79: Chapter 79 The Collapse of the Shadow Gathering Grounds

The giant ice chamber of Thriller Bark had completely turned into ruins.

The ancient giant Oars, with his massive 90-meter body, lay sprawled in the abyss of the crater. His thick limbs were twisted at anatomically impossible angles, his load-bearing bones shattered, completely losing the possibility of standing again.

The cold wind poured in through the collapsed dome, blowing away the granite dust that filled the sky.

Gekko Moriah sat slumped on the pile of rubble; the giant cast-iron scissors in his hand had long since disappeared in the previous shockwave.

He stared blankly at the bronze-skinned man before him, who looked like an invincible demon god. The expression on his fat face distorted from shock and fear into a state of utter madness born of desperation.

"Unforgivable... Absolutely unforgivable! My zombie army, my plan to dominate the seas, all ruined by you, a monster that popped out of nowhere!"

Gekko Moriah slammed his hands onto the ground, letting out a hysterical roar. His bloodshot eyes were fixed on Rice, his retinas filled with crazed red veins.

"Rice! Don't think you can win everything just by relying on barbaric muscle density! I've already seen the wanted poster delivered by the News Coo!"

Gekko Moriah pointed at Rice, then at Luffy, who was in deep shock in the distance, his voice becoming hoarse from excessive congestion.

"A bounty of 1.5 billion Berries! Along with that rubber idiot with a 300 million bounty, plus the skyrocketing numbers of all the crew members on your two battleships, the combined bounty of your two fleets reaches billions! The ruling class of the World Government has indeed given you a very high destruction rating."

Gekko Moriah stood up abruptly, his massive body trembling violently in the cold wind, letting out a tragic, maniacal laugh.

"But don't think that this paper strength piled up with numbers can survive in the New World! Let me show you what true Hell quality is!"

Gekko Moriah crossed his hands, activating the ultimate trump card of the Shadow-Shadow Fruit — [Shadow's Asgard].

In an instant, the entire Thriller Bark seemed to have triggered some strange magnetic field.

The remaining zombies in the island's perimeter graveyard and the animal zombies wandering in the forest collapsed to the ground in unison.

Countless black shadows poured in crazily from all directions, like black vipers, sliding rapidly along the ground, scrambling to drill under Gekko Moriah's feet, forcibly merging into that bloated carcass.

One hundred, three hundred, five hundred... A full thousand people's worth of shadows!

As the shadows poured in frantically, Gekko Moriah's already bloated body, like a sealed chamber being forcibly injected with high-pressure gas, began a counter-intuitive, gigantic expansion.

The subcutaneous fat around his neck was completely stretched open, and his limbs became as thick as load-bearing pillars. The entire torso turned into a massive black ball of flesh, dozens of meters high. Even the epidermal cells were stretched until they were almost transparent, and one could faintly see the black Soul waves struggling and wailing inside.

Violent energy rampaged within Gekko Moriah, and even his own central nervous system began to blur. His pupils turned completely white, leaving only pure destructive desire.

"See that! This is the power of a thousand people! Now, with one punch, I can smash the geological plates of this island!"

Gekko Moriah swung his thick arms and slammed them heavily onto the surface.

Boom!

The earth cracked instantly, and the wind howled. The already crumbling remains of the ice chamber were completely reduced to powder in the face of this pure violence.

The female crew members of the White Dove Adventure Group retreated to the entrance of the passage, feeling the terrifying pressure coming from the front, and gripped their cast-iron weapons tightly. Even those who were used to seeing the Tyrant in action couldn't help but speed up their heartbeats when facing this monster that had gathered the mass of a thousand people.

Perona hid behind the others, trembling all over. She covered her eyes tightly with both hands, not daring to look at Lord Gekko Moriah, who had completely lost his sanity.

And in the center of the gale.

Rice stood where he was, his bronze-colored body like a needle in the sea, motionless.

His violent black eyes looked at the giant black ball of flesh in front of him, without the slightest retreat in the depths of his eyes, instead flashing a trace of disdainful anatomical mockery.

"Borrowed power is, in the end, just a pile of floating fat. You can't even control the contraction frequency of your own muscle fibers; no matter how many shadows you devour, you're just a low-quality balloon that could explode at any moment."

Rice did not give Gekko Moriah any time to adapt to his power.

His quadriceps contracted and exploded instantly, and his military boots smashed the granite beneath his feet. The reaction force pushed his massive mass forward.

His figure turned into a black lightning bolt that tore through the air, breaking the sound barrier, and leaped directly above Gekko Moriah's giant head.

Mid-air, Rice raised his right leg high, surpassing his head.

The thigh muscles were tightened to the limit, and the power of Qi and blood surged crazily.

The pitch-black Ryuo Haki, like boiling molten iron, instantly covered his entire right leg. Immediately after, violent black-red Haoshoku arcs, like dancing lightning, wrapped tightly around his military boots, emitting electromagnetic pulse fluctuations that tore through space.

Without any superfluous probing moves, he concentrated all his mass and overbearing destructive power on the tiny contact surface of his heel.

Aiming at Gekko Moriah's bloated, unsightly giant belly, he delivered a battle-axe kick, crashing down fiercely!

[Haoshoku: Battle Axe]!

Rumble—!!!

Black-red lightning tore through the dim sky, causing a harsh sonic boom.

Rice's heel, carrying terrifying, destructive kinetic energy, slashed solidly into Gekko Moriah's stomach.

