Life was unpredictable-a small sausage wrapped in a big one.
Just as Aramaki was helping Kuzan retreat amid a stream of curses, over on Gern's battlefield...
There were no exchanges of elaborate techniques, no flashy Devil Fruit powers.
All that remained was pure, brutal physical combat!
At that moment, Blackbeard had completely lost his earlier swagger as one of the "two Emperors."
Clutching his still-bleeding nose and split cheek, he stood rigidly in place, swallowing frantically.
He couldn't help it!
He watched the battle unfolding before him.
No, it could no longer even be called a "battle."
It was a one-sided, crushing spectacle of beautiful brutality.
And the master of that spectacle was Gern.
Because of Blackbeard's Dark-Dark Fruit power,
the man known as "Heavenquake"
wasn't even using the Tremor-Tremor Fruit's power now!
With nothing but his fists wrapped in Conqueror's Haki lightning and Eight Desolations, the Black Blade that cut through everything,
he had taken Saint Saturn, who possessed immortality through the "Abyssal Contract" and had assumed his Mythical Zoan Ox Demon Beast Form...
And hacked him beyond recognition!
"Black Quake: Combo!"
Gern lunged forward, his Armament Haki-clad fists unleashing a hundred punches in an instant!
Every punch slammed into flesh.
Saint Saturn still tried to attack and defend with his eight freely extending spider legs.
But a cold flash of steel severed the first leg at its base!
A fist coated in Conqueror's Haki smashed into the second leg's joint, twisting it out of shape!
The third, the fourth... Gern was enjoying himself so much that he couldn't even be bothered to use his blade.
He simply seized the legs with both hands, his muscles bulging as Conqueror's Haki penetrated them, then tore them straight from Saint Saturn's body and flung them away!
"Aaargh!"
Saint Saturn's screams gradually