"Rumble!!!"
The giant rock hand under Shiki's control squeezed down hard on Aiden in the center, trying to crush him completely.
However, the sound of flesh and bone being crushed never came.
At the exact moment the five giant fingers were about to close,
"Zzt!!!"
a sharp burst of electricity exploded from the center of the palm!
Right after that, the giant rock hand, which had only closed halfway, stopped in midair. It looked as if something inside it was about to explode.
"What?!"
Floating high in the sky, Shiki felt a terrifying force expanding wildly from inside his palm.
"Sizzle, sizzle..."
The rock fingers covered in Armament Haki began to turn red at a speed the eye could follow. Then they melted into lava and started to drip down.
"BOOM!!!!!"
In the next second, the giant rock hand that covered the sky exploded completely!
It was not broken from the outside. It was blown apart and vaporized at once by a brilliant white light exploding from within!
In the rain of lava and white steam, a figure slowly rose.
It was no longer human.
Standing on the earth now was a giant of lightning, dozens of meters tall!
Its whole body was made of dense white lightning. It looked as if it were wearing a layer of glowing white armor. Its edges were sharp and hard, giving it a violent look.
Its face had no features, only a pair of cross-shaped eyes made of light, staring coldly ahead.
The most terrifying part was its arms. Instead of hands, there were two solid blades of lightning extending out from them. There were no hilts. The blades were part of the arms themselves.
"So you got bigger?"
Facing the giant of lightning, Shiki felt no fear at all. Instead, he let out a fierce laugh. The fighting spirit in his eyes burned even hotter. "You think getting bigger means you win?! In front of me, you're just a bigger target!"
Shiki threw both hands upward.
"Rumble!"
Every fragment of the floating islands around Aiden and even the nearby sea was forced into the air. Even the foundation of Merveille itself was torn up!
Countless rocks and chunks of earth gathered under Shiki's control. In the blink of an eye, a rock lion even larger than the giant of lightning rose from the ground!
This massive lion was covered in pitch-black Armament Haki. It opened a giant mouth large enough to swallow a mountain and bit down toward the lightning giant with the weight of the whole island behind it!
Aiden's voice came from inside the giant body of lightning, sounding cold.
Facing the charging rock lion, he did not dodge. He simply stepped forward, making the earth shake.
The lightning blade on his right arm swung out!
"Slash!!!"
The rock lion that looked impossible to break and was covered in Haki was cut straight through the middle the moment it touched the lightning blade!
The extreme heat of the lightning and the high-frequency vibration cut through the rock as if it were nothing.
At the cut, the rock melted into red lava at once and poured down like a waterfall. The earth and stone attacks Shiki was so proud of looked as weak as paper!
"I'm not done yet!!"
Shiki's shout came from inside the dust and smoke.
He knew very well that when it came to raw destructive power, rock was no match for the Rumble-Rumble Fruit.
But a fight was never decided by that alone!
"Whoosh!"
A golden afterimage shot through the rain of lava.
Shiki gave up on long-range control. He used the Float-Float Fruit on himself, and his speed instantly broke the sound barrier.
He turned into a golden meteor. The famous swords on his legs, Oto and Kogarashi, were wrapped in black-red Conqueror's Haki as he stabbed straight at Aiden's throat!
Facing this high-speed strike, the giant Aiden seemed a step too slow.
"Puchi!!"
Shiki's Haki-covered slash tore through the lightning armor on Aiden's chest. It cut deep into his body of lightning!
"I hit him!"
Shiki felt a surge of joy.
But in the next second, his expression changed.
No blood flowed out.
At the wound, dense plasma surged wildly. The extreme heat traveled up the sword blades at once. The temperature was so high that the flesh on Shiki's stumps began to sizzle.
More importantly, Aiden did not retreat at all.
"Got you."
The giant arms of lightning slammed together!
There was no trick to it. It was the simplest and most brutal bear hug!
Ignoring the sharp pain in his chest, Aiden used his giant hands, burning with white lightning, to grab Shiki's shoulders like iron claws.
"Zzzzzzz!!!"
A violent current exploded at zero distance!
"Arghhhhhhh!!!"
Shiki cried out in pain.
Even with strong Armament Haki protecting him, this point-blank shock and extreme heat still made his body go numb. His hair curled and turned black at once. Smoke rose from his skin.
"Get off me!!!"
Shiki shouted, his eyes bloodshot and the veins on his forehead bulging. He kicked upward with both legs with all his strength. Black-red Haki exploded and forcibly blew Aiden's hands away. Then he flew backward, covered in burn marks.
The two separated in midair.
The wound on Aiden's chest quickly healed as lightning flickered around it, but his form had clearly dimmed.
Shiki looked much worse. Smoke rose from his body, and he was breathing heavily. Even the swords serving as his feet were shaking slightly.
"Huff... huff..."
Shiki stared hard at the god-like figure and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth.
He knew he could not drag this out any longer.
His opponent was a young Logia user. His own body was already reaching the limit of how much Haki it could handle.
"Brat..."
Shiki slowly straightened his back. The madness in his eyes faded, replaced by seriousness he had not shown before.
This was the final pride of a man like him.
"To push me this far, you have every right to be proud."
Shiki slowly lifted his legs and crossed the two famous swords in front of him.
The air around them seemed to freeze.
Conqueror's Haki, dark enough to dye the sky black and red, poured wildly into the two swords!
The blades started to tremble and let out a low hum.
"I'll bet everything on this. Let's settle it in one strike!!"
Shiki turned into a bolt of black-red lightning. He poured all of his spirit and strength into this one attack and charged straight at Aiden!
This strike carried everything he had left.
Facing this final desperate attack, the light in Aiden's eyes also grew even hotter.
