Silence fell for a brief moment.A cold wind swept across the battlefield. No words were exchanged.
In the very next instant, both of them kicked off the ground at the same time!
The ice beneath their feet exploded apart. One blue, one white—two streaks of light shot forward like shells fired from cannons, racing straight down the shattered centerline of the frozen wasteland in a deadly head-on charge!
"Ice Hockey."Kuzan muttered softly.
In an instant, hundreds of baseball-sized ice spheres condensed around his body.
His arms blurred into afterimages as he hurled the ice balls forward like siege weapons, each one packed with terrifying freezing power!
Whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—whoosh!The ice balls ripped through the air, leaving behind countless pale frost trails.
Like a blizzard flying backward, they came crashing down on Gern Reginald Sigmar from every direction!
"Perfect!"Gern roared with laughter, his charge not slowing in the slightest.
Fist-sized, pale particle spheres vibrating at extreme frequency formed instantly in midair before him.
He lifted his left hand—and the vibration spheres fired forward head-on like a chain of cannons!
"Heavenquake—Falling Stars!"
The next second, the centerline of the battlefield became a symphony of annihilation!
BOOM! BOOM—BOOM—BOOM!Ice balls and vibration spheres collided and erased each other at a terrifying rate!
Extreme cold and extreme vibration—two opposing primal forces clashed violently within a narrow space.
Every collision erupted into a blinding blue-white energy burst. Deafening explosions overlapped without pause!
The repeated aerial detonations failed to fully cancel each other out. Instead, the escaping frost and shockwaves were forcibly twisted together—
Frozen air shattered into billions of crystal particles, only to be captured again in the next instant by fresh waves of cold.
In the blink of an eye, enormous, grotesque "ice flowers" bloomed again and again in midair between them—
Each one over ten meters wide, formed from countless ice shards and pale arcs of vibrating energy.
Their structures were exquisitely complex. The "petals" were razor-sharp ice blades.
They hovered briefly, refracting warped light—breathtakingly beautiful, and utterly terrifying.
Then they shattered under subsequent explosions, transforming into a rain of death mixed with ice knives and vibration waves that blanketed the entire battlefield!
The two of them sprinted at full speed through this constantly birthing-and-destroying field of death, hurling more ice balls and vibration spheres as the distance between them closed at a terrifying pace!
Kuzan's gaze pierced through the flashing explosions first, locking tightly onto Gern.
Every throw was calculated with precise lead timing. He even deliberately smashed ice balls into the ground to kick up freezing mist and obscure vision.
Gern, meanwhile, pushed his micro-vibration–based Observation Haki to its absolute limit.
Countless trajectories reflected in his pupils as he precisely intercepted every ice ball that posed a real threat, the shattered energy whipping his black hair into a wild frenzy!
Fifty meters! Thirty! Ten!
The final ice ball and the final vibration sphere slammed into each other at the centerline!
A colossal, unprecedented ice flower erupted, nearly filling all the space between them!
And in that very instant, neither of them slowed even a fraction—
Both figures, still wrapped in lingering particles and freezing mist, charged straight into the heart of the massive ice flower—
And toward each other—
Unleashing their next decisive strikes!
The core of the ice flower detonated under the twin forces, and the overwhelming blast swallowed both of them whole!
...
"It's not over yet, Kuzan!!"
Gern was hurled backward, bouncing wildly across the ground. He slammed both hands down to stabilize himself—then smashed his fists together.
HMMM—CRACK!A pale vibration sphere compressed into shape between his fists, its surface crawling with black lightning-like patterns.
The air was ripped away. Ice collapsed in wide swaths centered on him.
Kuzan's pupils contracted. His Observation Haki showed him the scene of destruction about to unfold.
He instantly plunged both arms into the ice and drove his Devil Fruit power to the limit.
"Ice River—Wall!"
Thousands of massive ice ramparts erupted from the ground, stacking layer upon layer like the ruins of an ancient glacier.
In the same heartbeat, Gern's killing move arrived.
"Heavenquake—Twin Star Annihilation!"
Two vibration spheres spiraled forward, and wherever they passed, space shattered like glass.
The first ice wall was pulverized into a skyful of ice crystals on contact. The second and third collapsed in rapid succession!
The shockwave spread outward in a ring, flinging frozen earth dozens of meters into the air.
Using the ice walls as cover, Kuzan leapt high into the sky, his right arm fully elementalized.
"Dual Thorn Spears!"
Countless ice lances poured down like a torrential rain.
Yet none fell in straight lines.
Under Kuzan's control, each spear traced a vicious arc, sealing off every possible escape angle.
Gern grinned, neither dodging nor retreating.
"Too slow!"
He stomped down, shattering the ice beneath his foot as a hemispherical vibration wave expanded outward.
The incoming spears were pulverized into icy shrapnel more than a hundred meters away—
But Kuzan's true killing strike was hidden within the freezing mist.
Three transparent ice-thorn lances suddenly pierced through the crystal fog!
Gern's pupils shrank. At the last possible instant, he twisted his body aside.
Shhk! Shhk!Two spears scraped past his ribs, carving deep frostburns down to the bone.
He caught the third barehanded. High-frequency vibration detonated instantly.
Crack!The ice lance exploded—but the extreme cold surged along his arm.
In the blink of an eye, Gern's entire right arm was encased in thick ice.
"Don't get too confident, Gern!!"
Kuzan landed, clapping his hands together as ice crystals across the battlefield suddenly condensed into countless mirror-like surfaces.
Each ice mirror reflected Kuzan's figure, completely throwing Gern's perception into chaos.
Gern shattered the ice encasing his arm with Armament Haki. The blood that seeped out froze instantly into crimson crystals.
His breathing grew heavy. White vapor streamed from his lips, frost beading on his eyelashes.
"So it's a mirror illusion…"
Then—unexpectedly—Gern closed his eyes.
The deafening explosions and bone-chilling cold seemed to vanish.
All presence, all killing intent, was drawn inward to an absolute extreme—like the dead-calm sea before a superstorm.
Slowly, he raised both palms, one above the other, suspended at the center of his chest.
HMMMM.
A deeply unsettling hum was born between his hands—not from sound, but from space itself trembling.
The atmosphere wailed. Light twisted and collapsed between his palms.
An intensely irregular pale sphere abruptly took shape.
Unlike his previous vibration spheres, this one was wildly unstable. Its surface bulged, rippled, and deformed violently—like a forcibly restrained spatial heart desperate to break free.
Inside was pure chaos.
Dense black spatial fissures flickered across its surface like blood vessels, radiating a terrifying threat that made even Kuzan's marrow feel frozen solid.
"This is…?!"
Kuzan's Observation Haki screamed with an unprecedented sense of danger.
This feeling was far stronger than anything Gern had used before.
Instinctively, he tried to elementalize and retreat—to interrupt Gern's charge.
But it was already too late.