"Rumble—!!!"
The gigantic rock hand under Golden Lion's control clenched viciously around Rain at its center, with the will to crush everything.
Like a god trying to pinch to death an overconfident insect.
And yet—
The expected sound of flesh being pulverized never came.
At the instant those five sky-supporting fingers were about to close—
"ZZZ—!!!"
A shriek of violently surging current exploded from the palm!
Then—
That rock hand, only half closed, froze in midair as if it had grabbed a supernova mid-detonation. "What?!"
Hovering high above, Golden Lion felt an irresistible, terrifying force swelling madly from within the palm.
Sssss—!
The Haki-coated stone fingers visibly turned red-hot, translucent, then dripped down as molten magma.
BOOM—!!!!!
The next second, the sky-filling rock hand burst apart—
Not smashed from the outside, but blown open from within, vaporized by a blazing white light.
In the rain of lava and white steam, a figure slowly rose.
It was no longer a human shape.
Towering over the land now stood a thunder war-god tens of meters tall!
Its entire body was formed from ultra-dense, compressed pale lightning—like a glowing suit of white plate armor—hard-edged, angular, and brutally mechanical in its violent beauty.
Its face had no features, only a pair of cross-shaped luminous eyes radiating destruction, staring ahead with cold indifference.
Most terrifying of all: its arms did not end in hands, but in two solidified lightning blades—no hilts, fused directly to its forearms.
Thunder: Takemikazuchi.
"It got bigger?"
Faced with this oppressive Takemikazuchi, Golden Lion didn't fear it—he broke into a savage laugh, his fighting spirit burning to the peak.
"Think getting big means you can win?! In front of me, you're just a bigger target!"
He thrust both hands upward.
"Shishi odoshi: Chimaki!"
RUMBLE—!!
The ground beneath Rain—and even the surrounding sea—everything that remained of the floating-island debris… even Merveille's very bedrock was forcibly lifted!
Countless rocks and soil gathered under Shiki's control. In the blink of an eye, a rock lion larger than Takemikazuchi rose from the earth!
This lion king was coated in jet-black Armament Haki. It opened a maw big enough to swallow mountains, bearing the weight of the entire island as it snapped savagely at the lightning giant!
"Trivial."
From within the thunder titan came Rain's voice, grand and solemn like a divine decree.
Takemikazuchi didn't dodge. It took one step forward—earth shuddering—
and its right lightning blade swept out.
SSS—!!!
The rock lion—seemingly indestructible and Haki-coated—was cut cleanly in two the instant it touched the lightning blade!
Extreme heat paired with high-frequency vibration treated stone as if it were nothing.
At the cut, rock instantly liquefied into crimson magma, pouring down like a waterfall. Shiki's proud earth construct was as flimsy as paper.
"It's not over!!"
Shiki's roar thundered from the smoke.
He knew that in raw destructive power and energy tier, stone couldn't compete with the Rumble-Rumble Fruit.
But a fight was never just about who had more energy.
Whoosh!
A golden afterimage pierced the magma rain.
Shiki abandoned remote manipulation and applied the Float-Float power to himself—his speed breaking the sound barrier in an instant.
He became a golden meteor, the named swords Oto and Kogarashi (his "legs") wrapped in black-red, top-tier Conqueror's coating, stabbing straight for Takemikazuchi's throat!
"Shishi: Senjindani!!"
Against that lightning-fast strike, Rain—now enormous—seemed slower.
SPLASH!
Shiki's invincible Haki slash tore open Rain's chest plating of lightning, cutting deep into the energy body itself!
"I hit!" Shiki's heart surged.
Then his expression changed.
No blood spilled.
At the wound, high-density plasma churned violently, and the heat surged back through the blade, sizzling at the flesh around Shiki's severed legs.
Worse—
Rain didn't retreat.
"Got you."
The thunder war-god's massive arms snapped shut!
No flashy named technique—just the simplest, most savage move:
A bear hug.
Ignoring the agony of his split chest, Rain's blazing-white hands clamped onto Shiki's shoulders like iron vices.
ZZZZT—!!!
At point blank range, a storm of violent current detonated!
"GRAAAAHHHH!!"
Shiki howled in pain.
Even with powerful Armament protection, a face-to-face high-voltage shock and searing heat still numbed his entire body. His hair curled and blackened instantly, smoke rising from his skin.
"GET OFF!!"
Shiki roared, eyes bloodshot, veins bulging. With everything he had, he kicked upward—black-red Haki erupting—forcing Rain's hands apart and blasting himself backward, charred and smoking.
The two separated in midair.
Rain's chest wound healed rapidly under flickering electricity, but his form dimmed slightly.
Shiki looked worse—panting hard, smoking all over, the sword-legs trembling faintly.
"Haa… haa…"
Shiki wiped blood from his mouth, staring at the demon-like figure with grim clarity.
He knew he couldn't drag this out.
The enemy was a Logia—and young. Meanwhile, his body was already struggling to sustain the Haki drain.
"Brat…"
Shiki straightened, the madness in his eyes tightening into something heavy and solemn—
the final dignity of an old-era emperor.
