“How can someone possess such an overwhelming power?”

Whitebeard, sent flying through the air, felt his mind in turmoil.

One strike.

One single strike made him question his entire existence.

Whitebeard’s strength had not improved even slightly over the past decade. He believed he had reached the theoretical peak of human capability. No amount of effort could push him further. He also believed that every era’s champion, just like himself, could only reach this same ceiling.

There was no room for growth beyond this.

But after just one clash with Kuke, he realized he was wrong.

He was completely wrong.

His past assumptions were incorrect as well.

He had never truly stood at the pinnacle. There were paths yet untrodden, but he had none left to take.

“Boom!”

Kuke landed on solid ground, then shot forward like an arrow loosed from its bow. He closed the distance to the airborne Whitebeard in an instant, leaping into the air as his blade left its sheath.

“Thunder is born; all things perish.”

His sword, wreathed in the power of lightning, fell like divine judgment.

“Not good!”

Whitebeard quickly gathered his strength. While still airborne, he channeled the power of his Gura Gura no Mi into both fists and launched an upward strike.

The air itself fractured.

Kuke’s thunderous blade sliced through the fractured space effortlessly.

Whitebeard, without hesitation, used every ounce of Haki he had, enveloping his entire body in Armament Haki.

In the next moment, as the lightning blade descended, Whitebeard was slammed vertically into the fractured island below. The resulting explosion mushroomed into the sky, rising thousands of meters high.

“Ugh!”

As he hit the ground, Whitebeard spat out a mouthful of blood. A deep, bloody gash stretched across his chest.

“How did Kaido last four hours?”

At that moment, Whitebeard had only one question.

How?

How could someone endure this level of power for four hours?

In that instant, Kaido’s reputation in Whitebeard’s mind rose immensely.

A deafening sound suddenly reached Whitebeard’s ears. His pupils dilated as he turned to see Kuke, sword in hand, standing right next to him. The blade was ablaze with flames born from Conqueror’s Haki.

Dignity be damned.

Whitebeard rolled to the side, barely evading the massive slash that tore through the mushroom cloud explosion.

“Fighting barehanded is too disadvantageous,” he muttered, scanning the area for his bisento.

It lay far away.

The sound of explosions and rupturing air echoed from the smoke and dust. Massive flying slashes, capable of cutting through anything, intermittently appeared within the haze.

Minutes later…

“Whoosh!”

A disheveled figure tumbled out of the smoke, rolling to a stop beside the bisento embedded in the ground.

“Is that Dad?”

Marco and the others stared at the figure that had just emerged.

It was Whitebeard.

The tattered clothes he wore matched what their father had been wearing just moments ago.

But his signature crescent-shaped mustache was nowhere to be seen.

All that remained was a small patch of facial hair under his nose.

“Huff, huff.”

Whitebeard, using his bisento for support, slowly rose to his feet.

Finally, he had a weapon in hand again.

That gave him a small sense of security.

“The real battle begins now.”

With the bisento in hand, Whitebeard regained some of his former grandeur.

He glanced at Marco and the others out of the corner of his eye.

Specifically, he looked at the enormous clock standing upright near them.

Forty-seven?

Only four minutes had passed.

Whitebeard swallowed hard.

Only four minutes? Time suddenly felt excruciatingly slow to him.

“Damn it,” he cursed internally, berating himself for having such a shameful thought.

Shaking off all distractions, Whitebeard focused all his attention on the figure strolling toward him from the smoke.

“Come on! I am Whitebeard!”

He lifted his bisento. The blade became enveloped in the power of the Gura Gura no Mi. With a mighty swing, he brought it down.

The ground beneath them couldn’t withstand the force, fracturing violently.

“Boom!”

Kuke did not dodge or block.

The blade struck his shoulder directly.

The ground beneath Kuke’s feet disintegrated completely. The cracked air caused the fractured island to crumble into even smaller fragments.

“Uh…”

Whitebeard stared blankly at Kuke.

Did his attack… get blocked by a shoulder?

“Here it comes again, here it comes again!” Charlotte Linlin’s excitement echoed from aboard the Dawn.

She stomped her feet in sheer glee.

The entire ship shook.

Everyone else on the ship looked at her in confusion.

You’re the only crew member who still harbors bad thoughts about the captain, so why are you more excited than the rest of us?

“Could it be that Mom is actually the one who admires the captain the most?”

Smoothie and her sisters exchanged glances.

Perhaps she’d just hidden her feelings well.

Or maybe she was too proud to show it?

Was she now accidentally revealing her true emotions?

“Mama… as long as I’m not the only one suffering,” Linlin muttered, clapping her hands in delight.

This wasn’t just a scene she had seen; it was something she had experienced firsthand.

She had once swung her full power at Kuke’s shoulder, thinking she had won. Instead, she was left questioning her own reality.

Just like Whitebeard was now.

Whitebeard, his eyes wide with disbelief, stared at Kuke’s unscathed shoulder.

Sure, it was covered in Armament Haki.

But this was his full-strength attack, reinforced by the sharpness of a supreme-grade blade. How could it not leave a mark?

Even Garp couldn’t completely defend against it with Haki alone.

“Your body…” Whitebeard’s voice trembled.

“My physique? It’s just a little stronger than most.”

Whitebeard’s face twitched.

Just a little?

If Linlin and Kaido heard that, they’d take it as mockery.

“We still have plenty of time. Let’s keep playing.”

Kuke swung his blade horizontally.

Clang, clang, clang—

Whitebeard hastily raised his bisento, blocking the strikes.

But each parry pushed him back several meters.

His hands gripping the bisento began to tremble slightly.

Before he could stabilize himself, Kuke’s blade came at him again.

He blocked once more.

In an instant, Kuke unleashed hundreds of strikes.

Whitebeard managed to block every single one.

But the relentless barrage forced him to retreat thousands of meters.

“At least he’s blocking them,” Marco and the others muttered, trying to reassure themselves.

If he could block the attacks, he could drag the fight out.

They glanced between the battlefield and the clock, wishing they could turn the hands forward themselves.

Time felt agonizingly slow.

“Clang!”

Kuke’s blade swung upward again, only to be blocked by Whitebeard once more.

But this time…

Whitebeard’s trembling hands could no longer hold onto the bisento. It slipped from his grasp and flew high into the air.

“He’s leaving me no room for dignity,” Whitebeard muttered, watching his weapon soar away.

He could tell.

The earlier exchanges weren’t him successfully defending himself.

Kuke had intentionally aimed at his bisento, letting him block each strike.

What should have been an easy defense turned into an embarrassing loss of grip.

Even Whitebeard couldn’t make excuses for himself.

This was pure and simple domination.

Involuntarily, Whitebeard’s gaze drifted toward the clock again.

Three o’clock sharp.

Seventeen minutes had passed.

There were still forty-three minutes to go.

But they feel like an eternity.

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DONT FORGET POWER STONE

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P/S: If you are interested, you can read up 40+ chapters at patreon.com/Emik01.

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Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep