A breath of frigid air escaped Yamato’s mouth. Inside the ice dome, already engulfed in a blizzard, the temperature dropped once again. Though Mars’s black flames enveloped his entire body, they could not stop the chill from seeping into him.
But in the next instant, that cold inexplicably began to dissipate. The temperature even rose slightly compared to before, while Yamato’s face became covered in frost.
The black-and-white armor covering her body gradually lost its color, eventually turning into a pure icy blue.
“Has the power begun to backfire on you? To have mastered this degree of power at your age is already extraordinarily difficult. Unfortunately, you are enemies of the World Government, and anyone who resists the World Government has only one end—destruction.”
Mars could feel Yamato’s body temperature steadily falling until it had practically merged with the surrounding environment. How could a human body’s temperature possibly fall this low? To Mars, this was clearly the result of her being unable to control her own power.
In theory, a Devil Fruit’s power should not backfire on its user. At worst, they simply would not be able to fully utilize the fruit’s abilities. But such cases were not entirely unheard of—the Jailer Beasts of Impel Down who failed their Awakening were one example.
“Are all Celestial Dragons this unbearably arrogant? That self-righteousness of yours really does run in every last one of you.”
While Mars was busy drawing his own conclusions, Yamato’s body had already moved again. With her body temperature reduced to the freezing point and completely blended into the environment, she had actually vanished from Mars’s Observation Haki for an instant just now.
Mars desperately tried to evade, but the kanabo still grazed part of his body. Then something beyond his understanding happened once again.
The flames froze.
It was precisely to counter Yamato’s ice that Mars had wrapped his body in these black flames. They were hellish black flames formed from resentment. So long as resentment still existed in the world, so long as even one person had died an unjust death, these flames would never go out.
Yet these supposedly inextinguishable flames had actually frozen before his very eyes. Had he not deliberately shed the feathers on that part of his body, the ice might have continued spreading upward along him.
“Ragnaraku Bagua • Sheer Cold!”
Yamato was grateful for Rayquaza’s temperament, as it meant the attack name she had thought of earlier never ended up being used on Kaido. Regardless of whether Kaido would ever use that move in the future, today she would be the first to unleash it.
As a signature Ice-type move, Sheer Cold possessed tremendous power, but it also had one fatal flaw: its absurdly terrible accuracy.
Against opponents with mediocre Observation Haki, Yamato had no reason to use a move like this. A few Thunder Baguas were enough to beat them into obedience.
But opponents strong enough to warrant the use of Sheer Cold generally possessed extremely powerful Observation Haki. With Observation Haki allowing them to predict attacks in advance, Sheer Cold’s pitiful hit rate made it almost impossible to land. To deal with this problem, Yamato had developed this move.
If the move itself had poor accuracy, then she would simply find a way to improve its accuracy. For example, by integrating it into her “normal attacks.”
Earlier, she had dispersed part of Zekrom’s and Reshiram’s power, clearing out the powers of lightning and fire and leaving behind only the hollow shell of the armor. Only then could she achieve her objective.
She merged Sheer Cold into her own body. Once that fusion was complete, she herself became Sheer Cold. Every swing of Takeru carried the extreme cold of Sheer Cold.
As long as she made contact with her opponent, Sheer Cold would take effect, freezing their life from the inside out.
And on top of that, there was the Conqueror’s Haki wrapped around the kanabo and Yamato’s own monstrous strength. This was the “one-hit-kill” form she had developed.
When entering this state, her body itself entered a strange condition. It was precisely this “freezing” that had caused her to disappear from Mars’s Observation Haki just now.
“Didn’t you say you wanted to finish all of this before dawn? I was thinking the same thing. I can’t maintain this state for very long. If I keep it up too long, even I’ll start feeling uncomfortable.”
That was one of the drawbacks of this form. Even though Kyurem is the Dragon of Ice, and Okuchi no Makami can command the power of ice, directly bearing this power with her own body still placed an enormous burden on her.
“I can’t touch her!”
That was the only thought in Mars’s mind. In this state, Yamato could not be confronted head-on at all. Ice capable of freezing even flames; he did not need to test it to know what would happen if it touched him.
“Blazing Feather Gale!”
Mars flapped his wings, sending countless burning feathers shooting from his body like arrows toward the ground. The razor-sharp feathers carved tears into the earth the instant they struck, with innumerable feathers burying themselves underground.
But even more of them flew toward Yamato. Yet those feathers could not escape the fate of being frozen either. As they approached Yamato, the flames clinging to them gradually began to go out.
