Chapter 977: Overwhelming Strength, Tesoro’s Absolute Domination

Chapter 977: Chapter 977: Overwhelming Strength, Tesoro’s Absolute Domination

"What a pity, you little Germa brats. Within my kingdom, no one can defy me, and you three will be no exception!"

Gild Tesoro’s expression turned utterly savage. He flexed his fully repaired right arm, the titanic limb of gold slicing through the air with a violent, howling gale.

The moment he finished speaking, the streets beneath his feet liquefied like seawater, transforming into a shimmering golden ocean. A split second later, a massive golden tidal wave, dozens of meters high, surged forward with a deafening rumble like ten thousand galloping horses, threatening to swallow everything in its path.

The colossal golden wave blotted out the city’s neon lights, casting a suffocating shadow over the area. Ichiji and his brothers didn’t dare remain on the ground for another second and instantly triggered their thrusters, rocketing into the sky.

RUMBLE— RUMBLE—

A cataclysmic roar shook the harbor as the towering golden tsunami crashed downward, completely obliterating and sweeping away every structure on the street with unstoppable force.

Mid-air, Ichiji kept his eyes locked onto the space behind Tesoro and commanded calmly, "Niji, go save Father! Yonji and I will keep this bastard occupied. Take this chance to break through!"

"Leave it to me!" Niji nodded sharply. Among the brothers, he possessed the highest top speed, making him the ideal candidate to slip past the enemy’s perimeter.

"Then let’s raise some hell!" Yonji’s face twisted into a fierce grin as he smashed his fists together with a heavy BANG.

"Hahahahaha—!!! Defying a god will bring you nothing but despair!"

Tesoro laughed maniacally as he thrust his massive hand forward. The golden giant’s cylindrical fingers suddenly elongated, whipping through the sky like five colossal golden lashes as they shot toward the airborne Vinsmoke brothers.

"Quit acting so high and mighty, you bastard!!!"

Yonji roared, the high-tech Raid Suit boots on his feet erupting with high-pressure gas as he rocketed forward at an angle.

Weaving fluidly through the maze of towering golden fingers that resembled pillars of heaven, Yonji closed the distance in a matter of heartbeats, appearing directly in front of the golden giant’s massive head.

"Winch Guillotine!!!"

In an instant, Yonji’s muscles swelled to their absolute limits, stretching his reinforced Raid Suit completely taut. With a primal grunt, he drove a devastating, heavy punch squarely into the left cheek of the golden giant.

BOOM—

A ring of highly compressed air exploded outward. The golden giant’s head reeled violently from the impact, its entire upper torso listing backward from the sheer force of the blow.

"Now! I’ll cover you!" Ichiji shouted, leading the charge as he flew forward to press the advantage.

"Understood!" Niji’s gaze narrowed into a sharp focus as he trailed immediately behind his brother’s slipstream.

The golden giant took a heavy step back to stabilize its massive frame before Tesoro’s furious roar echoed out: "You Germa brats certainly have some strength... But against me, it’s utterly useless!"

Before his words even faded, Tesoro manipulated the golden giant’s left hand, driving a massive fist directly at Yonji.

Before Yonji could even register the counterattack, the colossal golden fist, wrapped in a terrifying tempest of displaced air, smashed squarely into his body.

SHU—

BOOM—!!!

Yonji was instantly transformed into a green blur as he was sent flying horizontally, tearing clean through a thirty-meter-high building before crashing heavily into the street below.

The ground shuddered violently as a powerful shockwave kicked up a thick cloud of dust. The solid gold pavement fractured and caved inward from the impact, burying more than half of Yonji’s battered body into the crater.

Tesoro swung the giant’s head around, his eyes locking instantly onto the incoming figures of Ichiji and Niji. "You think you can save him? You can all stay here and rot!"

"Golden Ignis Burst!!!"

The golden giant’s right eye widened, flashing with a brilliant, blinding light. In a fraction of a second, a devastating beam of golden thermal energy erupted from the iris.

BOOM—!!!

A pillar of absolute incineration erupted along the central boulevard of the Gran Tesoro’s commercial district. The cataclysmic blast instantly vaporized everything within its radius, gouging out a massive crater dozens of meters wide and sending powerful tremors rippling across the entire ten-thousand-meter length of the golden ship.

The violent shockwave generated by the blast swept across more than half of the Gran Tesoro like a Category 5 hurricane. Many of Tesoro’s low-ranking subordinates were caught in the crossfire, blown helplessly into the air before crashing back down to the deck, leaving the area littered with casualties.

"Tesoro-sama—!"

"Take cover! Don’t get drawn into Tesoro-sama’s battlefield!"

"Help us, Tesoro-sama!"

"Get as far away as you can! You’ll die if you stay here!"

