"Cough!" Oden spat out a great mouthful of blood, his knees slamming into the ground. His arms trembled uncontrollably, and blood dripped down the hilts of Enma and Ame no Habakiri.
Even his monstrous physique had reached its limit.
The damage from those high-frequency vibrations was more than mere flesh wounds. It reached from his bones and organs down to his very cells.
The lingering damage let Oden feel his muscle fibers tearing amid the tremors, his blood boiling inside his veins.
Even the flow of his Haki had grown sluggish.
For a moment, darkness crept into the edges of Oden's vision, and his ears rang incessantly-the dizziness brought on by his resonating organs.
Gern was suffering just as badly.
Oden's blade energy had pierced his right shoulder, and of all the sword wounds covering his body, the one across his chest was the worst.
His breathing had grown ragged. Every breath carried the taste of blood, and his lungs felt as though they were burning.
Meanwhile, Black Blade: Eight Desolations hummed incessantly in his hand. The purple-black patterns on its blade writhed like living things, greedily draining his Haki and stamina.
"Whew..." Gern drew a deep breath. Compared with his battle against Kizaru, his control over vibrations had become much clearer.
It felt as though he had touched the threshold of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit's next stage.
At that realization, Gern's pupils contracted slightly. His Observation Haki picked up the vibration frequency of every speck of dust in the air.
This time, he no longer tried to stop the movement of molecules. Instead, he accelerated it!
Bzzzz! Beneath its coating of Conqueror's Haki, the edge of Black Blade: Eight Desolations suddenly took on an eerie dark-red glow. The surrounding air began to warp as the temperature soared.
The instant the