The battlefield had already been reduced to a wasteland. An arena fit only for monsters.
Chunks of Totto Land floated on frozen seas. Gaping ravines crisscrossed the shattered land, and endless darkness spilled across the ice fields like ink across broken glass. Above, the sky was a swirling vortex of lightning, clouds bruised and bloodied by the titanic forces unleashed below.
Figarland Shamrock stood at the center, Cerberus humming with anticipation.
Kuzan, blood seeping from wounds barely sealed by frost, stumbled upright beside Blackbeard. The two exchanged another glance, a grim understanding passing between them.
This wasn't a simple fight anymore.
It was survival.
Blackbeard's crooked grin widened, revealing teeth stained with blood. His fingers twitched, gathering darkness like a living thing. Shamrock's eyes narrowed. He could feel it—the heavy, unnatural pull of the Yami Yami no Mi—gravitational waves so dense they began dragging debris, ice shards, and even fallen corpses toward Blackbeard's position.
Shamrock's mind remained cold.
This is it.
Blackbeard unleashed his trump card.
"Black Hole!"
The ground beneath Shamrock suddenly collapsed into a bottomless pit of pure darkness, the world itself bending toward its maw. Everything, air, light, substance was dragged inexorably downward.
It wasn't an attack meant to defeat Shamrock.
It was a ploy to bury him alive.
In the same instant, Kuzan surged forward, layers of reinforced ice coating his fists, aiming a devastating, final blow to capitalize on Blackbeard's distraction.
Shamrock reacted instantly.
Without hesitation, he activated Future Sight, analyzing the flow of events a split second ahead.
A trap.
His body shimmered with black lightning as he poured Conqueror's Haki into his legs, kicking off a crumbling ledge and blitzing toward Kuzan with the full force of a collapsing mountain.
Cerberus swung.
Three vicious arcs of black energy tore through the air.
Kuzan raised an ice shield thicker than most warships only to be blasted backward by the sheer force of the impact, hurtling through shattered buildings and landing half-buried in rubble, unmoving.
Blackbeard cursed violently as Shamrock burst free from the gravitational field, his body gleaming with haki so dense it seemed tangible.
"Zehahaha—!" Blackbeard tried to absorb him with his darkness, desperate.
But Shamrock anticipated the move.
He abandoned defense altogether, pouring every ounce of killing intent into a headlong assault. Haki surged from his blade, a living tide of malice.
Cerberus Fang.
In an instant, Shamrock was upon Blackbeard, slashing downward with a blow meant not merely to wound but to erase.
Blackbeard crossed his arms, darkness exploding outward in an attempt to absorb the attack.
Too late.
The slash cleaved into him, tearing through both his haki and his flesh. A fountain of blood erupted from Blackbeard's chest, his body hurled like a rag doll across the battlefield.
The ground trembled. Ice cracked. Darkness scattered.
For a moment, only silence remained.
Blackbeard groaned, struggling to rise, blood soaking his tattered coat.
He wasn't dead yet. His abnormal body, so unnaturally durable thanks to the Yami Yami no Mi, clung to life. But the fear in his eyes was impossible to mask.
He had underestimated Figarland Shamrock.
And he was paying the price.
Kuzan staggered upright as well, barely conscious, body covered in bruises and fractures.
Both of them realized. They couldn't win.
Not against this monster.
Shamrock stood calmly, lowering Cerberus to his side. His expression didn't change. No taunts. No jeering.
Only the cold inevitability of death.