Chapter 1048: Who Wins, Who Loses | The Final Showdown

Chapter 1048: Chapter 1048: Who Wins, Who Loses | The Final Showdown

The Mirror World lay in tatters. Twisted, serpentine fissures and bottomless craters scarred the landscape, turning the entire terrain into a desolate wasteland of crumbled, fragmented ruins.

"Heh... heh... heh... That’s the stuff! That’s the stuff!"

Aeridar knelt on the ground, blood spilling from the corner of his mouth. Before the droplets could even hit the floor, they evaporated with a faint hiss from the intense heat radiating off his body. A massive hole had been torn into the flame-plate armor protecting his chest; though it was rapidly knitting itself back together, the charred, blackened flesh beneath remained visible.

To pierce through both the armor forged by Zhurong and the hardened defense of Armament Haki, the power of a Yonko was truly that of a monster among monsters.

However, Big Mom wasn’t faring much better. She was a woman who, at five years old, had shattered a giant’s steel blade with her bare skin. Through years of storms and gunfire, she had never known a scratch. Known as the "Iron Balloon," even her legendary physical defense had failed to withstand Aeridar’s assault; a large, scorched, bleeding crater marred her chest, and even as the flames cauterized the wound, fresh blood continued to flow.

More importantly, Aeridar could draw upon stored cellular energy to self-heal. Big Mom, conversely, could only suffer as her injuries compounded. The relentless blood loss exacerbated her heart rate, leading to oxygen deprivation, rapid stamina depletion, and bouts of fainting.

In short, Aeridar possessed a built-in regeneration skill that allowed him to maintain peak combat efficiency, while Big Mom was in a state of constant, irreversible decay, her physical condition and combat prowess steadily spiraling downward.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM...

Before Aeridar could fully recover, Zeus bloomed with blinding light in the sky, raining down jagged bolts of lightning that blanketed the area for hundreds of meters. The ground was shredded by the bombardment, churning into massive, scorched pits. Aeridar wove through the "lightning rain" with terrifying agility, his speed leaving trailing afterimages; at times, he simply vanished, teleporting a thousand meters away.

Wum—RUMBLE!

The air shrieked. A transparent, circular shockwave erupted outward, scoured the earth, and surged forward with the force of a tidal wave.

"Aeridar—!"

Charlotte Linlin let out a shriek that sounded like a vengeful spirit. She swung her giant blade, Napoleon, with reckless abandon. A razor-sharp, invisible gust of wind burst forth, cleaving through the incoming shockwave as if it were a crashing wave hitting a reef. The energy split, swirling violently away on either side of her.

The bifurcated shockwave dissipated into chaotic, high-velocity air currents, yet they still gouged a labyrinth of blade-like scars into the earth on both sides.

Riding the wake of the shockwave, Aeridar followed the rushing heat like a demon god born of flame. In a blink, he was before Charlotte Linlin, launching a flying kick.

BANG!

A circular heatwave exploded. The ground shattered, cracks racing outward in a radius of hundreds of meters. Charlotte Linlin blocked the kick with her Armament-hardened black left arm, but she immediately raised her right hand, bringing Napoleon crashing down toward Aeridar’s head.

In an instant, Aeridar vanished via teleportation. Napoleon slammed into the earth.

BOOM!

The terrifying force of the blow split the ground asunder, kicking up a sky-high column of dust and debris. The fissure raced forward, extending hundreds of meters across the Mirror World in mere heartbeats.

Almost simultaneously, Aeridar reappeared a hundred meters away. He shoved his palms forward, compressing the air until it solidified into a visible, transparent wall.

Pressurized Wall!

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM...

High above, Zeus spotted Aeridar’s location and unleashed several bucket-thick bolts of blinding lightning, slamming them into the air wall. The sheer power of the electricity nearly shattered the compressed air, and the stray arcs turned the area in front of Aeridar into a crackling field of discharge.

"Airquake!"

Aeridar roared. Not waiting for the arcs to fade, he slammed a fist into the very air before him.

CRACK—!

RUMBLE... RUMBLE...

With a sickening tear, the air itself shattered. A dozen jagged fissures materialized in space, transmitting a potent, high-frequency vibration through the atmosphere. A thunderous roar erupted as the ground ahead collapsed in a chain reaction, kicking up a wall of dust that reached the heavens.

"Kugh—!"

The shockwave was too wide to avoid. Charlotte Linlin took the brunt of it head-on, spewing a mouthful of blood as she was sent careening backward.

"Hahaha—got you!"

Seeing this, Aeridar laughed maniacally and launched himself into the air, closing the gap.

"Don’t you dare hurt Mama!"

Zeus screamed, hacking out bolt after bolt of lightning, churning the ground into a chaotic mess of flying rock.

But Aeridar, in the span of a few breaths, bypassed the barrage. He arrived directly in front of Charlotte Linlin, his right hand fingers held together, vibrating at a speed invisible to the naked eye. A faint, ethereal white light began to glow from his fingertips.

High-Frequency Vibration Black Blade!

Suddenly, before his hand-blade could land, a brilliant flash of steel erupted. With blood streaming from her mouth and nose, Charlotte Linlin, looking like a true demon, swung Napoleon with everything she had left.

"Damn it—!"

Aeridar’s eyes widened. He saw the giant blade descending, felt the killing intent of the gale-force wind, and realized he couldn’t dodge. He gambled on a final strike: his right arm transformed into a long blade and thrust forward like a lightning bolt.

SHUCK!SHUCK!

It was a mutual strike. The giant blade cleaved into Aeridar’s shoulder, while his hand-blade plunged deep into Charlotte Linlin’s chest. Fresh, crimson blood erupted into the air.

A few seconds later, Aeridar went pale as a sheet. He coughed up a massive spray of blood; the blade had nearly severed his entire left shoulder and come inches from bisecting his heart. His body rapidly shrank, leaking vitality like a punctured balloon. He stumbled back, the giant blade falling away, and collapsed onto one knee.

Across from him, Charlotte Linlin had a jagged, gaping hole in her chest. The wound had nearly passed through her body, and most critically, Aeridar’s strike had pierced exactly where her heart lay.

CLANG—

Charlotte Linlin swayed. She leaned on Napoleon, the giant blade serving as a crutch to keep her upright.

"Mama!"

"Are you okay, Mama?!"

"H-her heart... it’s been pierced!!"

Zeus, Prometheus, and Napoleon, the three Homies, screeched in sheer, unadulterated terror.