CHAPTER 32

"Just like the intel said…"

Aokiji narrowed his eyes slightly as his freezing attack failed to faze the man in front of him.

He wasn't surprised. After all, when Ragnar had descended on Onigashima and annihilated the Beast Pirates' top officers under tens of thousands of eyes, the omnipresent CP had documented every detail. That information was swiftly sent to the World Government... and the Admirals.

"I heard you can control fire?"

A deep voice thundered across the icy plain as Akainu stepped up from the ruined dock, steam rising with each step.

"Then allow me to educate you—

I am fire's superior."

Without waiting for a reply, Akainu launched forward. It wasn't a conversation—it was a judgment.

Boom.

Magma erupted from underfoot as his body surged like a volcanic blast into the air. In less than a second, he was above the battlefield, his right arm fully transformed into molten rock.

"Hellhound!"

His magma-coated fist crashed down with a thunderous roar, tearing through clouds and warping the sky. The sheer force dented the air itself, collapsing it inward with a visible shockwave. Where the molten limb passed, the sky burned red.

"Fire Spear!"

Ragnar stood his ground.

He didn't dodge. He didn't summon wind or light.

Instead, he calmly raised his hand.

Flames burst out, golden and divine—Samadhi Fire, far beyond mortal flame—gathering into a burning spear.

Then—he thrust upward.

Bang!

Spear met fist.

Flame met magma.

The impact cracked the sky.

Thunderous echoes shook the heavens, while waves of heat turned the glacial plain into boiling steam. Clouds were torn asunder, and the very air around them warped, folding inward like reality itself was being crushed.

"The sky… folded?"

From the prison ship below, the shocked voices of marines whispered through the chaos.

"That's the guy who wiped out Kaido's lieutenants?"

"Mythical Zoan… but it's like a Logia and Paramecia combined…"

They could barely comprehend what they were seeing. The spear of fire hadn't melted, hadn't flickered, despite Akainu's magma pouring over it like lava down a mountainside.

"Why… isn't it burning?"

Even Aokiji frowned now, his analytical calm shaken.

And Akainu—his eyes narrowed dangerously.

"My magma is superior to the Flame-Flame Fruit. Fire cannot beat it."

His voice was strained.

Disbelief crept into the folds of his molten features. That fire—that spear—had withstood Hellhound, one of his strongest techniques.

"You're the superior of the Flame-Flame Fruit…"

Ragnar's cold voice cut through the haze.

"…Not of my Mythical Zoan: Human-Human Fruit, Model—Erlang Shen."

A divine light flared from his forehead. A single crack spread upward.

Shnnnk.

The vertical Sky Eye opened—radiant, piercing, omniscient.

Just as Ragnar opened the Sky Eye between his brows, Akainu's pupils shrank with fear.

In his right hand, Ragnar held a Fire Spear forged from Samadhi True Fire, using it to suppress the roaring, flame-cloaked Hades Dog beneath him. A deafening roar exploded from his throat, along with a searing shockwave that split the battlefield.

At the same time, he raised his left hand—index and middle fingers together—pressing them beside the vertical golden pupil shining at the center of his forehead.

Divine light blazed.

A beam of golden brilliance shot up, splitting the sky, tearing through the clouds, and banishing the crimson dome of heat Akainu's magma had painted across the heavens.

"Not good!"

Akainu's face changed.

With his Observation Haki, he instinctively sensed the fatal danger.

He didn't fight back.

He didn't dodge.

Instead, he turned his entire body into molten magma and detonated like a geyser to scatter himself in the air.

But—

The next moment, the dispersing magma suddenly froze midair.

"What!?"

Down below, Aokiji's eyes widened in disbelief.

He instinctively surged cold air through the battlefield, erecting dozens of sky-piercing ice pillars and launching them straight at Ragnar.

But Ragnar's movements were faster than ice, faster than thought.

As Akainu's magma form solidified in the sky, the divine light in Ragnar's Sky Eye burst once again.

Golden beams shot out, radiant and terrifying, crisscrossing the heavens.

Then came a cry.

Puff!

"Aaaahhh—!!"

Chunks of hardened magma rained down.

It squirmed like a wounded beast—then gathered.

From the viscous mass, Akainu reformed.

But the moment he stood revealed the truth: his entire upper torso was torn open, the bandages gone, replaced by a hideous, raw, blood-drenched wound gaping across his chest.

"Hmph..."

Still clenching his jaw, Akainu tried to stand.

He braced against the ground, swaying with effort.

But his knees buckled, and he dropped into a half-crouch, barely conscious.

Admiral Akainu—

Defeated in the very first exchange.

Silence.

Everyone was stunned.

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