"Old man! Are you done running your mouth? Got a problem? Then let your fists do the talking!"
As Yas's outrageously arrogant roar exploded over the square, all of Marineford seemed to catch fire with his brazen defiance!
Rumble!
A piercing thunderclap tore through the afternoon stillness. Within the pillar of azure lightning shooting skyward, Yas looked like a thunder demon god stepping out of ancient mythology. Rampaging blue currents coiled like countless maddened electric snakes, clinging tightly to every inch of his bulging muscles. His hair stood on end and turned azure, while lightning blazed from his eyes.
A suit of deep-blue lightning armor, solid enough to be visible to the naked eye-Raijin Armor-covered Yas's entire body in just half a second. The stone ground within ten meters crackled explosively as the violent, high-voltage electric field tore at it. In an instant, it turned into charred powder!
Sensing the utterly destructive aura of that energy, the veterans who had been sneering moments earlier had their laughter cut short like ducks seized by the neck.
"W-what kind of monstrous ability is that?!" The cigar-smoking lieutenant commander was so frightened that his cigar dropped straight onto his crotch, burning him and sending him hopping about.
"It's not a Devil Fruit! I've seen a Rumble-Rumble Fruit user, and it felt nothing like this! This power is too overwhelming! Too pure!"
"Who cares what ability it is! In front of Vice Admiral Garp, these flashy, useless light effects are a joke!" someone roared, forcing himself to stand on trembling legs.
At the center of the lightning storm, Garp put away his carefree grin. His eyes, honed to extraordinary sharpness by the years and countless life-and-death battles, narrowed slightly.
"What a violent energy reaction. Does this brat have a lightning beast living inside him?" Garp licked his lips. The battle-hungry blood in his veins, which had only lain quiet for a few days, was instantly awakened by Yas's reckless stance.
"Let our fists do the talking? Hahahaha! Excellent! Brat! That's just the kind of temper I like!"
Garp let out a wild laugh that shook the entire square. The next instant, his burly, iron-tower-like body vanished into thin air!
There was no warning whatsoever; even the air had no time to whistle at his passage. This was the ultimate application of Shave, one of the Six Powers!
"So fast!" Yas's Observation Haki had yet to awaken. But thanks to the extraordinary neural reflexes granted by the Third Raikage template, he caught a dark blur hurtling like a meteor toward his left cheek out of the lightning-filled corner of his eye.
"Take this, brat! This is a fist full of love!"
Garp's voice thundered beside Yas's ear. It was a broad, rough fist, without any flashy Haki effects surrounding it. Nothing but the purest physical strength, nothing but a blow thrown at whim.
Yet the instant that unremarkable punch was thrown, it compressed the air before it into a translucent wall visible to the naked eye!
I can't dodge it!
It was too fast! Top fighters of the seas at this level had long since developed their physical capabilities to an unimaginable degree.
Dodge, my ass! The word 'dodge' has never been in my dictionary! All fear comes from insufficient firepower!
Yas roared like a beast in his heart. Not only did he make no attempt to evade, he instead violently twisted his waist and hips, pouring all his Lightning Release chakra into the Raijin Armor over his chest. He would use his proud Strongest Shield to take that mountain-shattering Iron Fist head-on!
Bam!
The punch slammed squarely into Yas's chest, covered in deep-blue lightning.
Time seemed to come to an absolute standstill in that second.
Then came a terrifying sonic boom that seemed capable of piercing everyone's eardrums!
Boom-crack!
With Yas and Garp at its center, a visible ring of white shock waves swept furiously in every direction like a nuclear explosion!
The incredibly hard, specially constructed stone square crumbled layer by layer like fragile tofu the instant the shock wave touched it. The terrifying blast of air mixed with flying rubble, becoming a destructive dust storm that hurled all the hundreds of nearby Marine soldiers into the sky. Screams and the sounds of breaking bones rang out together.
"Garp, you bastard! I told you to go easy! Are you trying to destroy Marineford?!" On the raised platform, Sengoku crossed his arms in front of his face to withstand the fierce wind pressure, cursing furiously.
Zephyr stared fixedly at the center swallowed by dust and smoke. Without realizing it, he had tightened both hands around the railing.
Dust and smoke filled the air, blotting out the sky and sun.
All the Marine soldiers who had been knocked flying or lay trembling on the ground craned their necks toward that gray expanse.
"It's over. There won't even be scraps of that brat left." The lieutenant commander climbed up from the ground, wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, and spoke with certainty.
"No one can take that punch from Vice Admiral Garp head-on. Even that notorious pirate under Whitebeard, with a bounty of several hundred million, had more than a dozen ribs broken by that punch last week."
Whoosh.
A sea breeze swept past, carrying away the dust at the center of the square.
As the scene within gradually came clearly into view, all several thousand battle-hardened Marines in the square stopped breathing at the same moment!
An enormous crater more than fifty meters across had appeared in the center of the square.
And at the bottom of that crater.
Garp remained in his punching stance, his right arm extended straight ahead.
In front of Garp's fist, Yas's legs had plowed half a meter deep into the ground. The Raijin Armor woven from deep-blue lightning over Yas's bare upper body flickered violently, shrieking under the strain. A tiny crack had even appeared in the armor where Garp's fist had landed.
But.
Yas had not retreated half a step.
Yas's bones had not broken.
Not even a trace of blood had seeped from the corner of Yas's mouth!
With absolute savagery and overwhelming force, like a true eternal god of thunder, he had stopped the legendary Marine hero's Iron Fist dead against the outside of his chest!
"H-he blocked it?!"
"You're kidding, right? That's Vice Admiral Garp! He took Vice Admiral Garp's punch head-on without a scratch?!"
The veterans who had been mocking Yas moments earlier now had eyes bulging so far they nearly fell to the ground. Their jaws dropped straight onto the tops of their feet. They found this even more absurd and terrifying than seeing Rocks storm Marine Headquarters!
"Old man." Yas lowered his head slightly, looking at the enormous fist just centimeters from his heart, then raised his savage, lightning-filled eyes, his lips pulling into a crazed curve.
"Did your fist skip breakfast? It's soft and weak, like a woman's."
Garp's pupils abruptly contracted!
Shock flashed across Garp's rugged face. Feeling the recoil from Yas's chest that sent waves of numbness through even his fist, along with the terrifying high-voltage current, the wildness sleeping within Garp fully awakened.
"Soft and weak? Hahahaha! You've got guts!"
Garp abruptly pulled back his right fist. The next second, a terrifying aura ten times more oppressive than before erupted from his body. His normally flesh-colored right arm seemed to have been doused in thick ink, instantly covered by a layer of pitch-black substance reflecting a metallic sheen.
Armament Haki coating!
The grin on Garp's face turned utterly ferocious. "Brat! Since you think that wasn't enough, I'll put a little more strength into it. Take this-Armament Haki Iron Fist!"
Before you continue