The inhabitants of the Gran Tesoro fled in absolute panic. Among them were Tesoro’s regular crew members and debt-ridden slaves who had been forced into hard labor. Fortunately, because the ship was currently cleared of its usual wealthy patrons, the immense casualties that would have normally numbered in the thousands were kept to a minimum.

Inside a crumbling gold building at the edge of the crater, Ichiji sat heavily on the fractured floorboards of the third story. His body was badly scorched, his reinforced Raid Suit torn to shreds across his torso, and a steady trickle of fresh blood dripped from the corner of his mouth to the floor.

Even though he hadn’t taken the brunt of the golden beam directly, the sheer concussive blast of the explosion had severely compromised his engineered anatomy. Not even his genetically modified superhuman skeleton or his specialized Raid Suit made of shape-memory metal had been enough to completely shield him from the devastation.

At the end of the day, a monster of the New World was still a monster. If pure technology alone could easily bridge the gap of raw power, Vegapunk would have long since been crowned the undisputed strongest man in the world.

However, relying entirely on his superior agility and Ichiji’s desperate diversion, Niji had successfully slipped through Tesoro’s defensive perimeter, arriving directly in front of the trapped Vinsmoke patriarch.

"Father, I’m getting you out of there!"

Niji hovered in mid-air, casting a brief glance at Judge. Without wasting a single breath on pleasantries, he drove a high-speed punch straight into the golden wall right beside Judge’s shoulder.

BOOM! BOOM!

Two thunderous impacts resonated as the solid gold wall caved inward, leaving two deep, meter-wide craters. The dense gold encapsulating Judge’s torso fractured under the kinetic vibration, shattering into pieces.

WHOOSH—

Suddenly, a sharp, terrifying whistle of sliced air came tearing up from below. Startled, Niji instinctively grabbed Judge’s limp frame and triggered his boots, throwing his body laterally into a desperate evasive maneuver.

CRASH—

A fraction of a second later, a two-meter-long golden battle-axe grazed past Niji’s flank, burying fully a third of its heavy blade deep into the golden structure where they had stood a moment prior.

"Who goes there?!"

Niji glared downward. Standing on the deck below was a towering, heavily muscled brute clad in ornate golden armor. A bandana was wrapped tightly around his head, a thick golden beard covered his chin, and his massive hands were already gripping a second identical golden battle-axe.

"Not bad, brat. To think you actually dodged that." The burly man calmly chewed his bubble gum, looking up at Niji with a twisted gleam of surprise in his eyes.

"B-Be careful..."

Judge managed to crack his eyes open, warning his son in a strained, weakened voice, "That man... is Dice. He was once the undefeated champion of the Underground World’s ’Death Matches’... before Tesoro recruited him as his personal enforcer."

Dice stared up at Niji with a fanatical, deeply unhinged expression, a masochistic grin spreading across his face. "Let me see... exactly how much pleasure can you give me? Are you going to make me feel alive?!"

...

Unzan Port, Urban Center.

"Heavenly Fire!!!"

"Spear of Elbaf: Ikoku Sovereignty!!!"

Charlotte Linlin roared, her face twisted into a terrifying, demonic visage. One of her hands clutched the blazing sun, Prometheus, while the other swung the giant homie sword, Napoleon. With every single forward charge, her monstrous physical frame effortlessly pulverized entire blocks of buildings into dust.

Scorching torrents of flame and massive arcs of pink flying slash energy cascaded outward continuously, tearing the city’s infrastructure to shreds. Roaring fires consumed the inner wards, and deep, crisscrossing gouges cut the earth into a fragmented labyrinth of ruins.

At a glance, the entire urban center of Unzan Port had already been reduced to a devastated wasteland of rubble and ash.

Faced with the relentless, apocalyptic onslaught of such a natural disaster in human form, even a legendary figure like Zephyr, who was fighting at nearly the absolute peak of his strength, was pushed entirely onto the defensive, relying on every bit of his experience just to stay alive.

"Shigan: Fist Cannon!!!"

Zephyr bellowed, his fist completely coated in a pitch-black layer of hardened Armament Haki as he drove it forward, colliding directly with the descending blade of Charlotte Linlin’s Napoleon.

KABOOM—!!!

A deafening metallic shockwave tore through the sky. The surrounding atmosphere rippled violently under the impact, generating a localized hurricane that swept outward with a thunderous roar.

Within breaths, everything within a thousand-meter radius was caught in the path of the gale. Rubble, vehicles, and standard combatants alike were lifted off their feet and hurled across the sky like leaves in winter.

"Thunder!!!"

Charlotte Linlin shrieked toward the heavens.

High above, the dense storm clouds flashed with blinding intensity. Brilliant arcs of lightning crackled across the sky before a massive bolt of lightning, as thick as a barrel, cascaded down from the heavens, striking directly at Zephyr’s position.

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