"I'm going to... rip that turtle shell of yours apart!!!"
Golden Lion Shiki's hoarse, crazed roar, with everything he had riding on it, echoed across the disintegrating continent of Merveille.
His iron fists, infused with the last of his Haki and life force, carried an old era's king's final dignity and defiance as he slammed them viciously, recklessly toward Yas's seemingly unprotected chest!
Yet, at the instant before those fists, powerful enough to shatter mountains, could touch Yas's white Justice Coat.
Hum-
A layer of black-and-red lightning, thin as a cicada's wing yet seemingly containing the ultimate truths of the universe's birth and death, quietly appeared over Yas's body, forming a suit of lightning armor steeped in an ancient, majestic aura of destruction.
Bam!!!
An utterly disproportionate crash rang out, muffled to the extreme.
It did not sound like a fist striking flesh, nor like one striking steel.
It felt like an egg hurling itself with all its strength against an utterly immovable planet made of neutron-star matter!
The madness and resolve on Golden Lion Shiki's face froze completely at the moment of impact.
His beastlike eyes stared fixedly at Yas's chest. His pupils contracted violently at the incomprehensible sight, almost bursting from their sockets!
What did he feel?
No searing pain.
No recoil.
Nothing at all.
His fists, into which he had poured every last ounce of strength, were like clay oxen sinking into the sea. All his strength, all his Haki, all his will were silently devoured, broken down, and annihilated the moment they touched that thin layer of lightning armor. They failed to stir even the faintest ripple.
It was as though that world-shattering punch of his had been nothing more than a feeble, laughable illusion.
"This... can't... be..."
An unintelligible rattling sound, filled with despair and