Beneath Godfall, All Lives Were Equal (Extended chapter)

At the sight, Golden Lion's pupils abruptly contracted, his golden eyebrows rose high, and for the first time, the wild grin froze on his face.

He hovered there in the air, his long golden hair fluttering like a tattered flag, while his expression

shifted from shock to disbelief, then finally twisted into something close to fury.

"What kind of joke is this?!" Golden Lion's voice was no longer lazy or mocking. Instead, it carried a trace of uncertainty even he hadn't noticed.

The clash of Conqueror's Haki whipped up visible black lightning in the air. Clouds tore apart, the sea churned, and the entire island trembled.

"Just a moment ago, you were a brat who didn't even have Conqueror's Haki..."

"And now..." Golden Lion stared fixedly at Gern. Those eyes, which had looked down upon countless powerful opponents,

now reflected an ant who should have been crushed beneath his feet-

a newly awakened king who dared to stand against him as an equal!!

"Jahahaha!" Golden Lion suddenly burst out laughing too, but his former composure was gone, replaced by the furious outrage of a man who felt insulted.

"Interesting! Very interesting! Zephyr, this student of yours... he's been hiding quite a lot!"

Zephyr didn't answer. Beneath his shattered sunglasses, shock, pride, worry, and a tangle of other emotions flashed through his exposed eyes.

He knew better than anyone that the potential to awaken Conqueror's Haki was no coincidence. This student of his was no ordinary man...

"Gern..." Golden Lion slowly descended until his feet hovered a few inches above the ground, his Conqueror's Haki bearing down like a tsunami.

"Do you think this little burst of newly awakened power can change anything?!"

Gern didn't retreat. His Conqueror's Haki climbed as well, and the two forces clashed fiercely in midair, warping the air and cracking the ground.

"I don't need to change anything." Gern's voice was low and hoarse, but every word cut like a blade.

BOOM!!! Both waves of Conqueror's Haki erupted in full. The sky split open, a pitch-black fissure cutting through the clouds as though the heavens had opened an eye.

Golden Lion's smile vanished completely.

What replaced it was genuine killing intent.

"Brat, you're far too arrogant!" Golden Lion roared, whipping both hands forward. The air beneath his feet instantly condensed into countless razor-sharp slashes.

"Lion: Thousand-Cut Valley!" Slashes poured down like a torrential storm, each one powerful enough to tear apart the earth.

Gern's gaze sharpened, and he swung Black Blade: Eight Desolations to block, but the slashes were too densely packed.

For a time, he was forced back step after step, leaving deep gouges in the ground.

"I'm not finished!" Golden Lion grinned savagely. His figure flashed, and he appeared behind Gern in an instant, thrusting his famed sword Oto straight toward Gern's back.

At that critical instant, a purple figure abruptly darted between them.

"Heavy Strike!" Zephyr's left arm was wrapped in Armament Haki as he drove his fist into Golden Lion's blade.

CLANG! The deafening collision rang out, and Golden Lion's attack was forcibly stopped.

Zephyr said in a deep voice, "Golden Lion, he's not your only opponent!"

"Zephyr?!" Surprise flashed in Golden Lion's eyes before he sneered. "You want to interfere too?"

"He's my student!!! You bastard, Shiki!" Zephyr's gaze was resolute, and the Armament Haki around his arm grew denser.

"I won't let you bully someone younger however you please!"

"Hmph, then I'll finish you off too!" Golden Lion roared, striking with both swords. Sword energy and Haki intertwined into a net of death that enveloped Zephyr and Gern.

Zephyr refused to give ground, repeatedly dodging and counterattacking, each strike precisely intercepting Golden Lion's offensive.

But Golden Lion was overwhelmingly powerful. Zephyr's movements gradually came under pressure, and fine beads of sweat appeared on his forehead.

"Teacher!" Seeing this, Gern tightened his grip on Black Blade: Eight Desolations. His Conqueror's Haki erupted again as he tried to break through Golden Lion's suppression.

Golden Lion's Conqueror's Haki clashed with Gern's once more, and the entire island shook violently beneath their confrontation.

Suddenly, a crimson figure charged in from the edge of the battlefield, his magma-transformed right fist driving straight toward Golden Lion's back with seething killing intent.

"Hell Hound!!!!"

"Hm?!" Golden Lion abruptly twisted sideways and swept his sword across, splitting the magma fist in two. But splattering lava still burned charred holes through his clothes.

He narrowed his eyes at the newcomer. "Magma brat... is ganging up on people fashionable in the Navy now?"

Sakazuki landed, his military boots crushing the scorched earth. His gaze was as cold and sharp as a blade. "There's no need to fight fair against pirates."

