"Die! Everyone die!"
In the open ground in front of the Bounty Hunters Guild headquarters, the blood-soaked Grefor raised his completely shattered, ferocious face and laughed madly to the sky like a crazed tiger.
Crack!
In an instant, a dazzling bolt of lightning descended from the sky — a giant claw wreathed in blue-white lightning slammed down, smashing the laughing Grefor headfirst into the ground.
Boom!
The entire ground of the Bounty Hunters Guild base collapsed with a thunderous crash, splitting open into countless massive cracks.
Grefor's head and upper body were violently crushed into a pile of mush under that terrifying giant claw.
As Rorschach looked at the pile of exposed, rapidly transforming explosive ore, two thick beams of lightning shot from his eyes. A deep ocean-blue color surged outward from within him, like a tsunami crashing against the earth, spreading rapidly outward from his feet.
An unimaginable, massive amount of Armament Haki spread across the city at astonishing speed under everyone's stunned gaze, covering buildings, people, ports, streets, and coastline alike.
In the blink of an eye, over half of Queen Spring City gleamed with a deep blue luster, transforming into a shining island.
"You've got to be kidding… this is Armament Haki?"
Andre's mouth hung open, eyes blank, as he stared at the deep blue glow covering the entire city.
Such a sight — even in his wildest dreams, he would never have dared imagine it.
Sierra's chest pounded uncontrollably as she gazed, face flushed, at the buildings and people around her, now turned into a deep blue ocean.
"Only a man like this could be my destined one. Marine Rorschach — he will surely shine in this era!"
All the Marines wore fervent expressions, their eyes filled with boundless reverence.
"This is the power of Rear Admiral Rorschach! Do you see now, you arrogant pirates!"
Pamela trembled all over, overcome with excitement.
Hibari radiated pride, while Luo was left dumbfounded.
Lucci tugged down the hat on his head, not wanting to watch.
"I should have realized! I should have realized it earlier!" In the royal capital's center, Jonathan pounded his fists together and shouted: "Douglas Bullet! This kid's Haki is just like Douglas Bullet's — that overwhelming, island-enveloping mass characteristic! This is that one-of-a-kind, top-tier Armament Haki in the world!"
"But… could it be he plans to cover the whole city with his Haki to resist the blast impact of the explosive ore? If that's his plan, I'm afraid this Haki alone won't be nearly enough to stop the power of those explosive ores."
Jonathan's face turned grave as he anxiously looked toward the direction of the guild headquarters.
From the moment Rorschach's deep blue Haki surged out to arm the whole island to the moment everyone's faces lit up with shock, it had all happened in a flash.
At the front of the hall, after unleashing all the Haki within his body, Rorschach's movements didn't halt for a second. His two massive arms forcefully came together, and his wide palms clapped together heavily.
Just the shockwave from the impact and the lightning crackling off his palms blew the inflatable woman Hathaway, who had still been standing dazed in front of him, into the air. Her body was shattered, blood sprayed wildly, and she tumbled backward, her life force plummeting instantly — death inevitable.
Yet in Rorschach's eyes at that moment, this woman didn't even register.
In his sights, there were only those dozens of fist-sized, purplish-red ores.
Ores that were rapidly turning orange-red, beginning to emit magma-like terrifying heat.
Explosive ore!Once it came into contact with air, it would detonate uncontrollably.
A single piece could easily destroy a battleship.
Ten pieces could annihilate a small island.
And right now, laid out before Rorschach were forty-two pieces!If they were all allowed to detonate, the entire Queen Spring City would be wiped off the Grand Line's map.
Therefore!"If they explode on contact with air, then I just need to keep the explosive ore from touching the air!"
"Aerokinesis! Vacuum Extraction!"
Clap!His two wide palms slammed together, sending the scattered glass shards flying and filtering out the forty-two glowing red-hot explosive ores, each like a burning coal.
Rorschach pressed his hands together and then spread them apart, veins bulging on his face, a hoarse growl escaping his mouth.
Within a range of several dozen meters, the air solidified into tangible ribbons, forcibly sucked away, turning into howling winds rushing outward to the surroundings.
And the twenty-meter stretch of ground directly in front of Rorschach instantly transformed into a vacuum zone devoid of air.
As the surrounding air was rapidly drawn away, the forty-two pieces of explosive ore — which had been on the verge of becoming seeds of destruction — gradually began to cool down under Rorschach's hopeful gaze.
The terrifying heat radiating from the explosive ore seemed to be subsiding.
"Great! It's working! Without contact with air, the explosive ore seems to be cooling!"
A look of joy appeared on Rorschach's face.
He had never expected his Armament Haki to withstand the explosive ore's detonation.
The reason he unleashed his Haki was merely to add an extra layer of insurance.
If his second method failed —
Then he would have no choice but to take the full force of the explosive ore's blast head-on.
