Chapter 346

The very sea seemed to tremble beneath us, its waves thrashing wildly as if resonating with the ferocity of our battle. Redfield's rapier clashed against Shusui, the impact releasing a shockwave that ripped through the mountain range behind me, shattering stone and sending boulders tumbling like leaves in a storm.

This was the kind of battle I had been waiting for—a test worthy of my steel and my resolve. Since my last clash with Garp, few battles had pushed me to the limits of my strength.

But here, against Patrick Redfield, a man who once stood shoulder to shoulder with the overlords of the sea, I found an opponent who could help me sharpen my skills to their apex. After all, I had promised Garp a rematch, and to face him on equal footing, I needed to rise to his level and beyond.

Redfield moved like a phantom, his vampiric form granting him speed and power that bordered on the supernatural. His crimson aura shimmered like blood in the moonlight, and his blade struck with precision honed through decades of combat.

Yet, despite his mastery, I matched him strike for strike, Shusui a blur in my hands as I parried, countered, and evaded.

"You've grown, kid," Redfield muttered, his voice carrying an edge of respect despite his predatory grin. "But don't think for a second you can best me so easily!"

He lunged, his rapier thrusting forward with such force that the air itself screamed in its wake. I sidestepped at the last second, the shockwave from his missed strike obliterating a chunk of the mountainside.

Debris rained down around us, but neither of us flinched. The battlefield was ours, and the chaos consuming the Elsar Kingdom below was nothing more than a distant echo.

Redfield's eyes narrowed as he pressed forward, his blade a whirlwind of calculated strikes aimed to overwhelm.

But I had no intention of being outdone. Pivoting on my heel, I brought Shusui up in a swift arc, deflecting his rapier and forcing him to shift his stance. His follow-up claw swipe came with deadly precision, aimed to rip through my side, but I was ready. In one fluid motion, I unsheathed Akasuki, my crimson blade, and struck at his arm.

The blade met his arm with a sickening crunch, cutting through his Haki-clad skin and tearing into his flesh. Redfield's eyes widened in surprise, his supernatural healing factor faltering for the first time. He leapt back, creating distance between us, his gaze fixed on Akasuki as if it were a beast he couldn't comprehend.

Blood trickled from the shallow wound on his arm, but to my astonishment—and his—his wound didn't close. He muttered something under his breath, his expression darkening as he channeled his Conqueror's Haki to expel whatever malevolent energy was trying to devour him from within.

"This… this can't be Kairoseki," he whispered, though his tone betrayed doubt. His predator's instincts screamed at him to stay wary. The malice radiating from Akasuki wasn't natural—it was a hunger, a devouring force that defied logic.

I tilted my head slightly, letting a faint smile cross my lips. "Not quite sea stone," I said, the faint hum of my blade reverberating through the air. "But something far more potent. You'll find that resisting it isn't so easy."

Redfield's sharp eyes darted to the blade, his mind racing. His own weapon's tip was laced with sea stone, yet it hadn't hindered me at all, even when I deflected his attacks barehanded. For the first time in our battle, doubt flickered in his gaze.

"Enough!" Redfield roared, his pride refusing to let him falter. His Conqueror's Haki exploded outward in a torrent of red lightning, tearing through the mountainside and leaving a massive crater where he stood. The sky above seemed to ripple, and the very air turned oppressive as his will clashed with mine.

But I met his challenge head-on. I unleashed my own Conqueror's Haki in full force, black and golden lightning crackling as it surged forth to meet his crimson storm.

The collision of our wills split the heavens, the ground beneath us fracturing and collapsing under the weight of our clash. Trees were uprooted, rocks were reduced to dust, and the once-mighty mountain range became a battlefield torn asunder by our sheer presence.

The sky above the mountain range darkened as if responding to the malice brewing between us. Redfield chuckled, his crimson gaze glinting with an edge of menace.

"Rosinante, I'm warning you. It's not too late to turn back. The longer this drags on, the worse it'll get for you." His tone was calm, almost amused, but his demeanor betrayed a coiled tension, his smile never quite reaching his eyes.

Until now, this fight had been a game to him. But the moment I unsheathed Akasuki, I could see the primal unease brewing beneath his surface. His Zoan instincts must have been screaming warnings.

I smirked, keeping my stance loose but ready. "Counting on your little trick to sap my vitality, are you? Don't bother. That one doesn't work on me."

Redfield's eyes narrowed dangerously, the faintest flicker of surprise flashing across his features. One of his most secretive and lethal techniques, an invisible domain that drained the vitality of anyone within range, had always been his ace in prolonged battles.

Victims rarely realized what was happening until it was too late. Yet here I was, standing unaffected—and worse, calling him out on it.

