Bab 53: Chapter 53: Edie Vs Akainu!
The black flash from Edie's fingertips engulfed Akainu, the dark energy swallowing the Admiral whole in an instant. Marines on the warship watched in stunned silence, their mouths agape. As the black light faded, Akainu's figure had completely vanished from the air.
"Admiral Akainu...!" The major's voice trembled with fear, his wide eyes fixed on Edie. "What did you do to him?"
Edie didn't bother with a reply. He floated away effortlessly, drifting towards the outer city, as light and silent as the wind.
In the outer city, near the coastline, there was a massive garbage dump where the city's discarded materials—shipwrecks, broken machinery, and household waste—piled up in heaps. Without warning, a loud crash echoed through the night as Akainu's body plummeted from the sky, landing harshly in the middle of the refuse.
What was that just now? Akainu lay among the twisted debris, his mind racing. Even though he had shifted into his elemental magma form, the energy from Edie's black flash had somehow struck his real body. It was unmistakable—Armament Haki. But the precision and potency of it...
How?
Magma seeped from Akainu's form, melting the garbage around him. Slowly, he stood, the heat radiating from his body incinerating the wreckage underfoot.
"Did it fail?" A calm voice drifted down from above.
Akainu's head snapped upwards. Edie, dressed in white, hovered in the air, looking down at him with a detached curiosity, as if the events of the past moments were nothing but an experiment.
Again? Akainu's brow furrowed. His Observation Haki, normally so sharp, remained useless—unable to sense any trace of Edie's presence. And beyond that... Why can this guy stand in the air like that?
According to Marine intelligence, Edie's powers were related to spatial movement, a Paramecia-type Devil Fruit, as reported by Garp after their encounter in Loguetown. But this—this was something else.
"What failed?" Akainu growled, his frustration boiling over. His right arm swelled, transforming into an enormous mass of molten rock. With a fierce snarl, he launched his attack.
"Great Eruption!"
The massive magma fist shot upwards, expanding rapidly as it hurtled toward Edie. The fist grew hundreds of times its original size in a matter of seconds, a fiery wave of destruction aimed at the sky.
But there was no impact, no resistance. The gigantic fist sailed harmlessly into the heavens, missing its mark entirely.
"If I explain it to you, you wouldn't understand." Edie's voice, calm and detached, came from behind.
Akainu's eyes widened in disbelief as he spun around, realizing that Edie had somehow moved behind him without a trace, effortlessly dodging his attack. The Admiral's frustration deepened, knowing that this was no ordinary opponent.
This time, Akainu reacted with lightning speed. The moment Edie's first syllable reached his ears, he swung a magma-coated fist backward, aiming directly at his opponent.
However, the situation didn't unfold as Akainu had anticipated.
As his fist neared within 30 centimeters of Edie, it encountered an intense resistance, as though it had struck an invisible barrier. The closer his fist pushed, the stronger the force pushing back became. When the gap shrank to 20 centimeters, the resistance felt like it had increased tenfold. Then, to Akainu's astonishment, something unbelievable happened.
With a faint pop, the magma around his fist dissipated, vanishing in an instant, and his elemental transformation faltered.
Boom!
Akainu's now-ordinary fist stopped just 13 centimeters from Edie's nose.
It was only then that Edie finished speaking. "It seems there wasn't a failure after all," Edie mused, adjusting his glasses with a calm smile. "A small success. It really is just a matter of particle count. Thanks for your cooperation, Sakazuki."
Without hesitation, Edie raised his foot and kicked Akainu squarely in the chest.
Akainu was left in a daze, utterly confused by the situation. What's happening?
His ability to control the Lava-Lava Fruit was gone, as if he had been plunged into the sea, drowning in water. He could no longer activate his elemental form, and his powers felt sealed. His confusion overtook his instincts, and he didn't dodge the kick at all, sending him crashing ten meters away into a heap of garbage.
"What...what is happening?" Akainu gasped as he lay among the debris. The familiar burning power of his Lava-Lava Fruit had simply vanished.
Boom!
His Haki flared uncontrollably, bursting from his body in a furious release of anger and confusion.
Beep. Beep.
A faint beeping came from Edie's glasses, and numbers started rapidly climbing on the lenses: 501Z...1001Z...1000/Z...
"Energy level: 200 billion!" Edie observed quietly. "Twice that of Shenhou, but still less than Chenlong."
With a chuckle, Edie added, "For a monkey used in an experiment, you've been quite cooperative, Sakazuki."
Akainu rose slowly from the garbage pile, his face contorted in rage. The ground beneath him began to melt as his Lava-Lava powers returned, the molten rock bubbling up with his every step as he stalked toward Edie.
"Monkey? You dare call me a monkey? Don't get ahead of yourself!" Akainu spat, his voice thick with anger. "I've already figured out your ability!"