Before his words had faded, his right arm transformed into magma again, and a volcanic shock wave blasted toward Golden Lion. "Great Eruption!"

Golden Lion laughed wildly and cleaved apart the torrent of magma, but Gern's black blade was already cutting toward him from the other side.

Facing a blade wrapped in Vibration Particles and Armament Haki, he had no choice but to fly up and retreat.

Yet Zephyr had already blocked his escape, driving an iron fist hardened with Armament Haki toward his spine.

THUD! Driven into a corner by the three-pronged assault, Golden Lion took a solid punch to the back, and a trickle of blood escaped his mouth.

He wiped the blood from his lips, his long golden hair whipping wildly in the gale. "Jahahaha... three of you ganging up on me? You certainly think highly of me!"

Sakazuki ignored the taunt. He abruptly brought his magma fists together, the ground split, and scorching lava surged up like a colossal wave. "Meteor Volcano!"

Countless magma meteors rained from the sky, completely sealing off every route Golden Lion could use to dodge.

"Cheap tricks!" Golden Lion crossed his swords, his slashes forming a golden lion's mane that cut down every magma meteor.

But in that instant, Zephyr-the most experienced fighter of the three-lunged forward. Seizing his chance, he clamped his Armament Haki-coated arm tightly over the airborne Golden Lion's mouth.

WHOOSH! BAM!! Then he hurled him viciously straight into the ground!!

"Gern-!"

The sky abruptly darkened.

Throughout the battle, Gern's Conqueror's Haki continued to rage, black-and-red lightning coiling around his entire body like frenzied dragons.

But Black Blade: Eight Desolations suddenly grew scorching hot in his hand. The blade hummed and trembled, and it wasn't caused by Vibration Particles.

Rather... the blade itself was humming and trembling!!

HUM! A bolt of purple-black lightning suddenly burst from the edge of Eight Desolations!

That wasn't ordinary Conqueror's Haki, but a more savage, more primal power-

the lingering Haki of Rocks, stirred by Gern's Conqueror's Haki and fused with it!

The purple-black lightning pierced the sky like chains, instantly winding around Golden Lion in midair.

"Wha...?!" The sudden strike made Golden Lion's pupils contract sharply. His body went rigid, as though an invisible hand had seized him in an iron grip.

His Float-Float Fruit ability... had stopped working!

The air beneath Golden Lion's feet suddenly lost its lifting force, and his body began to fall uncontrollably!

"What's going on?!" Zephyr looked up in shock, while Sakazuki's gaze froze on the figure in midair.

They had never seen Conqueror's Haki used like this!

Especially not from Gern, who had only just awakened it. Or rather, his awakening already seemed far beyond what it should have been.

As the only one of the Navy's three legends without Conqueror's Haki,

Zephyr had witnessed Sengoku and Garp awaken theirs, and each had merely released a sudden, overwhelmingly powerful aura that vanished in a flash!

Yet Gern now looked like a master of the highest level of Conqueror's Haki...

"Is it absorbing it...?" Equally stunned, Gern lowered his gaze to Eight Desolations.

Under the influence of Gern's Conqueror's Haki, the dark-red patterns on Eight Desolations had now turned completely purple-black.

No!!

Eight Desolations was guiding his Conqueror's Haki!

Realizing this, Gern abruptly tightened his grip. A vortex of purple-black Haki erupted around Black Blade: Eight Desolations, and wherever its edge pointed, even light was swallowed!

Conqueror's Coating-complete!

"Impossible..." Sakazuki's voice was hoarse. "He's only just awakened Conqueror's Haki. How could he master Conqueror's Coating straight away?!"

Zephyr stared fixedly at Gern's back and Black Blade: Eight Desolations in his hand, his eyes trembling violently beneath his sunglasses. "No... he isn't wielding the sword."

"The sword is guiding Gern to fight the way its true former 'master' did!"

Only now did Zephyr recognize the double-edged blade his student usually carried wrapped in white bandages.

It was that man's weapon-the supreme powerhouse of the previous generation...

the only man in the world who had forged his weapon into a black blade with his own Conqueror's Haki.

Rocks D. Zebek!!!

WHOOSH!! Gern's figure suddenly vanished!

It wasn't high-speed movement, but a true Flash Step.

The next second, he appeared directly in front of the falling Golden Lion!

At the same time, Golden Lion finally managed to recover somewhat from the Haki's suppression. But when he looked up at Gern...

his pupils abruptly shrank to pinpoints, perhaps because the sight of Black Blade: Eight Desolations had awakened the fear deep within him.

At that moment, Gern's figure... changed before his eyes!

