The natural system started off strong, but the navy finally reached its peak!

Gern moved!

After all, this is a move that Gern has always wanted to use, the same cool arm-crossing fighting style that Vegito often used in Dragon Ball!

Moreover, all it takes is combining one's Devil Fruit powers with physical skills to achieve this...

In a flash, Gern erased all traces of his presence from where he stood, and in a fraction of a second, he reappeared in the space behind Ace!

This is a movement technique that combines physical skills with the Devil Fruit's tremor ability to the extreme!

In less than the blink of an eye, Ace felt his hair stand on end and a deadly sense of crisis washed over him!

He didn't even have time to turn around, or even to transform into an element.

"Bang!!!" A heavy side kick slammed into his lower back!

The power was condensed to the extreme, with not a single bit wasted; it was a pure physical impact!

"Ugh!" Ace groaned in pain, feeling as if his internal organs had been dislocated, and his body staggered forward uncontrollably.

However, his body had only just left the ground, and his forward trajectory had not even fully unfolded.

Gern's figure once again "disappeared" from the spot like a ghost.

The next moment, he appeared directly in front of Ace's diving path, and then... another simple and sharp upward kick, the instep of his foot precisely striking Ace's chin!

"Snap!" (Sound of teeth clashing)

Ace's head snapped back, and the upward force kicked him, changing his direction and sending him flying vertically upwards!

The excruciating pain and dizziness surged like a tidal wave, and Ace's consciousness was almost shattered by this series of incomprehensible blows.

For a moment, he desperately tried to gather flames and adjust his posture.

But Gern still didn't give him any chance.

Almost at the same instant he reached the apex of the parabola, the figure once again defied the laws of physics and appeared directly above him!

As the shadow fell, Gern's eyes remained calm as he raised his right leg high and then slashed down!

"boom!!!"

The kick slammed into Ace's chest and abdomen, sending him plummeting straight down to the ground like a meteor!

"Boom!!!!"

A dull thud echoed across the beach, where a crack several meters in diameter was smashed into the sand!

Ace lay in the center of the pit, his body curled up in excruciating pain, unable to get up for the time being.

"Tsk tsk tsk!" At this moment, Gern's figure floated back to the original spot, still maintaining the posture of crossing his arms.

And so, looking down at Ace struggling at the bottom of the pit, he said calmly...

"How about it? It seems sufficient without using your hands."

Chapter 386 "One Slash"

"Cough...cough cough..."

Inside the pit, Ace coughed violently, each breath pulling at his heavily injured chest and abdomen, sending waves of tearing pain through him.

But with trembling arms, he stubbornly propped himself up, slowly stood up from the pit, raised his head, and blood spilled from the corner of his mouth.

"Even if..." His voice was a little hoarse, "even if the whole world doesn't acknowledge my existence!"

"No matter how much I am hated and rejected..." Ace straightened his spine, and the flames around him, which had been somewhat waning, rose again.

This time, the flames were no longer a fiery white, but rather a deep, dark blue and crimson hue!

"I'm going to become a great pirate! I'll make them all look at me with new eyes!"

"I will make the whole world know my name..." Ace roared to the sky, his voice accompanied by exploding flames that shot straight into the heavens.

"It's not because she carries that man's blood that she's known!!"

I am... Portgas D. Ace!

My prefix is ​​my mother's name! Not that man's!!!

"Boom!!!" Accompanied by this cry of the soul, the enormous vortex of rotating flames beneath Ace's feet suddenly expanded outwards from him.

It instantly covered an area of ​​several hundred meters in radius!

Within the vortex, the flames are no longer a gentle element, but a raging force!

"Great Flame Ring..." A massive vortex of flames rose from the ground, like a raging storm connecting heaven and earth, engulfing Gern and everything around him!

The vortex spun at high speed, emitting terrifyingly high temperatures, and the air was completely sucked away.

Immediately afterwards, within the raging vortex, several hideous ghost heads formed from extremely compressed flames materialized.

"Will-o'-the-wisp!!!!" With that, the ghostly head unleashed a silent roar, simultaneously locking onto Gern, the eye of the storm.

With the will to burn everything, it roared and devoured from all directions!

"Oh~ Oh!"

Faced with this cataclysmic scene, Gern was not panicked at all; on the contrary, he seemed to have seen something he had long awaited.

He stroked his chin with considerable satisfaction, his eyes sparkling with excitement.

"Not bad, not bad! That's more like it!"

"Three kicks forge an independent spirit; am I a passionate male protagonist?"

"Finally, we're getting to the main event! This is just right!"

Gern laughed loudly, and finally lowered his arms from his chest as he faced the roaring, fiery demon head.

But this time, his actions carried a completely different meaning.

It's no longer a casual parry or dodge, but rather carries a sense of ritual.

He slowly reached his right hand to his waist and grasped the black sword, Bahuang, which had been hanging quietly and wrapped with an old white cloth strip.

The instant his five fingers gripped the hilt of the knife

"Om-!"

