The air crackled, heavy with the scent of sulfur and impending violence. Akainu, a pillar of molten judgment, faced the uneasy, temporary alliance of pirates. "Your squabbles mean nothing," he declared, magma dripping from his form. "Today, justice will be served hot!"
The battle erupted with the raw, chaotic fury of cornered beasts.
Jozu, a glittering comet of diamond, charged first. "Brilliant Punk!" His fist, capable of shattering mountains, aimed for Akainu's core. The Admiral met the blow not by yielding, but by becoming the impact. His magma body swirled, absorbing and redirecting the kinetic force, then retaliated with a "Meigo (Dark Hound)" – a searing maw of obsidian-hardened magma that snapped at Jozu, forcing the diamond pirate to recoil, his arm smoking despite its nigh-invulnerability. The heat was intense, almost unbearable.
Cracker, never one to be outdone in aggression, roared, "Thousand Arms Cracker!" A legion of biscuit soldiers, their pretzel spears glinting, surged forward like a tide of hardened confectionery, aiming to drown Akainu in sheer numbers. "You'll taste my biscuits, Marine!"
"Insignificant crumbs!" Akainu sneered, unleashing his "Inugami Guren (Dog Bite Crimson Lotus)". Waves of magma claws, each imbued with his relentless Haki, tore through the biscuit warriors. They shattered, burned, and were reduced to smoking, sugary ash. Cracker himself, caught in the fiery tide as he tried to reinforce his ranks, cried out as a magma tendril bypassed his defenses, searing his true arm beneath the biscuit shell. The pain was excruciating, the smell of burnt sugar and flesh acrid.
Perospero, ever the opportunist, tried a more insidious approach. "Candy Slug Barrage!" He launched a volley of hardened, sticky candy projectiles, aiming to gum up Akainu's movements, to create a cloying trap. He then swiftly erected a massive, translucent "Candy Wall," hoping to shield his allies and redirect some of the Admiral's fury.
Akainu simply walked through the candy slugs, his intense heat melting them into useless puddles before they could adhere. His magma fist then punched through the Candy Wall as if it were spun sugar, the impact sending Perospero tumbling back, his candy cane staff splintering, a shard embedding itself in his shoulder. "Your parlor tricks are useless against true justice!"
Queen, in his colossal Brachiosaurus form, decided to add his own brand of "funk" to the chaos. "Black Coffee!" Twin beams of concentrated laser energy shot from his mounted cannons, aimed at Akainu's head. Simultaneously, his mouth cannon unleashed a torrent of "Bridal Heat!" – superheated fireballs.
Akainu, with a contemptuous snort, met the laser beams with pinpoint blasts of magma from his fingertips, creating dazzling, explosive collisions that rained down superheated debris. The fireballs, he simply allowed to wash over him, his Logia form absorbing the heat, his own magma seeming to burn even brighter. "Is that all your 'plague' amounts to, All-Star?" He then retaliated with a colossal "Dai Funka (Great Eruption)" aimed at Queen's underbelly. The magma fist slammed into the cyborg's metallic plating, denting it inwards, sending sparks flying and eliciting a furious, pained roar from Queen as his internal systems sparked and sputtered.
Teach, lacking Devil Fruit powers but possessing an abundance of cunning and raw strength, weaved through the chaos like a dark phantom. He used his flintlock pistols, aiming not for kill shots against Akainu – he knew that was futile – but for distractions. A bullet to Akainu's eye (which simply passed through his magma form, but forced a momentary blink), another to a joint in Queen's cybernetic leg (earning him a furious glare from the All-Star). He was a master of sowing discord, his "Zehahaha!" laugh echoing as he "accidentally" tripped Cracker or "inadvertently" redirected one of Perospero's candy attacks into Jozu.
The pyramid itself became an unwilling participant in the brutal ballet. Akainu's magma blasts melted its golden facade, leaving black, bubbling scars. Queen's errant laser fire carved glowing trenches into its ancient stonework. The sheer force of Jozu's diamond-hard impacts against Akainu, even when parried, sent shudders through its foundations.
During a momentary lull, as Akainu contemptuously incinerated another wave of Cracker's biscuit soldiers, Teach saw his chance. The fight was a glorious mess, but his eyes were on the prize. He feinted left, drawing a magma whip from Akainu, then darted right, making a mad dash for the pyramid's sealed, ornate entrance, hoping to pry it open while the others were occupied.
"You think I wouldn't notice such blatant greed, Blackbeard?!" Akainu's voice was a low growl of contempt. He disengaged from a furious, charging Jozu with a sidestep that seemed to defy his molten form, then unleashed a devastating, wide-arcing wave of pure, unadulterated magma – "Ryusei Kazan: Annihilation Wave!"
The attack wasn't aimed at any single pirate. It was aimed at the pyramid itself, directly at the section Teach was trying to breach. The wave of molten rock, vast and unstoppable, slammed into the ancient golden structure.
There was a deafening CRACK, a sound like the sky splitting, followed by the groan of tortured stone and metal. The entire front facade of the pyramid, already weakened by the relentless onslaught, buckled, then shattered, collapsing inwards in a colossal cloud of golden dust, ancient stone, and superheated steam.
When the dust began to settle, the pirates and Akainu, their battle momentarily paused by the sheer scale of the destruction they had wrought, stared into the newly exposed heart of the pyramid.