But just as Rorschach was about to let out a sigh of relief —
The vacuum zone he had created began to refill with air rushing in from the surroundings, flowing toward the location of the explosive ore.
This sent a chill down Rorschach's spine.
His ability, though capable of controlling air and briefly creating a vacuum,could only sustain that vacuum for a few seconds in an open environment like this.Before long, the surrounding air would inevitably rush back in.
"At that point, the blasting rocks will still explode and destroy the entire Queen of Spring City!"
Rorschach pressed his hands together and pulled them apart again, extracting the incoming air.
He fixed his gaze on the blasting rocks in front of him, shaped like sweet potatoes, pondering a question in his heart.Could he escape their blast radius before they were triggered by contact with air?
He lifted his head to look at the sky.
Rorschach planned to throw these forty-two unstable things up into the sky.
Throwing them into the sea wasn't safe either.That would only bring about tsunamis and other disasters.
"No matter! First, I just need to get rid of these damned things!"
Rorschach took a deep breath, feeling the overload mode within his body rapidly fading.
This hyper-stimulated physical mode had already reached its time limit.
Once again, he extracted the air around the blasting rocks, then stomped hard, shattering the ground for dozens of meters around. With a flick of his toes, he lifted the entire section of ground.
Then, his figure moved, leaping beneath the hundred-square-meter slab of ground, his two thick, scale-covered legs slightly crouched. The giant tendons in his calves tensed like springs, erupting with boundless power.
Boom!The earth within hundreds of meters rumbled and quaked with a deafening explosion.
Next, everyone in Queen of Spring City saw a towering figure, carrying a chunk of ground with both hands, shoot up into the sky. His speed surged, and in the blink of an eye, he pierced hundreds of meters upward, still climbing, higher and higher!
"That kid… does he intend to carry the blasting rocks away to let them explode?"
Jonathan was momentarily stunned, then his face changed drastically, his pupils trembling, his whole body turning cold.
"Is he insane? If he's caught in the explosive shockwave of those blasting rocks, even with his monstrous body, he'll die!"
"Rorschach!"
Panic surged in Jonathan's heart as he moved, stepping into the air with Moonwalk, trying to chase after.
But it was already too late.
Rorschach's speed, under the combined force of Moonwalk and Wind Thunder, was like a meteor shooting straight into the depths of the sky, shrinking into a tiny black dot, vanishing beyond everyone's line of sight below.
In the sky, a thousand meters high, the only sound in his ears was the roaring wind.
Rorschach felt his body growing more and more exhausted.
His armament haki was completely drained, and his stamina was gradually drying up.
In just those short ten or so minutes of battle,he had first consumed massive amounts of energy, manipulating air currents to create a giant seawater tornado, wiping out over six thousand pirate ships in one strike.Then, he clashed head-on with Chinjao, using his overwhelming physical strength and the boost from Life Return to beat Chinjao to death with brute force.Finally, he erupted into hyper-overload mode to crush Goliath.
Though it seemed brief and fierce, it had already forced out all of Rorschach's trump cards.
If Goliath had been just a bit stronger, or had better survival abilities to stall for time, waiting until Rorschach's overload mode wore off, the outcome of the battle would have been uncertain.
Now, with the overload mode faded, a tide of endless fatigue surged into Rorschach's body and mind.
But he still clenched his teeth and kept ascending.
One thousand meters.
Two thousand meters.
Three thousand meters!
"Higher still!"
Bloodshot veins appeared in Rorschach's eyes, the muscles on his arms trembling, his feet stepping on the air, propelled by invisible currents, soaring ever upward.
Along the way, he continued extracting the air around the blasting rocks several times.
This series of actions placed immense physical and mental strain on Rorschach.
He felt like he was reaching his absolute limit.
He had never been this exhausted before.
Even resisting the Lacrulana tsunami last time wasn't this draining.
Until, at six thousand meters high.
Looking down at the island below, now a tiny speck, and the endless blue ocean, Rorschach took a deep breath.
Whoosh!As he inhaled, the air within hundreds of meters rushed into his mouth like it was being sucked by a vacuum pump.
"Now get your asses up into the heavens! Blasting rocks!"
Boom!
His two thick arms swelled in size, erupting with an overwhelming force that blasted the slab of earth upward.
The chunk of ground holding the blasting rocks instantly turned into a meteor, breaking the sound barrier, thundering into the boundless heights of the sky.
As for Rorschach, he could no longer maintain his powers. His body rapidly shrank, returning to human form, his clothes completely gone, left bare as he plummeted downward.
At least it was better than last time.
He still had a sliver of energy left, even managing to manipulate air currents in reverse, pushing himself to accelerate his fall.
An endless tide of exhaustion washed over Rorschach, filling his body and mind.
He desperately wanted to close his eyes and sleep.
But just seconds later, high in the sky, that blazing fireball of infinite light brought a faint, involuntary smile to Rorschach's utterly weary face.
—
(End of Chapter)
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