"So you know…" he muttered, his voice low but icy. His carefree facade crumbled as he straightened, the air around him growing oppressive.

Without another word, a thick purple mist began to seep from his body, spilling across the battlefield like a living entity. It surged down the mountainside, obscuring everything in its path.

The mist wasn't just a smokescreen; it carried the weight of his ability, a suffocating aura that seemed to crush the very air, making every breath heavy. I could feel it—this wasn't the careless Redfield from earlier. He had decided to take me seriously.

"So you're done playing," I said, rolling my shoulders as the black lightning of my Conqueror's Haki began to crackle around me, swirling like a tempest. "Good. I was starting to think you'd gotten soft."

Redfield grinned, though his eyes remained cold. "Let's see if that mouth of yours holds up when you're gasping for air."

The mist surged forward, and then he vanished.

The first strike came from my flank, a blur in the mist. My instincts roared as I twisted, swinging Shusui to meet the attack.

Boom! The clash of our weapons sent a devastating shockwave tearing through the mist, rippling across the mountain range. Rocks were pulverized into dust, and ancient trees were uprooted and hurled like twigs. The sheer force of the impact sent cracks spiderwebbing across the ground beneath us.

I tightened my grip, absorbing the impact. Redfield was no longer holding back—his blow carried raw power, amplified by Armament Haki and the full strength of his mythical Zoan form. But as powerful as it was, I wasn't about to yield.

I countered, swinging Akasuki in a wide arc. The crimson blade sang as it cut through the air, the malice within it flaring to life. Redfield leapt back with inhuman speed, his form briefly visible in the mist before vanishing again.

The purple mist churned like a storm, its density increasing until it felt as though the entire mountain was submerged under water. My senses were on high alert, every fiber of my being attuned to the faintest movement. Redfield's presence flickered through the haze, darting from one direction to another.

Suddenly, an arc of purple energy shot out from the mist, slicing through the air like a guillotine. I sidestepped, narrowly avoiding the attack as it cleaved through a nearby peak, reducing it to rubble. Another strike followed, then another, each one more ferocious than the last.

I spun Shusui in my hand, deflecting the blows with precision, the sound of metal against metal ringing out like thunder. The ground beneath me crumbled under the sheer pressure of our clash, each step sending tremors through the earth.

"You're fast," I called out, my voice echoing through the mist. "But speed alone won't save you."

"Let's test that theory," Redfield's voice hissed back from everywhere and nowhere.

He lunged again, this time emerging from the mist with his lance aimed directly at my heart. The weapon, cloaked in Conqueror's and Armament Haki, tore through the air with such force that the very atmosphere seemed to warp around it.

I met it head-on, crossing Shusui and Akasuki in an X-guard. The collision unleashed a shockwave so powerful that it split the mist in two, revealing the devastation we had wrought. The mountain was unrecognizable, its jagged peaks reduced to rubble, its forests scorched and scattered.

"Impressive," Redfield admitted, his grin widening. "But you're not the only one with tricks."

With a roar, he transformed his lance mid-swing, the weapon twisting and expanding into a scythe. He brought it down in a deadly arc, aiming to cleave me in two. I sidestepped at the last second, countering with a thrust from Akasuki. The blade grazed his side, and once again, its malice flared to life.

Redfield hissed in pain, leaping back as the wound refused to heal. "What is that blade…?" he muttered, the unease in his voice palpable.

I smirked. "You'll find out soon enough."

The battle escalated further, our Conqueror's Haki clashing in violent storms that lit up the battlefield. Black and purple lightning crackled through the sky, ripping apart the heavens and leaving scorch marks on the earth.

Each swing of our blades created shockwaves that obliterated entire sections of the mountain range, sending debris hurtling into the sea below.

Redfield's movements became more feral, his Zoan instincts driving him to unleash a flurry of devastating attacks. But I countered with equal ferocity, my mastery of swordsmanship and my own indomitable will pushing me to match him blow for blow.

The shores of Elsar were a scene of utter carnage, a grotesque theater of war where nearly a million souls were trapped in an unrelenting nightmare. On one side, over two dozen warships relentlessly bombarded the coast, their cannons spewing fire and steel, keeping desperate civilians from fleeing to the sea.

On the other side, the kingdom's forces, clad in their polished armor, drove their own people toward the pits of death with merciless efficiency. The screams of the helpless echoed across the battlefield, mingling with the thunder of cannon fire and the acrid stench of burning flesh.

At the edge of this chaos stood Issho, silent and still as a statue. A single tear traced down his weathered face, falling from his unseeing eyes. The memories of his homeland, once destroyed by ambition and greed, flooded his mind.

He could almost hear the voice of Rosinante, whispering softly:

"Ambition has a cost, Issho. A price that the innocent always pay."

