"I never imagined he'd develop his Devil Fruit power to this extent."
Dragon swept his gaze over the ice stretching beneath his feet to the edge of his vision and murmured to himself.
"Surprised?" Gern's voice came from ahead.
His body sank slightly, and the ice beneath his feet cracked with a sharp snap.
Fractures instantly burst across it, pale vibration particles and tiny sparks of Haki dancing around him.
"You should be, because there are even bigger surprises coming!"
Before his words had faded-
"Vmmm!"
Tremor Flash!
Gern's body abruptly blurred. It did not dissipate naturally like an elemental transformation, but instantly shook apart.
He broke down into countless pale particles vibrating at high frequency on a molecular level!
He vanished without a sound, yet shot straight toward the space between Shanks and Dragon!
Every trace of Gern disappeared from their Observation Haki.
At the familiar sight, Shanks's pupils contracted sharply, and he angled Griffon slightly.
Back then, this very same ghostlike rush had torn straight through his defenses!
He remembered this move all too fucking well!
Shanks immediately shouted, "Watch out..."
But his warning was still half a beat too late.
No, it was not too late.
The speed and trajectory of Gern's Tremor Flash were completely different from what he remembered!
More deceptive, more... impossible to predict!
Just as that stream of pale particles was about to touch the Haki detection net they had jointly spread, it impossibly veered at a right angle!
It did not go around them. It sharply turned toward Dragon's rear flank!
Hearing Shanks's voice, Dragon instinctively activated his power, sending the air swirling around him to form a dense, gray-green wall of wind.
But an instant before the particle stream touched that wall, it changed direction again!
This time, its target was