The instant they actually touched Yamato’s body, Sheer Cold transformed them into ice crystals. Aside from leaving shards scattered all over the ground, they failed to affect Yamato in the slightest.
“Poison Thunderstorm!”
The feathers that had previously buried themselves in the ground changed once more at Mars’s command. Rather than exploding, they melted into a kind of liquid oil and, under Mars’s control, surged upward toward Yamato.
At the same time, accompanied by the distinctive cry of the Itsumade, two bolts of lightning fell from nowhere. Mars himself made another desperate charge at Yamato, the clawed blades on his feet closing like scissors toward her neck.
Touching Yamato was dangerous. But so long as he could kill her, even the gravest wounds could be repaired by the regenerative power of a Mythical Zoan.
“If I said it’s useless, it’s useless! This is the secret move I prepared to freeze that bast…my father! You can taste it in his place!”
Perfectly fusing different powers was not something that could be done just by wanting it. Combining the powers of three dragons into one was already a hellishly difficult task. Although she could not yet achieve a complete fusion, Yamato had still found another way to become stronger.
If she could not perform the final combination, then she would simply push one aspect to the absolute extreme. As long as the advantage was large enough, it could always compensate for some of the weaknesses.
The black liquid froze. The lightning from the sky was blocked by the barrier. And Yamato’s kanabo smashed toward the talons Mars had kicked at her.
Boom!
Haki screamed. The sky trembled. Their collision forcibly tore open a gap in the blizzard. When Yamato turned around, Mars, still airborne, was already missing one leg.
Not a single drop of blood flowed from the wound. From the instant he had been struck, the blood around Mars’s injury had already frozen. As for the severed limb itself, it had long since shattered into ice powder and merged into the blizzard raging inside the dome.
Slash!
Mars’s tail swept across the stump of his severed leg, cutting away the necrotic part. Only after fresh blood began dripping down did his body finally start slowly regenerating.
The speed was far slower than his normal regeneration rate, but Mars understood perfectly well that this was all due to Yamato’s extreme cold.
“Mythical Zoans really do have incredible vitality. But Dad once told me there are people who can even use extreme cold to freeze time. I can’t do that yet, but why don’t you take a guess, when exactly will your life freeze over?
When you report your name to the envoy from hell… make sure you tell them clearly who killed you!”
Without waiting for Mars to finish regenerating, Yamato swung her kanabo again. At that moment, the blizzard within the dome seemed to come under the command of Yamato’s weapon. Countless ice crystals condensed into a terrifying flying dragon, charging toward Mars alongside the swing of Yamato’s club.
And this was only one corner of the battlefield. While Yamato was creating the spectacle of all things freezing over, her clones were not idle either.
The extreme cold environment undoubtedly affected those fighting within it. But Yamato’s clones were made of ice in the first place, so naturally they were unaffected by the cold.
On White Yamato’s side, flames and frost rolled across the battlefield before eventually merging into the form of Ice Burn.
Unlike the broad, forceful swings of Yamato’s kanabo, White Yamato’s attacks were swift and vicious like a venomous snake.
“Meteor Fist!”
Garp attempted to block with his fists, but he was clearly unable to match White Yamato’s offense. The Sheer Cold being used by Yamato’s true body was affecting this area far too heavily. His already injured and weakened body had become even harder to use, as though someone had placed shackles directly around his bones.
“Brat, don’t underestimate… this old man! Galaxy Impact!”
After White Yamato landed several consecutive attacks, Garp suddenly erupted with astonishing strength and threw a punch at her.
The angle of Garp’s sudden counterattack was extremely tricky. White Yamato could not dodge in time, and the kanabo made of ice crystals was shattered by a single punch. But that did not affect her combat ability at all.
A clone had no life, which meant it could ignore many things. Faced with Garp’s charge, White Yamato did not even attempt to evade. She simply allowed Garp to smash apart part of her ice body.
But before Garp could feel happy, icy blue flames suddenly erupted. With White Yamato as the center, the surrounding dozens of meters instantly became the domain of Ice Burn.
The flames surged upward, invading most of Garp’s body in an instant. At the same time, the shattered kanabo reformed, and a single blow struck Garp squarely in the back of the head.
With his body covered in debuffs, Garp collapsed almost immediately. Then, under the influence of the ice flames, he was frozen solid once again.
Up in the sky, Black Yamato likewise wielded a kanabo as she roared and launched her assault.
Lightning shot skyward from the kanabo in her hands. As she swung it, a sharp smell of something scorched even spread through the air.
Dragon had long since been forced to prepare himself for battle as well. If the Marines’ intelligence network was like a net full of holes that constantly let key information slip through, then the Revolutionary Army’s intelligence network was even worse.