That thought shattered something deep within him. His fingers gripped the hilt of his blade tightly, his knuckles whitening as the weight of the atrocity unfolding before him became unbearable.

Finally, he could endure it no longer.

A massive, suffocating pressure suddenly erupted from Issho, engulfing the entire shore. It was like the world itself paused to hold its breath. Soldiers stumbled, cannons fell silent, and even the crashing waves seemed to hesitate.

The air grew heavy, laced with an ominous power that pressed against the chest of everyone present. For a fleeting moment, the slaughter froze as every head turned toward the blind man standing on the bow of a ship.

Issho stepped forward, his blade gleaming as he unsheathed it with a smooth, deliberate motion. The faintest of whispers escaped his lips, carrying a weight that seemed to resonate through the heavens themselves.

"Hell Journey..."

At first, nothing seemed to change. The battlefield stirred, unsure, as if the world was trying to process what had just occurred. Then, the sky itself seemed to groan—a deep, guttural sound that echoed across the shore. The darkened storm clouds overhead began to twist and churn, as though they were being dragged by an unseen force.

The heavens split apart in an explosion of flame and fury. From the heart of the storm, a massive meteorite, wreathed in roaring fire, emerged. It was the size of an island, its surface jagged and molten, its fiery tail scorching the very sky.

The air grew unbearably hot as the meteor descended, painting the battlefield in hues of orange and red. It was as if the sun itself had been wrenched from the heavens and hurled toward the earth.

The people below stared in horror. The scale of the descending catastrophe was beyond comprehension—a power so vast, so absolute, it could only belong to a god.

The soldiers of Elsar's army, who had moments ago been mercilessly slaughtering their own civilians to restore order, now found themselves frozen in place, their faces pale as death. One by one, they looked up, their weapons slipping from trembling hands.

"W-What is that?" One soldier stammered, his voice cracking with terror.

"It's… it's not possible!" screamed another, his knees buckling as he collapsed to the ground.

The first man turned to flee, his sword clattering to the dirt, and then another followed. Soon, panic rippled through the ranks like wildfire.

Hundreds of soldiers, who moments ago had stood unflinching in the face of chaos, now scrambled desperately to escape. Orders were shouted, but they were drowned out by the deafening roar of the meteorite tearing through the sky.

The meteor loomed larger and larger, its fiery surface consuming the horizon. The sheer scale of it dwarfed everything—ships, men, the very landscape itself. The ground began to quake violently, cracks racing through the earth like the veins of a dying giant. The air was thick with heat and ash, suffocating and unrelenting.

"Fall back! Fall back!" a commander screamed, his voice hoarse with desperation. But there was no retreat. No escape. The soldiers who had once believed themselves invincible now realized they were mere ants in the presence of a divine power.

A hundred thousand men stood paralyzed, their faces twisted in terror. Their bodies trembled, their breaths shallow. This was no longer a battlefield. It was a graveyard waiting to be filled.

The meteor struck with a force that defied comprehension. The moment it hit, the world seemed to break. A deafening explosion tore through the air, loud enough to shatter eardrums and drown out even the screams.

The ground buckled and split, a massive shockwave rippling outward and obliterating everything in its path. Trees, boulders, and soldiers alike were vaporized in an instant.

The sea itself recoiled, a massive wall of water rising from the impact zone before crashing back down in a violent tsunami that swallowed the shore. The blazing inferno of the meteor burned so hot that the very air ignited, creating a shockwave of fire that spread across the battlefield, consuming everything in its wake.

In the aftermath, silence reigned. The once-chaotic shore was unrecognizable—a smoldering crater where the Elsar army's blockade had once stood. Ash and embers floated through the air like snowflakes, falling on the stunned survivors who had somehow escaped the carnage.

Issho stood unmoving, his blade sheathed once more. His blind eyes gazed out over the desolation he had wrought, though he could not see it. The tear on his cheek had dried, replaced by a grim expression.

"The price of ambition," he murmured, echoing Rosinante's words once more.

The aftermath of Issho's devastating attack left the battlefield shrouded in eerie silence. More than three-quarters of the kingdom's hundred-thousand-strong army had been obliterated, erased in a single cataclysmic moment.

Where the soldiers had once stood now lay a massive crater, its breadth stretching for miles, its depth swallowed by impenetrable darkness. It was as if a pillar of divine judgment had descended from the heavens, reshaping the very land and leaving an unhealable scar upon it.

The air was thick with ash and smoke, and the few remaining soldiers trembled, their faces etched with terror. The civilians, who had moments ago been resigned to their fate, began to stir. Slowly, realization dawned upon them—the gates to salvation had been flung wide open. With nothing holding them back, they surged forward, a frenzy of desperate souls seizing their chance to escape.

