Gismonda moved. His tower-like body erupted with terrifying speed utterly disproportionate to his size, leaving only a ring of surging air where he had stood.
The muscles in his right arm bulged like coiling dragons. His enormous fist tore through the air, carrying the will to shatter everything as it drove straight for Adams's heart.
Before the fist even arrived, the violent wind from it had already savagely whipped the streak of silver hair before Adams's forehead backward.
Adams did not retreat. His feet rooted themselves into the shattered earth as he sank his stance and fiercely threw a punch of his own.
There was no technique, only the most primal and violent release of power.
Boom—!!!
The instant their fists collided, time seemed to freeze for a moment. Then, a condensed milky-white ring-shaped shockwave exploded outward.
Like a devastating tsunami, it swept across the entire clearing with unstoppable force. Several young agents standing nearest did not even have time to scream before they were sent flying while vomiting blood, like rag dolls struck by an invisible giant hand.
Crack! Crack-crack—!
Centered on the two of them, the ground crazily caved in and fractured like fragile thin ice. Spiderweb cracks spread more than ten meters in an instant, and an enormous crater formed amid the teeth-grating groan of rock.
Dust filled the air. Adams slowly withdrew his fist. A deep red fist mark was clearly visible across his knuckles, and a crimson bead of blood slowly seeped from his fist before dripping onto the rubble at his feet.
Gismonda's pupils suddenly contracted. More than anyone, he knew the force behind that punch. It was enough to leave a deep imprint in a thick iron plate, or even punch straight through a thinner steel plate.
Yet when it landed on his opponent, it had left nothing more than this insignificant mark.
"Is your justice really this weak?"
Adams's icy voice pierced through the drifting dust.
"Bastard, don't look down on me!"
Gismonda's furious roar was like the howl of a wounded beast. Fighting spirit and humiliation thoroughly ignited his blood. His massive body instantly transformed into a blurred storm of slaughter.
Fists, elbows, knees, legs... every part of his body became a deadly weapon. He moved so quickly that countless afterimages trailed behind him, each strike accompanied by explosions of tearing air, forming an impenetrable net of death that completely enveloped Adams.
Adams blocked clumsily. To Gismonda, his movements were riddled with openings, like the poor performance of a street thug.
He could only take the overwhelming majority of the violent attacks head-on with his body. Dull impacts rang continuously across him like heavy hammers beating drums.
Yet from beginning to end, beneath strikes terrifying enough to warp steel, Adams's body stood like a statue rooted in the earth. He did not move back even a single step.
The battlefield looked as though it had been repeatedly trampled by a violent beast. The ground churned and shattered madly, massive cracks spreading like spiderwebs.
Shattered rocks were swept up by the shockwaves and shot in every direction like cannonballs, forcing the young agents to scramble backward on hands and knees as terrified screams rose one after another.
Before the projection, Kalifa's delicate body trembled violently, her eyes behind her lenses filled with disbelief.
Kaku stared fixedly at the figure on the screen that continued taking heavy blows without budging. For the first time, all ease had vanished from his face.
Lucci's gaze was sharp as a blade, and deep within his pupils burned a heat even he had not noticed.
Stussy watched the figure standing firm amid the storm of attacks. Light flickered violently in her eyes, growing brighter and brighter, firmer and firmer.
The longer Gismonda fought, the more alarmed he became. At the beginning of their exchange, the fighting techniques of this silver-haired brat before him had still seemed laughably crude, like an infant who had only just learned to walk.
But strangely, every clumsy block his opponent made was subtly changing, as though he were a greedy sponge, absorbing the very essence of Gismonda's battle-hardened killing techniques at a hair-raising speed.
I can't drag this out any longer!
Alarm bells rang wildly in Gismonda's mind. A chill shot from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. If this continued, the brat would only become more and more terrifying.
Gismonda suddenly retreated at high speed, his massive body displaying unbelievable flexibility and explosive power.
The knotted muscles across his body instantly tensed to the limit. Veins bulged beneath his skin like enraged dragons as he drew back his right fist, terrifying power frantically gathering within it. A dark red glow even faintly appeared around his fist.
"Six Powers Secret Art: Rock-Breaking Cannon!"
Facing this attack, Adams suddenly sank down, his body instantly melting into the ravaged, shattered earth beneath his feet.
The earth let out a dull, terrifying roar! Soil, rocks, and severed tree roots surged upward wildly, gathering and solidifying.
A colossal figure thirty meters tall rose from the ground. It was made from the most primitive, heaviest soil, rock, and twisted vegetation, rough and savage, emanating an ancient and primordial pressure.
Adams, now in giant form, slowly raised his enormous palm and brought it down.
Boom!!!
The fist collided with the rocky giant palm in an earth-shaking explosion, and violent airwaves burst outward.
Gismonda's right arm, brimming with terrifying power, began from the fist—skin, muscle, bone...
As if an invisible immense force had savagely torn and twisted it apart from within. His skin cracked inch by inch, blood spurted like a fountain, and the dense sounds of shattering bones made scalps tingle as his attack instantly collapsed.
