The two words—"Eternal."—echoed across the shattered island.
Ageless immortality.A leap in power.Absolute dominion.An existence without end.
That was the price Imu offered.
With a "blessing" it could create or replace at any time, it sought to buy Gern's submission—and the surrender of the Mother Flame.
In return, Gern would replace the now "outdated" Five Elders and become the World Government's sharper, more effective instrument in the new era of global rule.
Overwhelming temptation intertwined with icy calculation, forming the sweetest and most poisonous wine imaginable.
And it was placed directly before Gern.
Gern stood there, Bahuang still clenched firmly in his hand.
His face showed no expression.
He simply listened in silence.
His gaze lingered on the severed head of Saint Nusjuro resting in Imu's palm… and on those dark crimson eyes with their revolving reincarnation patterns—eyes that seemed capable of devouring every soul they gazed upon.
The sea wind howled.
Smoke and dust swirled through the air.
The ruined island groaned beneath their feet.
In the distance, the ocean roared with violent waves.
A choice had been placed before "Heaven-Shaking" Gern.
Would he accept this "eternity"—both its shackles and its blessings—and become Imu's newest eternal servant?
Or…
Would he reject the "charity"… and simply cut Imu down?
Time seemed to slow.
Imu waited.
Patiently.
Because to it, the answer should have been obvious.
For any mortal, this choice should require no thought at all.
After all—
The Five Elders.
Even Harald.
Had once knelt willingly.
…
Silence lingered.
For a long while.
Imu—accustomed to standing above time and all living things, regarding the world as nothing but a board of chess pieces—watched Gern's prolonged silence and his failure to make the "wise" choice.
(In Imu's eyes, kneeling in submission and offering up the Mother Flame was the only rational answer.)
For the first time—
A ripple of emotion appeared.
A faint trace of displeasure.
And so that hollow, inhuman voice rang out again.
The tone remained calm, but now carried a faint impatience befitting a supreme ruler.
"Gern Reginald Sigmar."
"Mu believes…"
Those dark red reincarnation eyes narrowed slightly.
"…that you should not hesitate."
It was a final warning.
A subtle ultimatum from a god.
Yet the moment Imu's words fell—
"Heh… heh heh…"
A low, suppressed chuckle escaped from Gern.
Then the laughter grew.
It swelled rapidly into a wild, unrestrained roar—one tinged with madness and liberation.
"HAHAHA… HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"
Gern threw his head back and laughed.
His shoulders shook.
Even a glimmer of moisture appeared in his eyes.
The sound of his laughter echoed across the desolate island, filled with absolute mockery and disdain toward Imu's so-called gift of eternity.
"You…"
Imu's voice changed for the first time.
There was unmistakable confusion—and coldness.
"…what are you laughing at?"
It could not comprehend it.
Faced with such extraordinary conditions, why would this mortal laugh?
Gern slowly stopped laughing.
He lifted his head.
The dark purple aura of Conqueror's Haki no longer remained in passive defense.
Instead, it erupted violently, surging skyward and clashing head-on with Imu's invisible authority.
"Sorry about that…" Gern said clearly, firmly.
Each word carried the weight of a thousand pounds.
"But it seems you've misunderstood something, you ancient fossil."
The corner of his mouth curled upward, revealing gleaming white teeth.
"A remarkable giant once told me something…"
"…We have already stood up."
His voice suddenly rose.
"So—!"
"As someone used to being the one in charge…"
"I have absolutely no habit of becoming anyone's eternal slave!!!"
The words "in charge" and "slave" were bitten down with crushing emphasis.
His stance could not have been clearer.
Before the final syllable had even finished—
BUZZ!!!
Gern pushed his Observation Haki to an unprecedented extreme.
He wasn't predicting.
He was capturing the trajectory of the future itself.
Bahuang had not even been swung.
Yet the space before the blade began to twist and fracture.
Highly condensed vibration particles—released along the future attack trajectory—caused the air itself to tear apart in advance, forming faint pale cracks in space.
The next instant—
"Heaven-Shaking • Divine Mind Slash!!!"
Gern's figure—and Bahuang, now synchronized with the future path of the strike—skipped the very process of movement.
He appeared directly before Imu.
The blade flashed.
It was not a physical slash.
It was a strike of pure divine will, condensing Gern's entire spirit, Haki, and vibration power into a single cut.
Where the blade passed—
Space itself…
And even the energy and matter forming Saint Nusjuro's body—
Were forcibly split apart.
"Shhk!"
A soft sound.
In Imu's palm, the head that had once belonged to Saint Nusjuro—
And the newly formed head below it—
Both gained an impossibly smooth cut across their necks.
Imu's head fell.
At that very moment, Gern had already appeared behind the now headless body, frozen in the final posture of his completed slash.
He could clearly sense it.
Behind him—
At the neck of the headless body, dark crimson energy surged wildly, reconstructing and repairing.
The fallen head on the ground was undergoing the same transformation.
"You…"
Imu's voice did not cease, even though its head had fallen.
It seemed to echo from some other dimension entirely.
"…have made the wrong choice."
But Gern slowly turned around.
Instead of heaviness, his face showed something else.
A smile.
The smile of someone who had glimpsed a hidden truth.
He casually flicked Bahuang, as if shaking nonexistent dust from its blade, and looked toward the regenerating body and head.
"Is that so?"
He tilted his head slightly, savoring the sensation of that last strike.
"Actually…"
"After cutting you just now…"
The curve of Gern's smile widened.
The battle spirit in his eyes burned hotter than ever.
"I realized something."
"You…"
"…aren't quite as terrifying as I imagined."
The test was over.
The fear had vanished.
...
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