CHAPTER 93: CHAPTER 93 KARL AND THE BLUE-EYES WHITE DRAGON’S FINAL COMBINED TECHNIQUE, CURTAIN FALL!

The Thunder Spear’s power was terrifying!

The compressed lightning, like Kizaru’s light-speed kick.

Once thrown and detonated, it unleashed a world-shattering blast.

A thundercloud-like mushroom cloud, shot through with lightning, rose.

The shockwave shattered kilometers of ice, and the searing electro-heat melted the shards back into seawater.

Whoosh—

A streak of light flew out of the cloud and resolved into Kizaru, unscathed, not even a speck of dirt on his clothes.

Gazing at the sky-darkening cloud, Kizaru sighed: "Compressing energy into a weapon and hurling it to detonate—such a bold method. I’ve never done that."

Even as he spoke of being outclassed, the next second he raised his long leg, blazing with gold.

His Observation Haki tore through the thundercloud and fixed on a certain figure.

Shoom—BOOM!

As if answering Karl’s surprise attack, Kizaru kicked a beam across the gap into the mushroom cloud.

The light-speed kick that could pulverize a mountain bellowed within the cloud, no quieter than the Thunder Spear’s blast.

Dazzling gold bloomed inside, drowning the writhing snakes of lightning.

Then a gale-force shockwave blew apart the vast cloud that could have lingered for dozens of minutes.

When the cloud dispersed, a spectacular scene appeared above and below the ice.

Karl hovered astride the Blue-Eyes White Dragon, a freshly formed Thunder Spear in hand.

Blue-white currents still coiled around man and dragon.

In the air ahead floated arcs and golden photons—the lingering ripples of the Rumble-Rumble Fruit and the Glint-Glint Fruit.

It was clear Kizaru’s kick had been checked by something inside the cloud.

What blocked it was Karl’s second Thunder Spear.

That shockwave had been the explosion where lightning met light.

Below, the sea froze over again at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Yes, visibly so.

In mere seconds, surging seawater across several kilometers refroze into an ice plain.

A figure like an ice statue slowly rose.

As the ice receded, Aokiji stood again upon the ice, glanced first at his right hand, then looked up at the pair in the sky, his face dark.

The palm and back of that right hand showed faint burn marks.

Clearly...

The seamless, no-windup combo from man and dragon had caught Aokiji off guard and wounded him.

He was not hurt by the Thunder Spear itself but by the aftershock after it detonated.

No weaker than a light-speed kick that could shatter a mountain, it blew apart kilometers of ice and drove Aokiji’s elementalized body into the sea.

Because he fell into the water, Aokiji had to reveal his true body to use the Ice-Ice Fruit.

At the very moment he surfaced and froze the sea—

The lingering blast of the Thunder Spear, laden with electric heat, burned the hand he used to wield his power.

Luckily he elementalized at once, or the burn would have been far worse.

"...Finally got a hit in. That wasn’t easy!"

Karl’s unique-tier perception tracked Aokiji’s movements and injury.

To have finally hurt one of the two monsters.

It was only a small wound, but it filled Karl with a sense of achievement.

He had thought he’d need to fight Aokiji and Kizaru for days and nights to leave a mark.

Yet just after opening Dragon Knight mode, he caught Aokiji off guard and marked him.

For Karl, that was truly satisfying.

After all, in the original story Aokiji and Akainu fought ten days and nights to decide a winner.

They clearly couldn’t hurt each other at first; only after days did their stamina and Haki wane, their pre-emptive elementalization grow sluggish, and real injuries begin.

Now Karl had scorched Aokiji’s palm in a single strike.

Carelessness or not, it was incredible.

After all, neither Aokiji nor Kizaru had yet injured Karl or the Blue-Eyes White Dragon.

Seeing Aokiji hurt, Karl and the dragon ignored the not-so-distant Kizaru.

With Thunder Spear in hand, the dragon, linked mind-to-mind, turned into current and blinked out without Karl saying a word.

Just like before...

The dragon flashed to ground level and Karl hurled the spear.