Akainu's fists crackled with heat as he spoke, fury radiating off him like the searing heat of a volcano. "You've created some kind of invisible field around yourself. Once someone enters it, their Devil Fruit powers are suppressed—just like being submerged in the sea!"
The humiliation and frustration of being toyed with weighed heavily on him. This wasn't just a battle anymore—it was a personal insult.
Akainu wasted no time, planting his foot firmly on the ground and closing the distance between him and Edie in an instant.
"Dark Hound!"
He refused to believe that his power could be so easily suppressed. As a wielder of the Logia Lava-Lava Fruit, renowned for having the highest attack power among all Devil Fruits, Akainu was confident that no mere ability could hinder him.
Yet, his attack failed.
Edie's form flickered, effortlessly ascending into the air, as if stepping on the wind itself. His calm voice drifted down. "What a shame. You were only half right," Edie said, a smirk playing at his lips. "But for a monkey, you've already passed."
Veins bulged on Akainu's forehead as he glared upward. "Isn't your ability supposed to be a Paramecia-type, space manipulation? Then how are you flying?"
The ability to fly was extraordinarily rare, known to be limited to only a few Devil Fruits in the world, primarily the Zoan types, like the Bird Bird Fruits. Among Paramecia, only a handful, such as the legendary Golden Lion Shiki, possessed true flight capabilities.
Edie remained unfazed, his voice cool and condescending. "You could fly too... if you weren't so limited. But enough talk. Are you really sure you want to continue this fight here? The city won't survive much longer if we keep going."
Akainu gritted his teeth, his anger beginning to give way to calculation. Edie was proving to be more bizarre than any of the intelligence reports had suggested. And where were the so-called Earthly Branches, the powerful subordinates rumored to follow Edie? His Observation Haki hadn't detected any strong presences nearby, but that didn't mean they weren't there. Perhaps Edie's subordinates also possessed the terrifying ability to remain invisible to Haki.
Boom!
A loud explosion echoed in the distance, and both men's eyes turned toward the city. It was the remnants of Akainu's Great Eruption from earlier. The attack had missed Edie and instead landed in the streets of Water 7, reducing several houses to rubble.
"See? Just the aftermath alone can cause this much destruction..." Edie remarked, his tone casual. The wind began to pick up, and the night air grew fierce as a powerful gust swept in from the sea, flapping the hem of Edie's coat. The Aqua Laguna was approaching.
Both Edie and Akainu turned their gaze toward the horizon. There, in the far distance, the gigantic wave loomed, rapidly closing in. The Gods of Water would soon flood the outer city of Water 7.
"Aqua Laguna…" Akainu's face turned grim.
Edie chuckled. "The tsunami's coming. I'm curious, what will you do now, Sakazuki?" The smile on his face widened. The tsunami wouldn't affect him, but for Akainu, grounded as he was, it posed a much larger threat.
Akainu's eyes narrowed. The fact that Edie could fly was proving more troublesome by the second. He weighed his options and, with a snarl of frustration, made his decision. Without another word, he leaped hundreds of meters toward the inner city, using the molten ground beneath him to propel himself away from the impending disaster.
As Akainu fled, Edie's playful demeanor faded. His gaze sharpened, and he extended a finger in Akainu's direction.
"There's still one more experiment you can help me with…" Edie muttered under his breath.
The Black Flash technique, which had incapacitated Akainu earlier, was an attack that used 1 billion ghost particles compressed together and infused with Armament Haki. The moment it struck the target, the particles would latch onto the soul, temporarily sealing the victim's Devil Fruit abilities. This was why Akainu had been unable to activate his Lava-Lava Fruit earlier.
However, because of Akainu's immense strength and soul energy, the initial strike had only partially worked. It wasn't until Akainu got close to Edie that his powers had suddenly vanished, and soon after, Akainu's intense Haki had dispelled the particles, restoring his Devil Fruit abilities.
That was why Edie had said Akainu had only been half right.
Now, as Akainu fled, Edie's fingers sparked once more, but this time the lightning was different. It wasn't the usual black flash. Instead, vibrant red lightning crackled at his fingertips, swirling and condensing into a glowing crimson orb.
"Red Flash!"
If the Black Flash was an advanced form of Armament Haki, then the Red Flash was something far more powerful: a manifestation of Conqueror's Haki. After investing nearly four trillion gold in Sky Island research and immersing himself in vast amounts of knowledge, Edie had finally awakened his Conqueror's Haki.
The crimson energy ball crackled ominously at Edie's fingertips before he unleashed it with terrifying force, sending the Red Flash hurling toward Akainu. The attack wasn't just a display of raw power—it was a revelation of Edie's newly awakened potential.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone