novelraw Chapter 319: Ice and Magma
Chapter 319: Ice and Magma
On the vast glacier, the pale figure stood silently, her heavy war hammer in hand. Her crimson eyes, visible behind the gas mask, scanned the battlefield.
"Marine Admiral Akainu... Hawkeye Mihawk... Pirate Empress Boa Hancock... Gekko Moria..."
Yelena named them one by one, her voice like a whisper from hell carrying across the ice, meeting their curious and appraising gazes.
"Pirate," Akainu growled, his face full of disdain and killing intent.
Hawkeye's gaze lingered on the tall figure, a flicker of interest in his eyes. But he ultimately turned back to the bloodied swordswoman in front of him (Kuina), his focus returning to their duel.
The Pirate Empress lounged arrogantly on her giant snake, seemingly unconcerned.
Only Gekko Moria stared at the "Snow Monster" with teeth-grinding hatred, the fire in his eyes seeming to ignite the very ice.
Yelena noted his hatred but paid it no mind. "Warlords of the Sea," she said flatly. "Strictly speaking, you aren't part of the World Government's forces. Why help them fight pirates? Perhaps you don't know, but the World Government is mass-producing 'Sheriffs' capable of matching 300-million-Berry pirates, as well as even more advanced weapons using the Lineage Factors of the strong.
"When those weapons are fully deployed... who do you think they'll target first? The Four Emperors? The Revolutionaries? Us? Or... unreliable factors... like you?"
As her voice faded, the air froze.
Akainu was unfazed. Gekko Moria, however, hesitated, a flicker of doubt in his eyes. Far away, Boa Hancock stood up straight. She remembered an old woman saying something similar...
Hawkeye, however, ignored it all, his black blade clashing with Kuina's, the two of them lost in their own world.
Seeing this, Yelena didn't press. She simply gestured to the pink-haired figure hovering in the sky.
The figure (Jibril) grinned, shot a bloodthirsty look at Akainu, and then vanished with a sonic boom. She reappeared behind Yelena, her smile innocent and childlike.
Akainu, seeing his opponent had fled, turned his attention to the "Snow Monster" and began to walk forward. His body erupted in magma, and the ice hissed and steamed around him. "No matter what you say, you're all just scum who trample on human life to satisfy your own desires."
He locked his gaze on Yelena, and his magma arm exploded upward. "Great Eruption!"
In an instant, the world turned red. A superheated rain of magma fists, each a miniature volcano, fell from the sky, blanketing Yelena and Jibril's position.
The sudden attack made the Warlords react. Hancock's snake carried her to safety. Moria licked his lips. "Kishishishi... If I could get your shadow... or your corpse... and use it against Kaido... that would be very interesting." He swapped places with his shadow and vanished.
"Mother—" Jibril started, then corrected herself, "Lady Yelena... can I go kill that onion-head?"
"Why?" Yelena's voice was calm. Crystals of ice erupted from the glacier at her feet, forming a barrier that intercepted the magma bombs.
Jibril watched the sky, a mix of blue ice and red magma. "He said he wanted to use your shadow to fight Kaido."
"Is that so?" Yelena's war hammer crackled with black-red lightning. "Then handle it. Just don't make a mess."
"Okay!" Jibril nodded sweetly, then turned, her face twisting into a bloodthirsty, psychotic grin as she vanished, humming an off-key tune.
With Jibril gone, Yelena's crimson eyes narrowed.
The red glow in the steam cloud intensified. Akainu burst through, his body a crimson beam of light, his fist transformed into a fanged hound of magma.
"Hound's Bite: Red Lotus!"
The icy war hammer, crackling with Haki, swung to meet it.
"BOOM!"
Magma and steel collided. The sound was like a mountain collapsing. The shockwave blasted the steam and smoke to the horizon. The glacier beneath their feet, harder than steel, shattered.
Seawater erupted, instantly freezing or vaporizing.
Akainu, unfazed, thrust his other fist, aiming to engulf Yelena's vision in magma.
Yelena, anticipating this, raised her clawed hand, slicing the magma in two as she leaped back. She gripped her war hammer with both hands. Flowing Armament Haki and Conqueror's Haki, a black-red and a grey, swirled around the weapon, making it glow like a dark star.
"Not bad... for Kaido's degenerate bloodline," Akainu sneered, bracing himself, coating his own arms in his strongest Haki.
But in the next instant, he felt the ice beneath him vanish. He immediately used Moon Walk, leaping into the air.
The spot where he had been standing was now open ocean.
Yelena's attack, which he had braced for, smashed into the ice, shattering the glacier for thousands of meters and blasting a massive crater in the sea itself.
Akainu, hovering in the air, his face grim, looked down. If he had taken that blow head-on, the ice would have shattered, and he would have fallen into the sea.
"This one... is just as cunning as Kaido." He knew he would have to fight this battle in the air.
Yelena landed on the sea, which instantly froze beneath her feet. She looked up. "Not coming down?"
She took a deep breath. "Grave Spike Annihilation."
In an instant, an endless forest of sharp, deadly ice spikes erupted from the glacier, shooting thousands of meters into the sky, trying to impale Akainu.
"Useless." Akainu easily dodged, ascending higher. "Meteor Volcano!"
He unleashed his own rain of magma, but this time, the fists were larger, hotter, and denser, turning the entire sky red.
Yelena, far from being intimidated, used his Haki to sense Akainu's true body, hidden within the storm of magma.
She coated her hammer in Haki and leaped up, using the falling magma-meteors as footholds, bounding from one to the next, closing the distance.
"You're coming to me?!" Akainu's eyes widened. He met her charge, his magma fist colliding with her two-colored, Haki-wreathed hammer.
"..."
The world exploded.
The shockwave from the collision was so vast it vaporized the meteor storm, shattered the remaining glacier, and sent a tsunami racing across the sea. The sound was so loud it made the combatants miles away stumble.
Even Hawkeye and Kuina were forced to break their duel, staring at the cataclysm.
"They are... both monsters," Hawkeye murmured.
"Why did you stop?" Kuina panted, her sword humming with a faint black-red aura.
Hawkeye looked at her, then at his own arm, which had a fresh, shallow cut. He saw the exhausted, confused look in her eyes. "It seems... you don't even know you have that talent. You've learned much from this. I look forward to our next duel... when you are stronger."
He turned and left, leaving Kuina to stare in confusion.
In the center of the ocean, Yelena glanced at the smoking, cauterized hole in her shoulder. She then looked at Akainu, whose arm was gruesomely twisted and bleeding, revealing a strange, dark tattoo beneath the torn flesh.
"It seems... you got a 'special power'... from that old undying bastard."
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