BOOOOM—!

The deafening blast split the sky again.

Another thundercloud mushroomed upward.

"Such enviable stamina. I can’t throw out light-speed kicks with such abandon," Kizaru murmured, sincerity uncertain.

Then his body flared gold; rather than another kick at man and dragon, he turned to light, aiming to rush Gran Tesoro while they focused on Aokiji.

Shoom—BOOM!!!

But after only a hundred meters, a lance of light burst from the cloud.

Its speed was extreme—or the throw had been that powerful.

Like a meteor, it caught the golden streak and detonated midair like a timed charge.

A dazzling blue-white firework blossomed in the blue sky.

"Old man, I won’t let you succeed."

The dragon flew from the cloud; Karl formed another Thunder Spear and said as he looked at Kizaru, whose flight had been cut off.

"With Observation like that, it’s a shame you aren’t a sniper," Kizaru said.

He hadn’t expected to succeed anyway.

Seeing Karl truly using Thunder Spear like a basic attack, Kizaru’s face, for once, turned serious. "In that case, let’s see how long your stamina holds."

Shoom—BOOM!

He flipped in midair and kicked a golden beam at Karl and the dragon.

They did not evade; another Thunder Spear met the light-speed kick head-on.

With Dragon Knight mode active, Karl commanded absolute air superiority.

He need only watch for Aokiji’s ultra-wide chill and keep his body coated in Armament to avoid freezing; Aokiji would be absolutely on the back foot.

Compared to Aokiji, it was Kizaru—who could also fly and who targeted Gran Tesoro—who demanded Karl’s attention.

To stop his advance, every move Karl used next was the Thunder Spear.

With the dragon carrying him through teleports, he only had to lock on with Observation and keep forming spears.

Each spear cost stamina, but far less than the mysterious light-spear.

With his current fitness he could keep it up for nearly half a day.

Half a day would be enough!

And so...

The ice field rang with continuous bombardments.

Each Thunder Spear rivaled the light-speed kick, able to shatter a Red Line–scale mass with one hit.

Each one that struck the ice blossomed into a vast mushroom cloud, leaving Aokiji to defend passively.

Each one thrown aloft burst into a huge blue-white firework, and Kizaru could only elementalize and endure.

When Aokiji froze the spear’s surface, it only triggered the inner charge to detonate early.

Beyond his wide-area freeze, he had no move to counter the Thunder Spear and could only take the hits.

With that one costly lesson, none of the following spears injured him further.

But standing there to be pounded only made his already sour mood worse.

As for Kizaru...

As a consummate opportunist, he would not take actions he was unsure of or that required losing his cool.

As for losing his cool?

Only a madman would do what Karl was doing now.

Since eating the Glint-Glint Fruit he had met many crazies, but none as crazy as Karl.

With stamina enough to fight the two for ten days and nights—or to escape at any time—he insisted on burning through his oceanic reserves.

At this rate of expenditure, even a sea-blessed monster body would last at most half a day.

Except...

Karl knew these big moves wouldn’t wound them—so why keep throwing them?

Was he... buying time?

Swallowed once more by a spear’s blast, Kizaru glanced toward Gran Tesoro.

The guess in his heart stayed his hand; he looked to the sky.

Whatever...

I can’t break away right now anyway, so why bother.

Of course, if I could break away, that would be different.

So he let the spears wash over him, letting the elemental body get knocked back.

Once free of the blast, he flashed toward Gran Tesoro again.

As if matching pace with Karl.

If Karl could keep him from reaching the skies over Gran Tesoro, then yes—he was buying time, and Kizaru would concede it.

If not, then he would complete the mission.

As Karl kept hurling spears to hold them both, his stamina began to drop visibly.

For the first three hours the drain wasn’t obvious.

After six, his breathing turned ragged and he slowed the rate of forming spears.

After nine, Karl—who had completed a second evolution—was sweating for the first time, panting.

The long-lost feeling of exhaustion finally made him stop, staring at Aokiji and Kizaru who’d spent half a day with him as if nothing had happened.