The giant palm did not slow, carrying the terrifying force to crush everything as it slammed down upon Gismonda like a collapsing mountain.
Puh—!
Gismonda was like a man struck head-on by a battering ram. He sprayed out a mouthful of scalding blood, his burly body flying backward like a broken kite amid bone-cracking sounds that made one's heart tremble.
With a thunderous crash, he smashed through the sturdy lower wall of Banyan Tree Tower and embedded himself deep within the dust filling its interior, leaving behind only a human-shaped hole.
Rubble pattered down. Giant Adams bent forward, his massive head approaching the hole in the tower as his hollow eye sockets stared at the blood-soaked Gismonda inside.
"Any last words?"
Gismonda lay amid stone chips, and every labored breath brought froth of blood from his mouth.
His unfocused pupils struggled to gather themselves as he stared fixedly at the face above him, looming over him like a god looking down upon an ant. A rasping sound came from his throat as he used the last of his strength to roar, every word stained with blood:
"Justice... will prevail... Evil... has no... future in this world!!"
Adams did not respond. His stone arms slowly rose like two moving mountains, then, before Gismonda's despairing eyes, slammed together with the resolve to crush everything.
Boom—!!!!
The deafening explosion was like the collapse of the world. The sturdy levels of Banyan Tree Tower were instantly squeezed apart and crushed as if they were made of paper.
Rubble, splinters, and dust mixed with blinding crimson, violently spraying from the gaps between the closing giant palms like a fountain.
When the giant palms of rock and soil slowly parted, all that remained between them was a blurry, viscous mass of crimson flesh, no longer recognizable in any shape.
A suffocating deathly silence once again drowned the clearing.
Wind, breathing, heartbeats... every sound had been utterly drained away and crushed by the devastating scene just now.
The young agents seemed to have been struck by the most malicious petrification spell, frozen in place. Their eyes bulged from their sockets in terror, all color drained from their faces, leaving only utter blankness and bone-deep fear.
Before the projection, there was the same oppressive silence. The glaring crimson pool on the screen seemed to have frozen time itself.
In that dead silence, enough to drive anyone mad, a figure moved.
Stussy gently pushed aside the young agents standing before her like rigid statues, moving with the elegance of someone passing through a crowd at a ballroom.
Her slim high heels stepped onto ground covered in rubble and bloodstains, producing crisp, cold clicks that were exceptionally piercing amid the silence.
She walked straight to the giant's feet and stopped. Facing that enormous head, she gave an extremely slight, yet incomparably clear, nod.
The giant began to collapse. Massive chunks of rock and soil peeled away and crumbled like a melting iceberg, returning to the earth.
Dust filled the air again. Once it settled, Adams's figure was revealed once more.
He glanced at Stussy, who had approached him, his voice returning to its usual cold clarity.
"Wait here."
After saying that, Adams stepped toward the enormous circular Arena at the edge of the clearing. He extended his right hand, aiming it from afar at the Arena and the vast stretch of land beneath it.
A vast ripple spread outward from him.
The circular Arena, along with the solid rocky foundation supporting it, let out a low rumble. The immense mass of rock slowly separated from the island, soil falling from its edges as the entire colossal structure defied all reason and floated into the air beneath countless blank stares.
Next came the clearing before the forest, where the brutal battle had just taken place.
Then came the dense forest along the edge of the clearing! Trees, bushes, the birds and beasts living within, even the Den Den Mushi hidden in the gaps between tree roots with mud coating their shells—all of them, along with the earth in which they were rooted, were forcibly lifted by that power.
One piece, two pieces, three pieces... as though a god were playing with a puzzle. Adams's arm moved steadily. With each swing, a vast stretch of Guanhao Island's land, forests, and buildings was forcibly torn free, lifted, and suspended in midair.
The island was mercilessly dismembered, divided into enormous chunks of varying sizes like broken building blocks.
The island's facilities were well-developed, making them worth taking. However, Adams's current mastery of his fruit was not enough to make the entire island float at once, so he could only use this workaround and do it piece by piece.
When the final forested area at the edge also left the ground and rose into the air with a deep rumble, the main body of Guanhao Island had been completely broken apart into dozens of enormous landmasses floating low in the sky.
Below, only jagged fractured coastlines remained, along with seawater rushing in with despairing roars and swallowing the young agents who had not yet recovered their senses.
After doing all that, Adams, drenched in sweat and exhausted from overexertion, turned to look at Stussy, who had been quietly waiting. He extended an arm and, with an unquestionable motion, pulled her slender body into his embrace.
At the strong smell of sweat, Stussy's body seemed to stiffen for an instant before relaxing again.
A faint but genuine blush quietly crept across her fair cheeks.
Adams stirred his mind.
Buzz—!
The massive floating landmass beneath their feet, along with every island fragment suspended around them, began rising steadily and irresistibly.
They formed a vast and strange Floating Archipelago, tearing through the clouds and ascending higher and higher toward the boundless sky.
TO BE CONTINUED