The ground quaked beneath the stampede of feet as men, women, and children sprinted toward the open path, their cries mingling with the distant roar of the still-raging sea. Their hope burned like a fragile flame against the darkness of despair. But just as freedom seemed within reach, the air turned sharp and biting.

The winds howled with a ferocity that silenced their cheers, and in mere moments, the battlefield was consumed by a blizzard of unnatural proportions. Snow and ice swirled viciously, a storm conjured from the depths of a nightmare.

Visibility dropped to near nothing, and the bitter cold gnawed at flesh and bone. Panic spread like wildfire as the people stumbled and fell, their escape thwarted by the sheer force of the icy tempest.

From within the eye of the storm, a colossal shadow emerged. Its vast wings beat rhythmically, each movement sending waves of icy wind that froze the very air. A massive, mythical creature loomed over the battlefield, its scales glistening like shards of frozen crystal, its glowing eyes fixed mercilessly on the fleeing masses.

Each flap of its wings unleashed a torrent of frost, freezing everything it touched. Soldiers, civilians, even the smoldering remnants of the terrain—all were encased in glittering ice, transformed into macabre statues of despair.

The survivors' terror reached a crescendo as the creature's screech pierced the storm, a sound so primal and fierce that it reverberated through the soul. Those who had moments ago felt hope now knew only dread.

As if summoned by the beast, a deep, rhythmic booming echoed through the frozen wasteland. The ground shook, resonating with the pounding of countless boots. From the haze of the storm, an army emerged, their march precise and unyielding.

Soldiers clad in gleaming frost-touched armor, their ranks seemingly endless, advanced with mechanical precision. Their heavy shields bore the crest of the Elsar Kingdom, and their spears gleamed like icicles under a pale light.

At the forefront of this relentless force strode the Supreme Commander of the Elsar Kingdom. Towering and broad-shouldered, he exuded authority and unshakable resolve.

His pitch-black armor was etched with intricate runes that shimmered faintly in the cold light, and a massive broadsword rested casually on his shoulder and a massive tower shield in his other hand. Behind him marched the elite of Elsar's forces, their discipline and training evident in every step.

Theron's sharp eyes scanned the battlefield, his expression a mask of cold fury. The devastation wrought by Issho's attack was undeniable, and the plan to use expendable forces to hold the line had crumbled spectacularly.

The civilians were supposed to be pawns, distractions for the real invaders, but now they were either dead or frozen. The chaos was spiraling out of control, and Theron had no intention of allowing it to continue.

"You filthy bastards... you dare defy my orders." Theron growled, his voice resonating like rolling thunder. Raising his massive, phoenix-like head high, his sharp, frost-coated beak crackled with freezing energy. With a deafening roar, he unleashed a powerful frost beam into the ground below.

The impact sent a pulse of freezing energy rippling outward, intensifying the already ferocious storm and further fortifying the icy wasteland. The air grew sharper, the cold cutting through flesh and bone as jagged spires of ice erupted from the earth, transforming the battlefield into a frozen fortress of despair.

The once-muddy and chaotic battlefield was now a gleaming, frozen expanse. Jagged spires of ice jutted from the ground like the teeth of a great beast, and the air itself seemed to freeze in place, growing heavier with every breath.

The civilians who had been scrambling toward freedom moments ago were now trapped, their frozen forms scattered across the field like eerie monuments to their desperation.

Issho, still aboard his ship, felt the shift in the battlefield. The blind swordsman turned his unseeing eyes toward the chaos, the biting wind tugging at his robes. His expression remained calm, but his grip on his blade tightened.

"Hmm… So finally you have decided to step on the battlefield yourselves," he murmured, his voice heavy with contemplation. He could sense the immense presence of the phoenix creature and the formidable will of the man leading the advancing army.

Yet, there was no hesitation in his stance. He stepped forward, his aura once again radiating the quiet intensity of a man prepared to act.

The civilians who still retained their freedom cowered at the edges of the battlefield, their breaths visible in the freezing air. Some whispered prayers, their hope clinging to the miraculous destruction Issho had unleashed earlier. Others despaired, their eyes locked on the advancing army and the monstrous beast that loomed over them.

Theron's voice carried over the battlefield, cold and commanding.

"You who dared to defy the Elsar Kingdom, witness the might of true order. There is no escape. Pick up your weapons and face the invaders now, or face the wrath of a power you cannot comprehend."

His words were a death knell, echoing through the icy expanse. Yet even as the supreme ruler of the kingdom claimed dominance, the faint glimmer of rebellion still flickered in the hearts of the people. Somewhere, amidst the chaos and despair, the seeds of resistance began to take root, waiting for the right moment to bloom.