"Don't bother with those pretty excuses after the fact, old man."
"You talk as if… you could actually have kept me back then."
"Give it a rest, baldy."
"Heh…"
At last, Saint Ethanbaron V. Nusjuro let out a cold chuckle.
"Then it seems… negotiation truly is pointless."
The moment the words fell—
BOOM!!!
A suffocating aura of death and ill omen burst forth from Nusjuro's body.
His form began to change—rapidly swelling and distorting.
Crack… crack…
A nauseating chorus of bone splintering echoed through the air as the bones of his lower body elongated wildly, twisting and reshaping. Flesh surged outward before instantly draining of color, turning corpse-pale.
In the blink of an eye, his lower half had completely transformed.
What stood there now was a grotesque skeletal horse torso towering several meters tall, clad in jagged bone armor and wreathed in ghostly dark flames.
Four pallid bone hooves struck the ground.
Black mist coiled around them.
Yet his upper body remained human.
More than that—his muscles had grown thicker, knotted with monstrous power.
The blade in his grasp, the Shodai Kitetsu, radiated even stronger demonic light, its size shifting along with its master's transformed body.
In an instant, Nusjuro had taken the form of—
A skeletal centaur.
Thick, ink-black awakened flames twisted and coiled where the skeletal horse body fused with his human torso.
The already terrifying pressure he exuded surged several times over in that moment.
"Gern Reginald Sigmar!"
Now transformed into the skeletal centaur, Nusjuro's voice boomed across the desolate island, carrying the lofty tone of a god gazing down upon mortals.
"In the Holy Land all those years ago, when we crossed blades…"
"I remember it clearly."
"For years since, we have tolerated your countless 'antics'… out of consideration for the stability the Marines maintain in the world."
One skeletal hoof stepped forward.
The ground trembled.
Black flames roared to life.
"But do not overestimate yourself!"
"Before those of us who carry the highest blessing of the gods, you are nothing more than a slightly larger wave in the river of time!"
"A wave that will eventually settle… and be forgotten by history!"
Nusjuro slowly raised the Shodai Kitetsu.
Then lowered it.
The tip of the cursed blade pointed directly at Gern's face.
Demonic swordlight flickered in eerie harmony with the black flames surrounding him.
"You were never meant to touch the Mother Flame."
"That is…"
"The supreme command personally issued by that Lord."
"Now hand it over."
"Otherwise…"
"You, 'Heavenquake'—"
"—will meet your end here."
Gern stared at the blade hovering before his face, radiating its sinister chill.
Slowly, the corner of his mouth curled upward.
"An end?"
He repeated the word softly.
The instant his voice faded—
Bzzzz…
The air began to tremble.
Not with the familiar pale cracks of distortion.
Instead, strange azure frost-like fractures spread through the air itself, like ice splintering across invisible glass.
The surrounding temperature plummeted violently.
Tiny shards of ice began to form spontaneously in midair, glowing faintly with pale blue light.
These fragments did not remain still.
They vibrated at high frequency, floating and darting erratically, emitting faint sizzling sounds.
"Cold…?"
The skeletal centaur Nusjuro paused slightly.
His Mythical Zoan form granted him an acute sensitivity to the temperatures of life and death.
"Oh… right. I remember now."
Gern's voice carried a tone of sudden realization.
"You're like that old fossil Saint Saturn—the one who likes turning into a spider…"
"You're immortal, aren't you?"
"Shockflash."
Gern's figure vanished from where he stood.
Completely.
Nusjuro's Observation Haki could not track him at all.
Gone?!
A chill shot through Nusjuro's mind.
Pure combat instinct forced him to whip around instantly. His skeletal horse body pivoted violently as the Shodai Kitetsu swept out in a savage horizontal slash, the blade howling like a chorus of demons.
But—
Too late.
Gern had already appeared at the massive creature's left flank, practically pressed against the skeletal ribs of the horse body.
"Got you, baldy old horse!"
Gern's wild laughter exploded through the air.
Both hands clenched the black blade Bahuang.
Azure and dark violet energy intertwined around the sword.
He drove the blade forward.
Straight toward the left temple of Nusjuro's human head.
SHLK!!!
The blade pierced through.
Forced straight in.
The sword stabbed through the left temple and punched through the skull.
"Ghh—!"
Nusjuro released a muffled groan of pain.
Blood burst from both eyes as it streamed down his face.
For the first time, an expression of genuine shock appeared on his features.
That strike—
Had exceeded even his predictions.
But it wasn't over yet.
"Shock Lock."
Gern's eyes were ice-cold.
Azure vibration patterns surged along the blade embedded in the skull, spreading wildly through the wound and invading deeper.
"Eternal Silence Blossom…"
"Bloom!!!"
Gern barked the command.
The blade of Bahuang, still buried in the skull, suddenly vibrated violently.
BUZZ—CRACK… CRACK!!!
This was not a simple explosion erupting from the wound.
Instead, a spiraling azure shockwave erupted outward—
Bursting from the right temple of Nusjuro's head like a precisely directed detonation.
Where the spiraling azure shockwave passed—
Everything froze.
Everything solidified.
Under the extreme effects of the vibration at its core, the temperature plummeted instantly toward the terrifying theoretical limit of −273°C — absolute zero.
CRACK… KRRRRAAAACK!!!
The shrill sounds of freezing and shattering echoed through the air.
The right side of Nusjuro's body—the area struck by the spiraling shockwave—
Including part of his skull, his right shoulder, his arm, and a massive portion of the skeletal horse torso connected to it—
Along with the surrounding air, dust, and even light within several meters—
All of it froze instantly.
This was not merely a layer of ice.
At the most microscopic particle level, the vibration forcibly locked everything in place.
What remained was a vast, breathtaking yet utterly lifeless crystalline formation.
A spiraling azure ice blossom.
Beautiful.
Silent.
Dead.
An eerie flower of frozen energy radiating a chill so deep it seemed capable of freezing the soul itself.
Half of Saint Nusjuro's body had been forcibly welded into that enormous, grotesque, lethal ice blossom.
His movements halted instantly.
The right side of his body lost all sensation.
Energy flow—cut off.
Frozen.
Having landed the strike, Gern did not linger.
He pulled his blade free and leapt backward, landing steadily on the ground.
Bahuang tilted downward at his side.
"Blood" that had not yet dripped from the blade had already crystallized into icy fragments clinging to the steel.
Cold mist swirled faintly around him.
"How beautiful."
Gern looked up at Nusjuro, whose half-frozen body remained locked in place within the giant ice flower.
His tone was calm.
"So…"
"Still think I'm just a 'small wave'?"
He tilted his head slightly.
"…baldy."
"…Mr. Centaur."