A sense of oppression, far heavier and more tyrannical than ever before, swept out like a tangible tide!

The blade remained still, but the thick white cloth wrapped around it seemed unable to withstand the sudden awakening of power within.

It emitted a series of tearing sounds as it struggled under the strain!

The white strips of cloth snapped and tore apart inch by inch, turning into countless white fragments that flew everywhere. They were then instantly pulverized and vanished without a trace amidst the pervasive terrifying aura.

The fully liberated Eight Desolations revealed its complete form, its entire body as black as an abyss, its surface covered with dark red cracks.

The dark purple and dark red arcs of light exude a domineering aura (not lightning, but a visual manifestation of top-tier Conqueror's Haki and Armament Haki intertwined).

As if alive, it spontaneously wrapped around the blade, emitting a low, suppressed crackling sound.

The subtle, resonant vibration emanating from Gern caused a subtle distortion in the surrounding space.

With the Eight Desolations in hand, Gern's aura suddenly changed, and he firmly locked onto the fiery storm in front of him that was burning everything in its path.

He held the knife in one hand, casually pointing the Eight Directions Diagonal at the ground; the moment the tip touched the ground...

The ground beneath their feet let out a muffled groan, and spiderweb-like cracks spread silently.

“Then let me show you…” Gern’s voice wasn’t loud, but it carried a resolute determination that cut through everything, clearly piercing through the roar of the firestorm.

"What is—a heaven-shaking event!"

The moment the words left his mouth, Gern moved.

Without warning, without gathering power, and without even a afterimage.

He simply swung his sword at Ace, who was at the center of the raging firestorm that was devouring the heavens and earth and the hideous demon head.

A simple, unadorned horizontal slash.

There were no flashy special effects, no deafening roars, and no names of any moves were announced.

Only a knife.

The Black Blade Eight Desolations, wreathed in dark purple light, became unique in the world at this moment.

Where the blade passed, space was silently cut open, leaving behind a fleeting, purely "nothing" trace.

That world-destroying vortex of flames, that roaring, biting, ferocious demon head, that extreme heat capable of melting mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas...

Faced with this simple black slash, it was as if they had encountered their nemesis.

It was not shattered, not neutralized, and not scattered.

It means to sever.

The concept of "severing".

The flames were cleaved in two, and the violent energy structure completely disintegrated and annihilated the moment it touched the blade, as if it had never existed.

The massive firestorm, like a scroll torn apart by an invisible giant hand, started in front of Gern and collapsed to both sides!

The flames wailed and dissipated, revealing a crimson night sky behind them.

Everything was silently torn apart by this one blade.

The blade's trajectory showed no pause or deviation; it was faster than thought, faster than light, even faster than the very concept of "occurrence."

Ace's pupils still reflected the devastating scene of the will-o'-the-wisp, his fighting spirit boiling in his chest.

Even before the instruction for the next action has been transmitted to the limbs...

A chilling touch, gentle yet carrying an absolute sense of death, pressed against the skin of his neck.

Gern's figure had somehow appeared beside him, standing half a step behind him, still holding a knife in one hand and slightly turned to the side.

The jet-black blade, with its eight-sided edge, hovered with unparalleled precision above Ace's carotid artery, the distance less than a millimeter.

The chilling aura of the blade had already caused goosebumps to rise on Ace's skin, and a strand of hair from his forehead, severed by an invisible blade of energy, was slowly drifting down.

Time stood still at this moment.

From the moment Gern swung his sword, to the flames being extinguished, and then to the blade hovering over Ace's neck...

All of this happened in less than half a second.

Then, the outcome was decided.

Life and death are just a matter of a single thought for Gern.

Chapter 387 The weak have no right to decide how they die.

"You lost."

"I......."

"What? What can you do now?" Gern stared coldly at the motionless Ace, not immediately sheathing his sword.

Instead, he spoke softly in a calm, almost cold tone.

"What do you think power is? Is it a Devil Fruit? Is it an innate talent? Or... a surge of reckless courage?"

"When I first set foot on this sea, the legend of Rocks had already ended, and it was Roger, Shiki, and Whitebeard who began the legendary era."

"And I, initially, was just a member of a branch in the West Sea with no talent whatsoever, only slightly stronger than the average person."

Out of fear of death and to avoid pirate battles, they would even bribe the officers' servants, the lowly ants.

"Without the gift of blood, without the favor of destiny."

I've gotten this far because I dared to cut off my own escape route, gamble, and scheme, and that's the only bit of luck I got (the Heaven-Shaking Fruit and the Eight Desolations).

But even with the capital I had acquired, I was still very weak, so I began to plan, to proceed step by step, and to use every means at my disposal.

Go learn, acquire the resources (domineering aura techniques) to advance your career.

At this point, Gern's voice rose, tinged with laughter, "During this entire climb..."

I once drew my sword against Whitebeard when he was at his peak, and witnessed what the true 'world's strongest' really was.

In an era dominated by the naval academy system, he defeated Kizaru in actual combat at Marineford, where seniority was the primary factor!