"...Monsters!"

Seeing Karl at last stop the bombardment, Aokiji couldn’t help speaking, joining the camp of Gecko Moria, Rayleigh, and Crocodile.

Those who can throw mountain-busting moves are strong in this world.

At least that one Thunder Spear would utterly overwhelm Enies Lobby–era Lucci and Luffy.

With their power then, they couldn’t have withstood it.

Each light-spear was near-invincible on the first half of the Grand Line.

Even in the New World, it was a first-rate trump.

And Karl had kept forming and throwing them for nine hours.

The total power unleashed in those nine hours...

It was no exaggeration to say it could erase a large island.

Even just refreezing the ruined sea for nine hours cost Aokiji no small amount.

Which showed how terrifying Karl’s stamina was.

Aokiji had no word but monster.

Even another Rumble-Rumble user couldn’t have matched it.

A monster favored by the sea.

Aokiji’s understanding of such naturally mighty monsters deepened again.

But now... their chance!

"Such stamina—it’s scary," Kizaru said from the heart.

He too had spent a fair share in the exchange.

Then the two Admirals who’d been "suppressed" for nine hours let their auras rise like waking beasts, fixing on Karl about to unleash more thunder.

Rumble...

Crackle...

Just then, a blast-like quake rolled in from afar.

In a blink it spread from tens of kilometers away to Aokiji’s position.

The ice around him crazed with cracks.

"..."

Feeling the tremor, both Aokiji and airborne Kizaru looked toward the source.

Dozens of kilometers away, the ten-thousand-meter golden ship frozen into the sea suddenly shuddered.

Like an alien flying saucer from Karl’s previous life...

It trembled as if pulled by gravity, straining to wrench free of the ice and fly.

Shoom—

Without hesitation, Kizaru abandoned the best opening to grab Karl and flashed toward Gran Tesoro.

But Karl was faster.

Or rather, the Blue-Eyes White Dragon—who had spent little—was faster.

Turning into current and threading the field, the dragon blinked several times to appear ahead of Kizaru.

And Kizaru’s pupils shrank.

"Combined Technique: Ultimate Annihilation Ray!"

Karl and the dragon opened their mouths together, gathering two beams of different attributes and roaring them at Kizaru.

Karl’s was lightning; the dragon’s was light.

Different as they were, they fused perfectly into a Light-and-Thunder Annihilation Ray.

Unlike the earlier light-and-thunder beam, this one was vastly stronger and seemed to produce a strange property.

And both coated it with Armament Haki.

The move made Kizaru feel true danger; his Observation warned him not to take it head-on.

Shoom—

Without a moment’s delay, the cautious Kizaru stopped, kicked a golden beam into the ray, and then flashed away to another spot.

As his bad hunch foretold—

The light-speed kick did not set the ray off.

Instead the ray devoured his light, grew, and in a blink flooded where he’d been.

A second slower and he’d have been swallowed.

Elementalized, he still could not instant-shift free; he could only burn stamina to maintain the form until the beam exploded or dissipated.

When the combined ray missed, they swung it downward.

He watched that annihilation beam—neither a light-speed kick nor God’s Verdict nor the Thunder Spear.

Feeling the same threat, Aokiji vanished with Soru.

Rumble...

The beam hit the ice and detonations rolled one after another.

Yes—one after another!

The combined technique was sustained.

Linked in mind, man and dragon swept the beam up and down, left and right, hunting Aokiji and Kizaru across sky and ice.

If either was caught and couldn’t escape, the beam would drive him into the sea.

The only way to break it would be to appear behind them and strike.

But even Kizaru couldn’t sneak up on perception like theirs.

The annihilation ray burned the last of Karl’s strength.

He held on until the golden ship tore free of the ice and floated.

Until the beam shattered the ice below back into sea for the umpteenth time, then at last faded.

Shoom—

As it vanished, the dragon teleported the utterly spent Karl back to Gran Tesoro.

As the Golden City rapidly lifted into the sky, the Buster Call that had lasted about two weeks finally ended in a Marine defeat.

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