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Chapter 44: The Final Curtain
🕑 Added 2025-08-27 04:33:24 +0000 UTCThe hunting game temporarily came to a pause as Kyle redirected his attention to the distance, where the energy storms hadn't weakened but were intensifying, as if something even more terrifying was brewing.
He found the highest mountain peak and used "Light Mirage" to blend himself with the rock, once again becoming a dedicated on-site spectator.
This time, he witnessed the prelude to the finale.
The battlefield was already unrecognizable. Rocks, Roger, and Garp were all covered in wounds, their blood-soaked clothing staining the ground beneath their feet red.
Roger's captain's coat was tattered beyond repair, the arm gripping "Ace" showing bulging muscles and prominent veins; Garp's iron fists were a bloody mess—you could even see the stark white finger bones, and every breath he took produced scorching white vapor; Rocks looked the most wretched of all, with crisscrossing wounds deep enough to show bone, his wild hair matted into clumps by blood. But his eyes still blazed like two dying stars.
They had all reached their limits, yet they had all transcended their limits.
"Divine Departure!"
Roger's roar was no longer booming, carrying a hint of hoarseness, but that black-red slash was more concentrated than before, as if gathering all his will into this one strike that tore through the sky!
"Galaxy Impact!"
Garp shattered the rocky ground beneath his feet, his entire body becoming a reverse-flying meteor. His scarred fist gathered incomparable Armament Haki, the pitch-black energy even swallowing the surrounding light. When his punch struck out, space itself trembled!
Facing this all-out combined attack from the two men who had bet everything, Rocks laughed.
It was a maniacal, unrestrained laugh filled with unwillingness, rage, and a hint of... liberation.
"Hahahaha... Well done! Roger! Garp!"
He didn't block or dodge, but instead spread his arms wide, as if to embrace this world-destroying attack.
"Let everything turn to nothingness!"
He roared at the top of his lungs as an unprecedented, utterly pitch-black Conqueror's Haki erupted from within him!
"Tyrant's Domain: Apocalypse!"
The world stood still in that moment.
Sound vanished.
Light disappeared.
Wind stopped flowing, clouds ceased their tumbling.
Kyle's pupils contracted sharply. He felt he wasn't "seeing" but rather "experiencing." His prized Wave-Wave Fruit ability was completely suppressed in this instant—he couldn't sense any form of waves, as if the entire world had been grasped by an invisible giant hand and drained of all energy and natural laws.
With Rocks at the center, an absolute domain of "nothingness" began expanding madly!
The sky was no longer sky but had become a pure black curtain with no stars, no lightning—only profound void.
The earth was no longer earth as it silently crumbled and decomposed. Rocks, soil, trees—everything was breaking down into the most primitive particles and being swept into that darkness.
Roger's "Divine Departure" and Garp's "Galaxy Impact" rushed into that dark domain like two stones thrown into a black hole, creating only the most insignificant ripples before being completely devoured and annihilated.
The entire God Valley island—this "divine sanctuary" that had existed for who knows how many ages—began letting out groans of unbearable strain.
Massive cracks spread across the island like a spider web, bottomless canyons tore through mountain ranges, and murky seawater flooded in with deafening roars.
Natural disaster—this was a true natural disaster!
Rocks was burning his own life and Haki as fuel, intent on burying this island along with all the enemies on it!
The thousand-meter peak where Kyle stood began crumbling like a sand castle in this apocalyptic catastrophe, the rocks beneath his feet shattering inch by inch.
He didn't even have time to marvel as he transformed into a streak of light, desperately fleeing toward the coastline.
If he didn't leave now, he'd truly be buried alongside this legend of the seas!
At the center of the dark domain, Rocks' figure had become blurred, as if he were merging with that nothingness.
His attack had destroyed everything, but it had also exposed himself.
When power expanded to its extreme, its core inevitably became incredibly vulnerable.
"Now's our chance!"
Roger and Garp's voices rang out simultaneously, clearly reaching each other's ears even amid the thunderous collapse of heaven and earth.
Roger's figure flashed through the darkness, "Ace" in his hand, tracing a simple, unadorned arc. All his Haki was concentrated on the blade's edge, aimed directly at the densest core of that darkness.
Garp poured all his strength into his right fist, treading across the cracking earth with an indomitable attitude as he struck toward the same point.
One blade, one fist.
The moment blade and fist simultaneously hit that spot, the madly expanding "Tyrant's Domain" suddenly froze.
Crack—
A sound like something shattering at the soul level rang out.
That all-consuming darkness fractured like a smashed mirror, instantly covered in cracks.
Then light burst forth from the fissures, and sound returned to the world.
Rocks' towering body stood rigid in place. He lowered his head, looking at the hollow in his chest where blade and fist had pierced through. The madness on his face gradually faded, replaced by perfect calm.
He had lost.
"The D Clan... really is... fascinating..."
He whispered softly as his body began dissolving into specks of black light that scattered in the wind.
The era's hegemon had met his final curtain!
But the consequences of his final strike were already irreversible.
God Valley's collapse continued, even accelerating. Massive landmasses sank to the ocean floor, raising towering waves hundreds of meters high. Seawater flooded in madly, forming a massive whirlpool capable of swallowing everything.
Kyle had already fled to the shoreline. Without the slightest hesitation, he pushed a small boat he'd prepared into the sea, then threw several bulging sacks he'd collected along the way onto it.
Making money wasn't shameful!
He jumped onto the small boat and looked back.
The former island had vanished, leaving only a bottomless, massive whirlpool madly devouring the clouds in the sky and everything on the sea surface.
Countless pirate ships were sucked in, along with their wails, and dragged into the abyss.
This was God Valley's ending.
Kyle manipulated the water waves, letting his small boat cleverly avoid those deadly undercurrents like an agile leaf, heading toward where the Oro Jackson was anchored in the distance.
When he jumped onto the Oro Jackson's deck, soaking wet, he was greeted by the tense yet shocked gazes of the crew members.
Rayleigh, Scopper Gaban... everyone stood by the ship's rail, silently watching that sea area that was slowly calming but bore permanent scars.
Kyle dropped several heavy sacks onto the deck with the pleasant sound of metal and gems colliding.
"Yo, I'm back." He wiped the seawater from his face and grinned. "Caught the grand finale performance and picked up some souvenirs along the way."
They had witnessed the fall of one legend and the birth of another.
Kyle said no more. He walked to the ship's rail, leaned against it, and pulled a cup from his jacket to pour himself some orange juice.
He gazed at that massive whirlpool, sensing the three utterly domineering auras still lingering in the air.
An era had ended.