His body, which had been dozens of meters tall, suddenly shrank.
All the lightning gathered onto his right arm!
His right arm turned into a white lightning blade several meters long. Pitch-black Armament Haki instantly covered that brilliant white blade!
The blade that had once been pure white was now wrapped in black and white light.
Aiden moved.
The air under his feet exploded into a visible sonic boom cloud!
He turned into a black-and-white streak and charged straight into the golden storm that could cut an island apart!
He had turned lightning itself into a sword.
"BOOM!!!"
High in the sky, it looked as if a star had exploded.
The moment the white lightning blade wrapped in black Haki struck Shiki's golden storm, everything over the Merveille sea seemed to stop for an instant.
"Hum..."
That was the sound of the atmosphere screaming under the pressure.
Then came a blinding light that swallowed all color from the world at once!
The island below could not withstand the terrible wind pressure. It was as if a giant invisible hand had slammed down and created a crater several kilometers wide!
Tsunamis were pushed outward and rose into walls of water a hundred meters high!
Shiki's eyes were bloodshot, and the veins on his forehead stood out sharply. He poured every bit of his Conqueror's Haki into the swords on his legs. Black-red lightning exploded wildly as he tried to tear apart the lightning blade in front of him!
"Zzzzt!!!"
The two terrifying forces in the sky kept crashing against each other!
Aiden's lightning blade was not solid metal. It was dense plasma. It was like a superheated chainsaw, burning through Shiki's Haki defense again and again.
Although Shiki's Haki coating was extremely tough, that layer of black-red armor began to flicker under Aiden's constant high heat. It even made a sharp sizzling sound.
They were locked in place!
Every second of that deadlock carried thousands of high-speed collisions!
"So this is the peak of the old era? You really are tough!"
Aiden gritted his teeth. The light around him flickered. He was forcing his stamina to the limit to keep the power at its highest point.
"Crack... crack..."
Then something gave way.
Shiki's leg bones cried out first!
He had cut off his own legs to escape prison, then forcibly attached the famous swords where his legs had been cut off.
That had always been the weakest part of his body. He kept it all together through pure muscle strength and Haki.
Under this terrible force, like two mountains crashing into each other, and under the constant high-frequency vibration, those old wounds that had only recently healed burst open again at once!
"Splurt!"
Blood sprayed out!
Shiki felt a sharp pain in his legs, as if his bones were being ground into powder little by little.
Aiden instantly caught the moment Shiki's Haki became unstable.
"Break for me!!!"
Aiden shouted and pushed harder with his arm. The light from the lightning blade doubled as he slammed it down!
"CRACK!!!"
That was the final blow.
Shiki's leg bones shattered completely!
"Argh!!"
Without the support of his bones, Shiki's sword stance collapsed at once. His legs bent at a twisted angle.
"Slash!!!"
The white lightning blade wrapped in black Haki could no longer be stopped. After smashing through Shiki's last defense, it went straight through his chest without any resistance!
"Ugh..."
Shiki's pupils widened at once. The madness in his eyes froze.
Violent lightning ran through his body and instantly destroyed his internal organs.
The battle was over.
The blinding light slowly faded.
Aiden floated in the air as he released his giant lightning form. He was breathing heavily. His right arm was shaking slightly and giving off black smoke. Cracks had even started to appear on his skin.
He had poured everything he had into that last strike.
Across from him, Shiki fell weakly toward the ruins below like a hawk with broken wings.
"BOOM!"
With a loud crash, Shiki slammed into the center of Merveille and kicked up a huge cloud of dust.
Aiden forced his exhausted body to slowly land at the edge of the giant crater.
At the bottom, Shiki lay on his back. There was a huge burned hole in his chest. His blood had already run dry. Beside him, the two swords that had followed him through his whole life, Oto and Kogarashi, were stuck crookedly in the dirt.
His eyes were already losing focus, but he still stared hard at Aiden as he walked closer.
"Jihahahaha..."
Shiki laughed as bits of blood and flesh came up from his throat. His voice was weak, but it still carried the same pride as before. "Why didn't you... take the chance to attack the steering wheel in my head? It would have been... much easier to beat me that way."
"Was that... on purpose... brat...?"
Aiden looked at the dying Shiki with calm eyes.
"There was no special reason."
"I just thought that if I beat you that way, it would be too boring."
Shiki laughed even louder, though his voice kept growing weaker.
"Boring... huh...?"
"Hey... tell me your name, kid."
Shiki struggled to keep his eyelids open. His unfocused eyes locked onto Aiden's face one last time. His voice was weak, but the arrogance in it was still there. "I don't want to... die at the hands of a nobody."
"Aiden."
"Aiden... is it...?"
Shiki repeated the name softly to himself.
His gaze moved past Aiden and toward the endless sky above. It was as if he had seen that storm from years ago again, and the man in the straw hat who laughed and refused his invitation to rule the world.
"That bastard Roger... he had those same eyes back then..."
Then Shiki pulled his gaze back from the sky and locked onto Aiden again.
The trace of nostalgia in his eyes vanished at once. It was replaced by one final burst of madness and determination.
"If you really have the ambition to swallow this era, then don't disappoint me!"
Shiki suddenly forced his eyes wide open. A fierce and arrogant grin spread across his face as he shouted his final words:
"Take my head!! Go make a name for yourself in the sea, Aiden!!!"
"BOOM!"
That last roar rolled across the ruins like thunder and echoed over the empty island for a long time.
Golden Lion Shiki kept that roaring posture. His arrogant eyes remained fixed on the sky. Even after the light in them faded completely, they never closed.
Golden Lion Shiki
was finally gone.
To Be Continued
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