He did not retreat.
Gan Ning had never been the sort to retreat. The greater the danger, the more excited he became; the closer he came to death, the more frenzied he grew. This was the instinct he had forged fighting his way across the seas, a combat intuition honed through countless brushes with death.
"Withering, huh?" Gan Ning grinned, blood spattered during the earlier fighting still staining his teeth. "Then go ahead and try-let's see whether your death energy withers me first, or my water drowns you!"
He roared, unleashing the full power of the Kyogre Fruit.
This time, Gan Ning held nothing back. He released his ability without restraint, summoning every source of water within a thousand-meter radius toward the Nether Hall. Canals, waterways, underground rivers, and even the clouds gathered in the sky all converged on the Nether Hall at the same moment.
With himself at the center, he forcibly seized control of every trace of moisture. In these waters, he was the master of the sea.
Towering floods poured into the Nether Hall from every direction, surging toward Saint Salika with crushing force. Each stream was as sharp as a high-pressure water jet, capable of slicing through steel. Countless streams wove into an impenetrable net, closing in from above, below, left, right, front, and back all at once-he intended to trap Saint Salika in this watery prison until he died.
Saint Salika stood at the center of the torrent.
His cloak snapped in the fierce wind, but the hand holding his scythe did not budge. The sockets in which ghostly flames flickered slowly surveyed the walls of water on every side, as though he were calculating something.
Then he flicked his scythe upward.
"Death Energy."
The death energy coiled around the blade erupted in an instant,