"To push me this far… you've earned the right to be proud."
He lifted his sword-legs and crossed the two named blades.
The air seemed to solidify.
Conqueror's Haki—so thick it seemed ready to dye the sky black-red—poured into both blades!
They trembled, humming like they craved blood.
"I'm betting everything I have—one strike to decide it all!!"
Shiki became pure black-red lightning, every ounce of spirit and will condensed into a single, unstoppable charge toward Rain!
"Shishi: Ichidai Sanzen Daisen Sekai!"
This was the peak of his sword path.
Against this life-or-death strike—
Rain's eyes burned brighter. Takemikazuchi's massive form collapsed inward.
All lightning condensed into his right arm!
His arm became a white-hot lightning greatsword several meters long—and jet-black Armament instantly coated it.
Black and white twisted together around that blazing blade: a sword meant to sever the old era's will.
Rain moved—air exploding into a visible sonic ring beneath him.
He became a black-and-white rainbow that pierced heaven and earth, charging straight into the golden storm without fear.
Lightning into a sword!
BOOM—!!!
High above, it was as if a star had been detonated.
The instant Rain's black-coated white lightning blade collided with Shiki's golden storm, time and space across the Merveille sea seemed to freeze.
MMMM—!
The atmosphere screamed under crushing pressure.
The island below buckled, forced into a crater miles wide as if pressed by an invisible god-hand.
A tsunami shoved outward—walls of water a hundred meters tall.
Shiki's eyes were bloodshot, veins bulging like worms at his temples. He poured Conqueror's coating into both sword-legs, black-red lightning snapping like whips, trying to shred the lightning blade in front of him.
ZZZZT—!!!
Two apex forces devoured each other in the sky.
Rain's lightning sword wasn't solid metal—it was ultra-dense plasma. Like a white-hot chainsaw, it kept burning into Shiki's Haki armor.
Shiki's coating was near-unbreakable, but under Rain's continuous heat output, the black-red "armor" began to wobble, even emitting a teeth-grinding hiss.
A deadlock.
Every second was thousands upon thousands of micro-collisions.
"So this is… the old era's peak. You really are tough."
Rain gritted his teeth, pushing his output to the limit.
KRRK—KRRRK—
Something snapped first.
Shiki's leg bones cried out.
He had cut off his own legs to escape Impel Down; later he forced named swords into place.
But that junction was always the weak link—held together by sheer muscle force and Haki.
Under this meteor-on-meteor impact and violent vibration, the not-yet-fully-healed old wounds split open again.
SPLURT!
Blood sprayed.
Shiki felt a drilling pain, as if his bones were being ground into powder.
Rain caught the instant Shiki's Haki faltered.
"OPEN—!!!"
Rain roared, his lightning blade flaring brighter, pressing down—
CRACK!!!
Shiki's leg bones shattered completely.
"GAAH!!"
His sword momentum collapsed. His "legs" twisted at a grotesque angle.
SHUNK!!!
Rain's black-coated lightning blade punched through Shiki's final defense and pierced straight through his chest!
"Ugh—"
Shiki's pupils widened. The madness froze.
Lightning rampaged inside him, destroying everything.
The match was decided.
The blinding light faded.
Rain dropped out of Takemikazuchi form, gasping, his right arm smoking and cracked.
He had spent everything too.
Shiki fell like a broken-winged eagle, crashing into the island's center with a thunderous boom.
Rain descended to the crater's edge.
At the bottom, Shiki lay on his back. A charred hole gaped in his chest. His blood was nearly gone. Oto and Kogarashi stood crookedly in the dirt nearby.
His fading eyes still locked onto Rain.
"ZEHAHAHA…!"
He laughed and coughed up shredded organs, voice weak but pride intact.
"Why didn't you aim for the ship's wheel in my head? That would've been easier."
"You… did that on purpose… didn't you…?"
Rain looked down at him, expression flat.
"No reason."
He spoke calmly.
"It just felt like it would be boring to beat you that way."
Shiki laughed harder, though the sound was thinner each second.
"Boring… huh…"
"Oi… give me your name, brat."
He forced his focus onto Rain again, arrogant even at death.
"I'm not dying… to some nameless nobody."
"Corvo Rain."
"Rain… huh…"
Shiki tasted the name.
His gaze slid past Rain into the endless sky, as if seeing the old storm, the straw-hatted man, the one who had laughed and refused him.
"That bastard Roger… had eyes like yours back then."
Then Shiki snapped back, nostalgia burning away, replaced by a last flare of madness and resolve.
"If you've got the ambition to swallow this era—don't disappoint me!"
He forced his eyes wide, grinning with savage arrogance as he screamed his final words as a legend of the sea:
"TAKE MY HEAD!! GO MAKE YOUR NAME SHAKE THE OCEAN, CORVO RAIN!!!"
The last roar rolled across the ruins like thunder.
Shiki held that shouting posture, eyes still glaring at the heavens… until the light in them finally went out.
The Flying Pirates' admiral, the man who had nearly ruled the sea—
Golden Lion Shiki—
fell silent for good.
~~~
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