy, devouring the flesh and blood inside him.
The level of that power was actually higher than his undead power. He had no way to resist it and could only watch helplessly as his body was consumed away.
In his current state, even an undead body could not hold on much longer. At the very end of his life, Whitebeard seemed to recover some of his reason. His expression turned complicated as he looked toward Ace on the execution platform and muttered, "So I still couldn't avoid this in the end. Am I just doomed to die by being stabbed in the back?"
He slowly turned around and looked at Harry, the one who had killed him. There was no hatred at all in his eyes. Instead, he gave a warning.
"Watch out for Blackbeard. He's the true servant of the demon god."
The moment those words left him, the light faded from his eyes.
But things were far from over.
Stab!
That familiar sound rang out again as a blade made entirely of dark shadow suddenly burst out from inside Whitebeard's body, piercing straight through Harry's chest before he could react.
Harry's pupils shrank sharply, and warm blood bubbled up in his throat.
He looked down at the eerie violet-lit shadow blade sticking through his chest. In front of him was a savage face covered in a thick black beard, twisted so hideously it looked like an evil ghost crawling up from hell itself.
And that was exactly what he was, an evil ghost bursting out of Whitebeard's undead body.
After hiding for so long and finally landing a successful sneak attack, Blackbeard burst into mad laughter.
"Hahahahaha! Brat, I'll admit you've got some skill. You were the only real variable in this world, but now you're going to die too!
"And after Whitebeard, I, Blackbeard, will rule this world instead!
"I'm the true servant of the demon god! The undead scourge was forged by my own hand!"
Only then did Blackbeard finally breathe easier.
A few months earlier, after killing Thatch and obtaining the Dark-Dark Fruit, he had been preparing to flee the Whitebeard Pirates when strange whispers suddenly began echoing in his ears.
From those whispers, he gained power. Using it, he infected the already gravely ill Whitebeard and created an undead king.
After that, he successfully used the undead scourge to sweep across the New World and made plans to wipe out both Marines and pirates alike, then dominate the entire Grand Line.
But when he arrived at the Sabaody Archipelago, he suddenly discovered someone who had never been part of the plan at all, Harry Potter.
The endless whispers in his ears could pierce through every secret in this world. Even Imu was no exception. Yet they could not obtain a single piece of information about Harry Potter.
Only then had Blackbeard truly begun to panic. He knew that if he did not get rid of this man, his ambition of becoming the ruler of the world would very likely collapse halfway through.
And sure enough, Harry's strength was absurd. His Conqueror's Haki alone had wiped out every undead except Whitebeard.
Fortunately, Blackbeard's scheme had still been one step ahead. At the exact moment Harry Potter killed Whitebeard and thought he had won, Blackbeard had struck from hiding and killed him in turn.
Looking at Harry Potter's body, which had rotted away and been completely corroded by darkness, Blackbeard finally lost all restraint and threw back his head in laughter.
"Worororororo! Now that Harry Potter is dead, no one can stop me anymore!"
At that moment, Blackbeard felt something was off.
He looked toward Garp and saw him staring back with a very strange expression.
Blackbeard knew that look well. Garp had looked at Whitebeard with that exact same expression just moments earlier, and then Whitebeard had immediately been backstabbed by Harry...!
Wait.
Stab!
Blackbeard had only just realized what was happening when a sharp pain exploded in his chest. In the next instant, a brilliant green light burst from his torso and rapidly disintegrated his body.
Agonizing pain spread across every inch of him as his body came apart and vanished. Because he still retained a human body rather than an undead one, he could not even get words out, only broken choking sounds.
"Aaah... urgh... da... damned..."
But very quickly, even those last choked sounds disappeared, because he had already fallen completely into death.
Garp stared at the completely unharmed Harry in disbelief and blurted out, "How the hell did you do that just now? You came back from the dead?"
"Oh, that?" Harry casually fired another burst of green light, completely disintegrating Whitebeard and Blackbeard's bodies. "It's nothing special. Just Clone Jutsu, a special ninja technique from another world. A clone only has about thirty percent of the original's strength."
Garp fell silent for a moment before speaking with difficulty.
"Wait. The one who killed Whitebeard just now was your clone, right?"
Harry looked at Garp in confusion.
"Of course. I already sensed something was wrong inside Whitebeard, so I sent a clone to kill him.
"And just like I expected, Blackbeard really was hiding inside Whitebeard."
"Wait, that's not the point!" Garp finally understood what Sengoku must have felt whenever dealing with him. "Your clone, with only thirty percent of your strength, was able to kill Whitebeard?"
Harry nodded. "Well, yeah. Whitebeard wasn't that strong to begin with. Under a sneak attack, thirty percent was enough."
Seeing Garp go silent again, Harry did not bother explaining further. If Garp ever found out that Harry's strength in the pirate world was only one-fifth of what it was in the multiverse, he would probably be even more shocked.
Harry's attention shifted to the unconscious undead. The Marine-pirate alliance, now awake again, was rapidly killing the helpless undead.
Those undead were no longer a real threat.
That meant Harry only had one final thing left to do in this world.
He raised his head, his gaze seeming to pierce through layer after layer of distance until it reached the Holy Land of Mary Geoise atop the Red Line.
First, he used good-and-evil sensing to mark his enemies. Then he immediately began gathering the full force of his power.
One enormous runic matrix after another appeared in front of him, and a disintegration sword hundreds of yards long rapidly took shape.
With Harry pouring magic into it at full output, the weapon was fully formed in only a few dozen seconds, a disintegration sword the size of a mountain.
After that, he infused it with lightning, gave it magnetic properties, and constructed a magnetic field around it, preparing to accelerate it.
He was going to use the disintegration sword, Super Electromagnetic Cannon, to erase Mary Geoise in one shot and bring the Celestial Dragons' rule to a complete end.
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