Burning.
Spark consumed the body, burning the corpse...
This was both a finishing blow and a precaution.
And Gern stood before that burning "corpse," roughly three paces away.
His face held no expression. He simply watched in silence as the shell gradually dissolved into nothingness within Spark.
And the black blade, Eight Desolations, remained embedded in its forehead.
His gaze was somewhat inscrutable.
Is it dead?
The emotionless question rose in his mind.
Soon, Gern supplied his own answer.
That makes sense.
He murmured inwardly.
The so-called Imu... never really seemed to be... an embodiment of combat power.
Looking back on their first clash, the scraps he had heard at God Valley, and even this battle just now...
Everything Imu had displayed seemed to rely more on the immortality and regeneration granted by the abyssal contract.
And on that suffocating will to dominate and combat wisdom accumulated over eight hundred years.
Its "strength" lay in its system, in its authority.
In its nearly insurmountable ability to survive and recover.
And in its calculating ability to control everything and draw its opponents into its "web."
Not in world-shattering individual combat power.
Put another way, whether Imu even had a body was an open question.
So when Gern used his overwhelming strength and will to tear that "web" apart by force...
Crushed its Conqueror's Haki head-on, then delivered the final blow with Spark, a power capable of countering it...
And scorching the very source of its existence...
The outcome of this battle seemed to have been decided long ago.
Only...
I didn't expect... it to be this "easy."
The corners of Gern's mouth turned downward, ever so slightly.
There was no joy or pride in victory. Instead, it felt more like... the disappointment of being left unsatisfied.
Or perhaps the complicated sense