With the death of the old man in gray robes, the tide of battle instantly turned.
Previously, the nineteen people were linked by their breaths; when one person was injured, the nineteen people shared the damage.
But now that the healing core is gone, the thread that binds them together is still there, but there is no longer a continuous source of power to replenish them.
Even worse—that wire has now become a burden for them.
Kaido slammed his club into the Barbarian King's ribs. The Barbarian King was about to use the black mist to repair himself as before, but the black mist inside his body surged a few times and couldn't condense at all.
The thread is still there, but because it has lost its healing core, it has become a one-way transmission rope.
The three ribs that broke when the Barbarian King were broken passed directly to the other seventeen people.
"Well!"
All seventeen kings simultaneously let out a muffled groan.
The Mountain King smashed Loki away with his hammer, but he also got a wound on his own arm that was exactly the same as the one on Loki's body.
Sword King's rapier pierced Hawk Eyes's shoulder, and Hawk Eyes retaliated with a slash to Sword King's wrist. The wound, following the line, appeared on the other seventeen people at the same time.
"What... what's going on?!" For the first time, the Shadow King's voice carried a hint of panic.
Roy hovered in mid-air, watching all of this, a slight smile playing on his lips.
"Do you see that?" he shouted down.
"That thread that bound you together for eight hundred years is now your death warrant."
If I hit any one of you, all eighteen of you will feel the pain.
"Attack together!" Kaido roared.
All the core forces of the allied forces simultaneously launched their strongest attacks.
Kaido's Hassaikai, imbued with earth-shattering Lightning, slammed the Barbarian King, hammer and all, into the ground with a single blow.
Loki's Iron Thunder, Inazuma with dark red lightning, smashed the Mountain King's shoulder armor to pieces with a single blow.
Hawk Eyes's Black Blade Yoru unleashed a green slash that stretched a hundred meters, cutting from the Sword King's left shoulder all the way to his right waist.
Shanks, shrouded in Conqueror's Haki Gryphon, cleaved the Shadow King's black mist in two with a single strike.
Ace's Fire Fist, Dragon's Storm, Red Count's Blood Claw, Bullet's White Tiger Fist, Yamato's Flame Blade, Hancock's Perfume Femur, Zoro's Demonic Aura Nine-Sword Style, Sanji's Diable Jambe --
All attacks rained down on the eighteen kings.
The entire holy land trembled under this fierce attack.
The top of the entire Red Line was illuminated by lights of various colors, and the sounds of explosions, roars, and screams blended together.
The ground was shoveled away layer by layer, and the ruins of Pangaea Castle were completely reduced to dust in the aftershocks.
The entire sky was stained with energy rays of various colors, causing it to lose its original color.
After the light faded, a layer of ground at the top of the Red Line was forcibly sheared away, revealing the dark red rock layer underneath.
The eighteen kings lay sprawled at the bottom of the pit, some missing arms or legs, some with large holes in their chests, and some with only half their bodies remaining.
Black mist churned around them, and the repair process was pitifully slow.
Roy slowly descended, Shusui pointed to Imu at the bottom of the pit.
"Eight hundred years ago, you attacked Davy Jones, stole his essence, betrayed Joy Boy, rewrote history, and fooled the world."
Today, it's time to pay it back.
Imu raised his head from the bottom of the pit, his golden vertical pupils burning with a final madness.
"Return?"
He laughed, a hoarse and shrill laugh.
What do you know!
Those two idiots, Davy Jones and Joy Boy, don't deserve any power!
One that sees us as ants,
One wants to divide the world among mortals, so that ants and gods can sit on equal footing!
We are the ones who truly understand the value of power!
"So you just slaughter all living beings?" Roy pressed the tip of his knife down an inch.
"Just ants."
Imu's smile became even more ferocious.
"It doesn't matter how many die."
He suddenly opened his arms, and the bodies of the seventeen kings simultaneously disintegrated, transforming into seventeen streams of pure energy.
Along with their consciousness, Devil Fruit abilities, and combat experience, everything surged into Imu's body.
Even the corpse of the healing king that Roy had killed earlier disintegrated again, turning into a final wisp of light that merged into Imu's body.
"You want to kill me? Then come and kill this one!"
Imu's body began to swell.
From two meters to ten meters, from ten meters to one hundred meters, from one hundred meters to one thousand meters.
His skin was completely covered in black scales, the two pairs of demon horns on his head grew into four pairs, and a pair of black wings spread out behind him, blotting out the sky.
Black flames surged wildly around him, and dark red Inazuma snaked through the gaps in his scales like serpents.
Eighteen ancient abilities merged, collided, and erupted within him, causing his aura to surge to an unprecedented level in an instant.
A body a thousand meters tall, engulfed in towering black flames.
Imu looked down at the ant-like figures at his feet, his voice echoing as if it came from the deepest abyss.
"Now, what do you have to fight me with?"
Imu raised his hand and waved it, unleashing a giant blade formed from black flames. The thousand-meter-long blade, imbued with a mixture of Conqueror's Haki and eighteen different abilities, pressed towards the Allied Forces' lines with the force to crush everything in its path.
Kaido and Loki charged forward simultaneously, while the Hassaikai and Iron Thunder crossed to block Black Blade.
"Boom--!"
Both weapons were knocked away at the same time, Kaido's hand was split open, and the Hassaikai almost slipped from his grasp.
Loki's massive body was struck by the aftershock of the black blade, sending him flying backward and crashing through the ground for hundreds of meters before coming to a stop.
With a charred wound on his chest, Nidhogg's regenerative abilities were crawling like a snail under the corrosive influence of the black flames.
"Damn it... what kind of power is this..." Loki struggled to his feet, black blood dripping from the corner of his mouth.
Imu raised his hand again.
Dark red lightning poured down from the sky, covering the entire battlefield.
Each Inazuma was enveloped in Conqueror's Haki, and the shockwaves from its impact on the ground overturned the ground within a radius of a hundred meters.
The Allied officers dodged, but the Inazuma was too dense; Yamato was struck on the shoulder, and his entire arm went numb.
Ember's wing was scalded by the lightning, forcing him to land.
Then came the Mental Shock.
Imu's mental attack swept across the entire battlefield like a tsunami. The mental pressure created by the combination of Conqueror's Haki and eighteen other abilities made everyone feel as if their brains were being clamped by a pair of pliers.
Zoro knelt on one knee, barely able to support himself with three swords stuck in the ground.
Sanji bit down on the cigarette in his mouth, veins bulging on his forehead, relying on willpower to stay upright.
Even Luffy felt his head was throbbing, and maintaining Gear Fifth became difficult.
"Gravity!" Imu roared again.
Gravity suddenly increased within a kilometer radius, causing the ground beneath everyone's feet to sink simultaneously, their knees to bend, and their backs to arch.
Ordinary soldiers were pinned to the ground, unable to move.
Roy's Telekinesis Domain expanded to its fullest extent, offsetting most of the gravity within a hundred meters around him, but the Allied officers at the edge of the field were still struggling to breathe under the pressure.
"Space!" Imu raised his hand and clenched it.
The space in the air was distorted and deformed, and several Allied soldiers who were standing at the front were torn to pieces by the distorted space.