Ancient Zoan!
The Adamantine Fruit!
Kong's entire body swelled to 8.9 meters tall.
His signature beard became an ape's chin.
His fists hammered furiously, unleashing the tremendous vitality and combat power of a Zoan.
His adamantine ape form had always been renowned for its formidable fighting strength and divine power!
Combined with his advanced Haki, worthy of the name "Steel Bone."
It was how Kong, the current Fleet Admiral, had overcome all opposition.
And become one of the strongest of his generation!
He had fought many battles in his life.
One of them had also become Red the Aloof's crowning battle.
That was the monster said to rival Roger and the Whitebeard Pirates single-handedly.
The Red Count had defeated Kong!
At this moment.
Nearly twenty years still remained before that battle.
The strongest fighters on the seas.
Generally reached their absolute peak in their late thirties, approaching forty.
How long they could maintain that peak determined how long they could dominate the seas!
Kaido had completed his final missing piece after his battle with Oden, becoming an Emperor of the Sea at thirty-nine.
Red-Haired had been only thirty-three when he became one of the Four Emperors.
Blackbeard had taken part in the Payback War and the Rocky Port Incident in succession, also reaching the summit at thirty-nine.
After Roger's death.
The reason the next twenty years in the New World were called Whitebeard's reign over the seas.
Was that he had remained at his peak for a long time even after turning fifty.
Now.
Two men on the seas were in the prime of their lives, at the height of their power.
One was Rocks, the other Kong.
Aside from them, whether it was Saint Garling of the God's Knights, Whitebeard Newgate, Roger, Garp, or Sengoku.
They were all at an age when they had only just reached their peak.
In God Valley.
Kong remained an unquestionably powerful fighting force!
Wherever his fists struck, overwhelming Haki and peak martial prowess erupted.
The man who would rise after him was naturally the bare-fisted Garp.
But before God Valley.
The pillar of the Marines' resolve was still Kong.
His presence was like that of Sengoku the Buddha at the Paramount War thirty-six years later.
"Hey!"
"What are you looking down on?"
"Do you think turning into a black dragon means you can disregard the justice of the seas?"
"Those pirates who suffer so terribly at the hands of you pirates, those homeless, starving people."
"Those who die gruesome deaths beneath blades and gunfire, those civilians whose lives you toy with until their dying breath."
"If the future is left to pirates like you, it'll be so awful it'll be suffocating!"
Kong was also a Zoan user.
He was no weaker than the Rob Lucci of later years.
Black flames of Awakening coiled behind him.
His muscles tightened and his veins bulged as he poured all his strength into his arms.
"Let's defeat every pirate here!"
"Wipe out the Rocks Pirates, the culprits behind the chaos in the New World!"
"Kong Bone Vajra!"
High in the air, Kong unleashed a punch.
Haki poured into the striking surface of his fist.
The punch closely resembled Garp's martial arts-or rather, Garp's bore some resemblance to his!
Boom!
The ground exploded into a massive crater.
Shane, the black dragon, raised his head and spat out Purple Lightning Bolo Breath.
He was determined to meet his opponent with his strongest strike.
How could he beg for mercy and back down just because his enemy was the Fleet Admiral?
What a joke!
How could trash like that deserve to ascend the throne?
"Purple Lightning Bolo Breath!"
Violet Light lightning coiled around raging flames.
They surged skyward in a massive wave, colliding with the Haki!
Kong plunged down with a punch.
He split the scorching wave and lightning in two.
His eyes brimmed with the determination to fight to the death.
Though he had no Buddha's radiance around him, he shone even brighter than Sengoku.
Such a monster descending from the heavens!
He was a true vajra!
Precisely because he had backed them up through countless battles.
The younger generation of Marines had been able to keep growing.
"A brat like you who indulges in slaughter!"
"Is nothing but the next fiend!"
"Not a single pirate who follows Rocks's evil will deserves to live in this world!"
Haki coiled around Kong's fists, dispersing the flames without even touching them.