Gekko Moriah's pride and joy, his shadow defense, was like a thin layer of window paper under the dual strangulation of Ryuo and Haoshoku, instantly torn apart.

"Waaaaah—!!!"

Gekko Moriah let out a scream of extreme misery.

The terrifying internal destructive power of Haki penetrated through his belly and directly through his entire abdominal cavity. The huge mechanical pressure caused severe damage to Gekko Moriah's digestive tract valves, and his esophagus suffered irreversible, violent spasms. The shadows that had been forcibly suppressed in his body finally found an outlet.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

In Gekko Moriah's wide-open maw, like a high-pressure fountain erupting, black shadows were frantically spewed out.

The shadows of a thousand people, under this violent blow from Rice that defied all laws of physics, were forcibly kicked out of his body!

The black shadows filled the sky like a flock of birds gaining new life, blocking out the sun, flying away in all directions, each following optical trajectories to find their original owners.

Losing the support of the shadows, Gekko Moriah's body, like a deflating balloon, made a tooth-aching leaking sound. His massive body quickly withered and shrank, returning to its original size in the blink of an eye.

His eyes rolled back, and he foamed at the mouth. His massive body fell powerlessly, smashing heavily into the ruins, raising a cloud of dust, and completely losing all vital signs.

At the passage entrance in the distance, Luffy, who had been in a deep state of shock, saw his nervous system jump-start the moment the shadows returned to their bodies.

"Haa-hoo—!"

Luffy sat up, panting heavily, rubbing his cheeks, feeling his heart pumping blood again.

"The shadows are back! My strength is back too!"

Zoro, Franky, and the others breathed a sigh of relief when they saw Luffy wake up. Then they looked with awe at the tall, majestic bronze-colored back in the center of the ruins. Kicking a Shichibukai into oblivion with a single blow—this kind of barbaric dominance once again refreshed their perception of their fellow East Blue compatriot.

Rice landed lightly beside Gekko Moriah.

His military boots clicked heavily on the rubble.

Gekko Moriah struggled to open his swollen eyelids, looking at the man who looked like the Grim Reaper before him. Deep in his eyes, the previous madness had faded, replaced by a deep sorrow and a physiological sense of powerlessness.

"Cough, cough... Do it, Tyrant."

Gekko Moriah laughed miserably as he coughed up black pulmonary blood.

"The New World is such a cruel sea that defies all logic... Back then, I took a ship full of companions and rushed into the New World, full of spirit. I thought that by relying on my Devil Fruit ability, I could dominate the seas and protect the people I should protect. In the end, in front of that monster called Kaido, all resistance became laughable struggle!"

Gekko Moriah's eyes became empty, as if he had returned to that hellish slaughter, and his whole body trembled uncontrollably.

"Companions... all the companions I cherished were torn apart alive by that giant dragon and burned to ashes! Ever since then, I realized that only dead people who have lost their lives will not betray, will not leave! Living life is simply too fragile!"

Gekko Moriah roared hoarsely, tears mixed with blood flowing down, staining his fat face hideously.

"Tyrant! You don't understand the terror of that monster at all! What's a 1.5 billion bounty? Sooner or later, you will end up the same way, watching those around you get torn apart!"

Rice listened quietly to the loser's last words.

There was no emotional fluctuation in his black eyes, only the indifference of a conqueror.

Suddenly, Rice snorted coldly, his low voice echoing in the ruins, like a metallic bell tolling for the conquest of the New World.

"Beasts Kaido? Just a slightly larger reptile."

Rice looked down at Gekko Moriah from above, an explosive, hair-raising confidence erupting from him.

"Open your eyes and see clearly. One day, these fists will personally break through the defenses of the Beasts, twist off that dragon's head, smash that dragon's cervical vertebrae, and peel the scales off that dragon one by one to lay them on the deck of my battleship!"

The remaining electromagnetic power of Haoshoku erupted along with these words, making the surrounding air buzz. The dark clouds in the sky actually formed a huge optical hole under the impact of this Aura.

Gekko Moriah was stunned.

Looking into Rice's eyes, which were full of violent dominance.

Inside them, there was not a trace of falsehood, only the courage to crush all obstacles.

This kind of fearless Aura was something Gekko Moriah hadn't seen in decades.

"Hehehe... Hehehehe..."

Gekko Moriah suddenly laughed, his laughter carrying a sense of complete relief.

"Twist off Kaido's head... You really dare to say it, Tyrant."

Gekko Moriah turned his head with difficulty, looking at the pink-haired girl poking her head out from the passage in the distance, shivering.

"That girl Perona, although her personality is terrible, she has high tactical value in navigation and aerial reconnaissance."

Gekko Moriah looked at Rice again, a hint of plea appearing in his tone for the first time.

"Since you have this kind of courage, it's better for that girl to follow this dark gold battleship than to rot on this gloomy island. Take her away, don't let her die in the New World."

Rice did not answer, just turned away coldly, leaving Gekko Moriah with a majestic back.

"Since she has boarded the deck of this battleship, she will obey orders honestly."

This sentence was equivalent to accepting the Ghost Princess's complete surrender.

Hearing this, Gekko Moriah curled his lips into a miserable smile, then closed his eyes.

The rule of Thriller Bark came to a complete end at this moment.

The dark clouds dispersed, and a ray of long-lost sunlight pierced through the fog, spilling onto the ruins.

A new storm was about to sweep into the deeper seas, following the footsteps of the Tyrant.