His black hair danced wildly, and his stern features blurred into another defiant face.

Even the way he swung his blade aligned perfectly with a scene buried deep in Golden Lion's memory!

"R-Rocks... Captain?!" Golden Lion's lips trembled, as though he had instantly returned to the day he first met that man.

Back then, Rocks had stood amid mountains of corpses and seas of blood in a royal capital, swinging his blade at a Celestial Dragon's head as he laughed and asked whether Shiki would join him.

It was also he... who, with a single slash, had shattered the arrogance Golden Lion Shiki had maintained unshaken for twenty years after setting out to sea!

"Captain? Impossible... you're already dead." Dazed, Golden Lion muttered to himself.

Gern couldn't hear his murmurs. At that moment, all he felt was the killing intent boiling along his blade and the urge to cleave through everything.

"God-fall!!!" With a roar that shook heaven and earth, his blade traced a perfect arc of death.

Dark-red and purple lightning intertwined with Vibration Particles into a torrent of destruction. Everywhere it passed, space shattered like a fragile mirror.

Countless fragments of space tumbled and refracted within the sword energy, shattering the entire sky!!

Beneath Godfall, all lives were equal!

Between heaven and earth, there was only this blade!

Then...

SHHKK!! Blood sprayed from Golden Lion's chest like splashed ink.

A savage gash ran diagonally from his left shoulder to the right side of his abdomen, deep enough to expose bone.

His long golden hair flew up in the fierce wind. His pupils suddenly dilated, his eyes rolled back, and his consciousness was almost severed in an instant!

"Cough...!" Blood surged from his throat. Golden Lion's body stiffened in midair for a moment, then flew backward like a kite with its string cut.

But just as he was about to fall, his beastlike pupils abruptly contracted, and he dragged his consciousness back from the brink of collapse!

"What kind of... joke... is this...!!" Golden Lion clamped one hand over his chest, blood still pouring between his fingers.

But his Float-Float Fruit ability had reactivated. Air currents spread beneath his feet, forcibly arresting his fall!

The gale howled past, carrying the stench of blood. Only heavy panting remained on the battlefield.

Golden Lion looked down at the wound across his chest, his muscles spasming uncontrollably.

That slash... had nearly, so very nearly, cut him in half!

Then Golden Lion slowly turned to look behind him.

Gern stood there quietly with his back to him.

The tip of Black Blade: Eight Desolations pointed diagonally toward the ground, purple-black lightning still dancing along its edge.

He didn't turn around.

He didn't even spare his handiwork another glance.

Golden Lion swallowed, suddenly feeling an absurd chill.

This Marine... dared face him with that attitude?!

"You bastard!" Golden Lion wanted to roar, wanted to turn and slash at him.

But the agony in his chest and the blood that kept pouring out made even breathing difficult.

That single slash had severely wounded Golden Lion Shiki!!

Of course, more terrifying still was the realization that his sword hand... was trembling slightly.

For the second time in forty years, someone had made him truly, viscerally feel the threat of death!

Once it had been Rocks, and now it was Gern.

And both had used the same weapon!

"Cough, cough! I don't believe you can unleash another slash like that." Golden Lion stared fixedly at Gern, blood running from the corner of his mouth.

Less than fifty meters separated him from Gern now. If he attacked, neither Zephyr nor Sakazuki could possibly save him!

But Gern still didn't turn around. He merely raised Eight Desolations a little.

In that instant, Golden Lion's smile vanished. He abruptly kicked against the air and shot backward!

He had lost his nerve! In that moment, he had considered the threat of defeat and capture, but faced with actual death-

he, Golden Lion, had lost his nerve!

Especially in this era, when Roger and Whitebeard were still at their peak.

If he became the first of the three legends to die, especially at the hands of a still-unknown Marine...

He didn't dare gamble! Not with his life, nor with his pride.

"The next time we meet... I'll personally pull that sword... from your corpse!!"

After leaving that threat, Golden Lion stirred up a gale and became a streak of light, disappearing into the distant sky in the blink of an eye.

PS: Originally, I wanted Gern to take on Golden Lion alone, but that's a little unrealistic for Gern as he is now. After all, this is an uninjured Golden Lion at his peak.

So having Zephyr, Sakazuki, and Gern work together, with Gern delivering the slash that changes the course of the battle, was the best choice. (It doesn't diminish Golden Lion's strength and fits the power scaling.)

Also, [the only man in the world who had forged his weapon into a black blade with his own Conqueror's Haki] is my own custom lore.

And thank you all for your support.

If the daily gifts exceed 30 (free ones count too), I'll post three chapters every day, right at noon!