His attack drove deeper, and damage continued to wash through Shane.
He stared at Shane, trying to find the fear of a rookie pirate in him.
He also wanted to bring Shane down and forge a new fighting spirit for the Marines.
So much for the invincible Rocks Pirates-it would begin with defeating their first crew member!
"Those lonely, helpless people couldn't afford the Celestial Dragons' Heavenly Tribute, could they?"
"Many of those branded pirates are people who couldn't afford the fee to go to sea."
"Because you have to protect civilians, you tolerate the Celestial Dragons' nation-destroying games every three years."
How could Shane be afraid? Instead, all the fire in his eyes blazed to life.
"Don't tell me it's a temporary compromise."
"You've been compromising for eight hundred years!"
"If one day the Celestial Dragons no longer dare to hold their nation-destroying games."
"It won't be because of your Marine justice, much less because the Celestial Dragons grew a conscience."
"It'll be because we were here! Your so-called culprits, the Rocks Pirates!"
In his black dragon form, Shane's snowy whiskers rode the flame clouds.
Finally, he entwined the flames with violet lightning, then wove the force of the wind into them.
Wind blades, Bolo Breath, violet lightning.
The three formed a ranged attack combining multiple energies, with continuity, slashing force, and intense heat!
"Purple Lightning Bolo Breath: Three Thousand Miles of Bad Wind!"
Shane's eyes widened.
He stared at Shane as he struck toward his head.
And at the rising sun!
Behind God Valley.
The moonlight was about to recede, and Sulong would soon be gone.
When a new sun rose.
It was neither for the Rocks Pirates nor for Shane.
Shane had once thought the sun was utterly impartial.
Only now did he understand that it, too, merely played favorites.
Otherwise, why would it cast its first rays on Mary Geoise atop the Red Line?
"Do you see?"
Hearing Shane's words only made Kong angrier.
"The sun is rising!"
"For justice, for the Marines, and for every kingdom in the Reverie."
"That light will dispel all your darkness!"
Kong looked like a hero emerging from the light.
His punch broke through Shane's strongest strike.
Haki struck the black dragon's head!
At that moment.
Shane knew that the sun did not rise for him!
Pain coursed through his entire body, and his Sulong state ended completely.
Streams of smoke rose from his mouth.
His entire body scorched black, Kong clenched his fists and surveyed the battlefield with an imperious gaze.
Rumble!
The enormous dragon plummeted from the sky.
Shane's vision gradually blurred, and just as he was about to lose consciousness.
"If the sun won't rise for us, then let's create a new sun."
Murakumogiri struck the ground.
Newgate flung off his cloak.
The purple emblem of the Whitebeard Pirates' Pirate Flag on his back was particularly striking.
"Don't go down just yet!"
"Though that fellow Rocks D. Zebek is always acting recklessly."
"There's one thing he wasn't wrong about."
"The true sun is born from darkness, and we're the darkness before the dawn!"
Whitebeard spun Murakumogiri at blinding speed.
Tremor-Tremor power intertwined with Haki.
Condensing into an invisible sphere on the blade!
Kong's punch as he landed on the ground.
Was forcibly caught by him!
Purple-black lightning tore through the air.
The impact instantly swept up the already shattered houses.
The waves churned, battering the shore furiously.
Boom!
The last coconut tree by the shore snapped in half.
Shane stood up, his head throbbing as though it would split.
Fortunately, he had eaten enough food earlier.
And he had Life Return combined with the recovery power of a Mythical Zoan.
Otherwise, things really would have been difficult.
"Gurararara! How did Kong's fist feel?"
Whitebeard stood in front of Shane, swinging his blade furiously.
"Thanks, Newgate."
"I'm famous for staying alive."
Shane breathed deeply, pushing his life to its limits.
Searching for that single thread of Haki.
"The battle isn't over!"
Flame Flower and Stussy flashed past.
Soon.
A hail of bullets came straight at them.
A new wave of Marine reinforcements had arrived!
Shane turned to face the towering waves of the era.
Before you continue