Amidst crumbling golden walls and toppled statues, a colossal, regal figure carved from obsidian stood bathed in an ethereal green glow. It was King Azmuth.
The Philosopher's Stone. The Heart of the Sun.
The sight of the Philosopher's Stone, pulsing with its ethereal green light, ignited a fresh wave of desperate ambition. But Akainu, a molten god of destruction, had no interest in their squabbles over trinkets. His goal was singular: the eradication of pirate filth.
"Your greed ends here!" he roared, his body becoming a raging inferno. "Ryugan (Dragon's Jaw)!" The very floor of the exposed pyramid chamber began to melt and churn, transforming into a treacherous, bubbling lake of magma. Tendrils of molten rock lashed out, forcing the pirates onto precarious, crumbling ledges and toppled golden statues.
"Damn Marine lunatic!" Cracker snarled, his biscuit soldiers forming a desperate, elevated platform for himself and Perospero. "He's going to bury us all!"
Perospero, his face pale beneath his usual sugary grin, frantically tried to create hardened candy pathways, but they sizzled and dissolved almost instantly in the intense heat. "The Stone, brother! We have to reach it before he does!"
Jozu, his diamond form reflecting the hellish glow of the magma, leaped from one precarious perch to another, his eyes fixed on the Stone. He knew Akainu was trying to deny them the prize, perhaps even destroy it to prevent any pirate from gaining its power.
Queen, in his Brachiosaurus form, found his massive feet sinking into the softening golden floor. "Funk! This is not optimal!" He unleashed a barrage of lasers from his cannons, not at Akainu directly, but at the ceiling, trying to cause a cave-in to distract the Admiral or create an escape route.
Teach, ever the opportunist, saw a sliver of a chance. While Akainu was momentarily distracted by Queen's reckless bombardment and Jozu's determined advance, he made a mad dash along a narrow, still-solid ridge of gold, heading directly for the statue of King Azmuth. "Zehahaha! Such a pretty bauble shouldn't go to waste!"
Akainu's molten gaze snapped towards Teach. "You, Blackbeard! Your ambition stinks worse than any other!" He would not allow this particularly odious pirate to gain such a power. With a guttural roar, he unleashed a concentrated, devastating attack: "Ryusei Kazan: PINPOINT ERADICATION!"
Instead of a widespread meteor shower, Akainu launched a single, colossal fist of superheated magma, imbued with his Haki, directly at Teach. But Teach, with a cunning lurch, ducked at the last possible second.
The magma fist, missing its intended target, slammed with catastrophic force into the ancient obsidian statue of King Azmuth, directly where it clutched the Philosopher's Stone.
There was an earsplitting CRACK.
The Stone, caught in the direct path of an attack meant to obliterate a man like Teach, didn't stand a chance. It didn't just shatter; it vaporized. The ethereal green light winked out of existence, leaving behind nothing but smoking, molten rock and the faint, acrid smell of ozone. The ancient power it held was snuffed out, unceremoniously, in the heart of Akainu's inferno.
A moment of stunned silence, then Teach let out a frustrated, furious roar. "MY TREASURE, YOU DAMNED MARINE BASTARD!"
Perospero and Cracker stared in horror, their dreams of ultimate power turning to ash. Jozu halted his advance, the hope for Whitebeard's cure dying with the Stone. Even Queen paused his destructive rampage, a low growl rumbling in his metallic chest.
Akainu merely sneered. "The only treasure here is the justice I deliver."
But the destruction of the Stone, and the immense power Akainu had just unleashed within the pyramid's core, had a catastrophic, unforeseen consequence. The island, already unstable from the previous battles and the rising of the pyramid, reacted as if its very heart had been ripped out.
A profound, guttural groan shuddered through the bedrock. It wasn't just a tremor; it was the island itself screaming in agony. The magma lake Akainu had created began to churn violently, not from his power, but from the earth's convulsions. Massive cracks, glowing with internal fire, spiderwebbed across the entire chamber, then spread outwards, visible even on the distant, crumbling exterior of the pyramid.
"What's happening?!" Perospero shrieked, clinging to a tilting candy pillar.
"The island!" Jozu roared, his diamond eyes wide with alarm. "It's… it's collapsing! For real this time!"
The volcanic peaks of the Isle, long dormant until the pyramid's rising, now erupted with a final, definitive violence. Plumes of black ash blotted out the sun. Rivers of fresh lava poured down their flanks, meeting the boiling sea with explosive hisses. The ground beneath their feet buckled and broke apart, entire sections of the island shearing off and plunging into the churning, superheated water.
The pyramid, the epicenter of the destruction, began to tilt precariously, its golden facade cracking and shedding massive slabs of stone. The carefully constructed order of King Azmuth's final sanctuary was being torn apart.
Akainu, a figure of molten lava, watched the pirates scatter like rats from a flooding ship. His magma dripped, hissing as it met the encroaching waves. He could pursue them, yes. He could pick off a few more of these "dregs." But the island itself was becoming his enemy, its very foundations crumbling beneath him.
He conjured a solid platform of rapidly cooling obsidian from his own magma, a makeshift raft, and with a powerful leap, launched himself towards the distant, hazy outline of his Marine battleship, which was already struggling against the violent currents.