Gern looked into his opponent's eyes—those unyielding, even more fiercely blazing flames of battle intent—and paused for a fraction of a second. Then he threw his head back and burst into laughter.
"Good! Very good! That's exactly how it should be!"The Black Blade Eight Desolations in his hand let out a delighted hum, as if it too were exhilarated by encountering such an opponent.
"Then… the next strike—"Gern dragged Eight Desolations behind him, the blade tip scraping across the ground.
Yet unlike before—unlike the violent prelude that had stirred heaven and earth—this time, something utterly bizarre descended.
A silence.
Not ordinary quiet, but a silence so profound it made the soul itself shudder.
Sound seemed to be stripped away.All things froze.
The spatial shock fissures along Eight Desolations' blade shifted in hue—what had once been a space-shattering pale white rapidly faded to deep blue, then finally condensed into a color that seemed capable of freezing the soul itself—
A bleak, glacial azure.
The high-frequency vibration's hum changed pitch abruptly, transforming from a destructive roar into an unbearably sharp shriek, one that nearly exceeded the limits of human hearing.
The air around the blade no longer warped.
Instead, it cracked—like fragile glass—revealing countless fine fractures, reminiscent of ice splitting under extreme cold.
And the transformation didn't stop there.
Those pale fractures deepened in color, rapidly shifting into a profound, icy blue—so cold and so deep that even light itself seemed capable of freezing within it.
"This is—"Hawk-Eye's hair stood on end instantly!
This wasn't fear of raw destruction.
It was something far more primal—a terror born from confronting absolute stillness, the ultimate end of all things.
He felt the temperature of the surrounding air plummet at an inconceivable rate. His exhaled breath crystallized into ice instantly. Even the blood surging through his veins—and the flow of Haki within his body—seemed to slow, as if time itself were thickening.
"What… is this?!"Hawk-Eye stared in shock at a power that should never have appeared on Gern's body.
"Back when I fought Kuzan, I gained quite a few insights,"Gern slowly lifted his head, his voice calm yet carrying a cold that could freeze everything.
"Especially regarding 'stillness.'
After all, vibration doesn't exist solely to destroy.
At the extreme… frequency can also guide all things toward—the end of motion itself."
As his words fell, Gern's arm muscles bulged. He swung the Black Blade Eight Desolations from back to front in a powerful arc!
The motion seemed slower than before—yet it carried an irresistible authority, as if enforcing the laws governing all existence.
"Vibration Lock—"
There was no deafening explosion.No violent shockwave.
"Absolute… Zero."
Where the blade passed, space itself seemed to freeze and solidify.
A thin, cicada-wing-like crescent slash—幽蓝, glacial blue, radiating boundless cold—flew silently toward Hawk-Eye!
Along its path, the air did not distort.
It died.
All vitality and energy were stripped away, molecular motion forcibly reduced to near-complete cessation.
Dust, debris—even light itself—appeared embedded in invisible amber, frozen motionless.
A glacial-blue "stasis zone" of absolute cold spread outward with the advancing slash.
Hawk-Eye's pupils shrank to pinpoints—the most dangerous size imaginable.
Every instinct and his peak Observation Haki screamed the same warning:
Do not touch it.Do not block it.
Dodge.He had to dodge.
In that instant between life and death, Hawk-Eye unleashed every ounce of his potential as the World's Greatest Swordsman!
The ground beneath his feet exploded—not from impact, but from the violent backlash of his Haki erupting all at once!
Using that instantaneous burst, his body moved as if defying physical law, slipping sideways and backward by the narrowest margin possible!
"SHRRRK—!!"
The glacial-blue Absolute Zero slash skimmed past Hawk-Eye's nose!
For that fleeting moment, he felt as if half his face—his hair, his blood, even his thoughts—were on the verge of freezing solid!
He could clearly see the edge of the slash, where air molecules trapped in absolute stasis shimmered with eerie blue ice crystals!
The Absolute Zero slash missed its target and continued onward, silently sinking into the distant, raging sea.
There was no explosion.
No towering wave.
Then—
An unforgettable scene unfolded.
Centered on the point of impact, the ocean surface within several kilometers froze completely—in a single instant.
As if time itself had stopped.
The waves remained in the shape of their previous motion, yet all vitality was gone, transformed into a dead, silent sculpture shimmering with ominous blue light.
Even splashes suspended in midair froze into bizarre crystalline forms, locked in place above the sea.
This "vibration-locked" ocean radiated a despair-inducing stillness and cold.
"—HISS!!"
In the distance, Enel sucked in a sharp breath, scalp tingling.
"Isn't that the ice guy's ability? Why the hell can Gern use it too?"
Barrett's manic grin froze solid, his gaze turning deadly serious.
Because in all his years of single combat, he had never forced Gern to use a move like this.
...
Meanwhile, Hawk-Eye—having barely escaped—knelt on one knee. The lingering cold still clung to half his face and his right arm, delivering bone-deep numbness and stabbing pain.
He panted heavily, each breath feeling like inhaling icy steel needles, his lungs burning with a twisted mix of frost and heat.
Yet his gaze remained locked on the completely "locked" sea in the distance.
Frozen waves.Motionless spray.All movement and vitality forcibly stripped away, leaving behind a dead, silent realm of absolute stillness glowing with sinister blue.
This was no natural phenomenon.
It was the ultimate vista produced when the laws of the world themselves were forcibly twisted.
Then his gaze slowly shifted—past that silent sea—until it finally settled on Gern.
Gern stood there, the glacial blue glow on Eight Desolations gradually being replaced by another pattern—dark red, like molten lava veins.
Extreme cold and extreme heat shifted within his grasp as naturally as breathing.
His towering form stood shrouded in lingering low-temperature mist and light warped by vibration—
Like a demon god straight out of myth, one who commanded destruction and finality itself.
In that moment, all of Hawk-Eye Mihawk's shock, confusion—and even that lingering trace of unwillingness—
He understood.
Completely.
"Natural disaster" was never just a title meant to showcase Gern's strength.
It represented something far beyond ordinary comprehension—a power standing above all beings,
An absolute, irresistible and unstoppable existence—like a force of nature itself.
Vibration could shatter continents, rip apart the sky, and raise tsunamis.
It could also plunge into the microscopic realm, manipulate molecules, and forge the deathly silence of absolute zero.
This had long surpassed the scope of "swordsmanship" or "martial technique."
This was power that touched the foundational rules of the world itself.
A true, walking calamity.
The man he had been so fixated on challenging—
Was an existence bordering on the embodiment of law itself.
"Disaster…!"