Even the World Government’s supposedly cautious assessment had still underestimated the Beasts Pirates. Dragon’s underestimation of them was far more severe. He had badly underestimated how confident they were in the defenses of their own territory.
Had he known these people would be this difficult to communicate with, he would have continued waiting for the next time the winds changed.
At this moment, several streaks of frost burst from Black Yamato’s fingertips and transformed into drifting white snow in midair. Then those snowflakes somehow became nodes in the sky, releasing countless bolts of lightning in every direction. As the bolts interconnected, they formed an entire special prison of ice and thunder.
“What are these monsters….?”
Zoro’s body was trembling. Not from fear, but from the severe cold.
Even though they were outside the dome and had not been hit by the most direct wave of freezing air, the low temperature was still difficult to endure. Udon was normally relatively warm, so during their imprisonment they had never felt particularly cold. Hercules had not brought them any cotton-padded clothes either.
The clothes they were wearing now had all been stripped from CP0 agents.
Those people wore long-sleeved suits regardless of whether it was hot or cold, and the suits were far better at retaining warmth than their own clothes.
The ice dome blocked most of their view, but Zoro could still sense how intense the battle inside was.
“Looks like Hercules was right. It seems even worse out there than it is in here. Did someone drag an iceberg over here or something?”
Sanji had a cigarette clenched between his teeth. That too was loot taken from the enemy. From where they stood, they could even see the wall Regice had raised at the edge of Udon. He could imagine just how terrifying conditions must be over there.
“No idea. But let’s deal with these guys in front of us first. Looks like we’ve been singled out.”
The Straw Hats did not understand the Beasts Pirates’ signals. They had not retreated to the safe zone. Nor had they chosen to escape from prison like the ordinary inmates. Because they were still lingering in Udon, they had instead become targets for the remaining CP0 agents.
And while fighting, they still had to look after the weaker members of their crew.
“Franky Per*ert Flame!”
Franky was breathing out flames in an attempt to thaw Usopp and Nami, but the results were minimal. In this kind of environment, ordinary flames melted the ice more slowly than it could refreeze.
“This really is troublesome. Looks like they’re not going to thaw that easily. Is there anything else around here that can burn?”
“Doesn’t look like it. But Franky, why are you talking like that?”
“Huh? You’re asking super me why I’m talking like this? It’s because there’s no cola, so I had to make do with curry-flavored soda! Who invents soda with a strange flavor like this?!”
As long as enough different drinks were prepared, one could witness what it meant for Franky to have endless variations. After thinking it over, though, Franky decided anything carbonated was still better than the cherry milkshake from before.
If he kept drinking cherry milkshakes for a few more days, someone might end up stealing his peaches.
“Stop talking about pointless crap! If you can’t thaw them, take them somewhere safer! The monsters here aren’t limited to the ones inside that dome!”
Zoro shouted at them, then snatched a sword barehanded from one of the enemies. The weapons Hercules had brought him were not his original swords. These blades did not fit Zoro’s hands very well, making it difficult for him to display his full strength.
If he absolutely had to compare them, these lousy swords were not even as easy to use as the giant leeks wielded by those Sirfetch’d who used to beat him up at the dojo.
“There really are a lot of unexpected developments. To think Garp’s grandson would become an obstacle to this operation. What a family incapable of distinguishing right from wrong.”
Saturn glanced toward Luffy’s side out of the corner of his eye. He did not pay much attention to Mars. Even though Yamato had already revealed an overwhelming advantage, Saturn showed no sign of urgency whatsoever, as though he had everything under control.
“There are plenty of things you haven’t anticipated. Daring to get distracted at a time like this, you really are overconfident.”
Pssh!
Shayna did not understand why Saturn would allow himself to be distracted, but she still thrust her spear straight toward his heart. The spear pierced Saturn’s chest with almost no resistance. Yet Shayna was not satisfied. Judging from the sensation through her weapon, this thing was hollow.
Saturn still wore the same expression as before. But then the spider-like lower half of his body suddenly split open, and q smaller Saturn stepped out from within.
It seemed Saturn’s original body had long since become an empty shell. His real body had merely remained hidden inside that husk, allowing him to deceive every one of Shayna’s senses.
“Your weapon is dangerous, but if I don’t wish to be stabbed by it, I can naturally dodge.”
Saturn’s body expanded back to its original size off to the side. Meanwhile, the empty shell he had left behind suddenly exploded. Countless streams of black water burst from within, and a considerable amount splashed directly onto Shayna’s body.
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