A Ceasefire Once More

"Boom—!"

The two entwined black-red lightning serpents exploded in midair once more.

The struggle at the center of the battlefield had reached its final deadlock, where all form and technique had been abandoned in favor of trading life for life. Blackbeard Teach looked utterly crazed. He had even given up forming a tremor barrier around his right hand, instead turning the Tremor-Tremor Fruit's destructive force into invisible shockwaves and brutally hurling punch after punch through the air at Rain and Kuma.

"Die for me! Die!"

The ripples, powerful enough to shatter internal organs, dragged out piercing shrieks through the air. Rain's arms were covered in Obsidian armor heavier than steel, pinning the earth's gravity firmly beneath his feet. Together with Kuma, who kept firing pressure shockwaves from his paw pads at his side, he desperately withstood Blackbeard Teach's frenzied barrage.

The three men's Haki, already pushed beyond their limits, collided madly in the void once more as they fought through several exchanges.

With every clash, Rain and Teach coughed up blood, yet one man's gaze was more bloodthirsty than the other's, while the other's was more rational. Upon these ruins stained red with blood, the core battle between Four Emperor-level forces had turned into the cruelest meat grinder.

On the outskirts of the core battlefield, the combatants aboard the Ashen and the remnants of the Blackbeard Pirates had likewise entered the most intense stage of their slaughter. The pirate vassals of Hachinosu truly were hardened New World scum. Seeing their territory smashed apart and their core officers grievously wounded one after another, the savagery and greed in their bones were instead fully roused. With bloodshot eyes, they swarmed in madly from every direction.

"Swish! Clang—!"

Amid the shattered walls along the battlefield's flank, a terrifying blade flash suddenly unfurled, dyeing