The pirates sat and forgot, and they really believed the nine truths and one lie.

Edward Newgate gazed at the dissipating black smoke in the sky and the terrifyingly high temperature of the Lava Demon, and couldn't help but let out a heavy sigh.

The old friend who had roamed the seas all his life met such a tragic end, unable to even use Kaido's mysterious artifact. This ending is truly heartbreaking.

He gripped the Murakumogiri tightly, and a white, spherical halo reappeared on the blade, the power of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit gathering within him, ready to be unleashed.

Despite the almost godlike power displayed by Sakazuki's Lava Demon form, for the sake of Ace and the children behind him, he had to personally step forward and assess the weight of this awakened Marine Admiral.

"Magma brat, let me be your opponent!" Whitebeard's booming voice echoed across the battlefield, trying to pull the pirates back from the despair of Shiki's fall.

The Lava Demon's massive head turned to Whitebeard, its deep voice like the rumble of the earth: "Whitebeard... any resistance is futile, as are you and Ace."

Just as he was about to attack Whitebeard, a human-like expression of confusion suddenly appeared on the giant face made of lava.

Akainu sensed something was wrong. The palm that had just crushed Shiki seemed to still have some kind of foreign object remaining.

He slowly unfolded the enormous lava hand, and there, in the center of the churning magma, hot enough to melt any living thing, was a small, foreign object.

It wasn't lava there, but a strange rock about the size of a fist, completely black, with irregular edges and corners on its surface.

Instead of melting, it continued to emit a cold, foul aura, repelling the surrounding high temperature and magma, forming a small vacuum zone.

Admiral Akainu was very puzzled by this. He had clearly killed Shiki, so what was that strange object in his palm?

The next instant, a strange change occurred. Before anyone could react, the black stone suddenly burst forth with a thick, inky black light.

Swish!Swish!Swish!

Several incredibly sharp black slashes, seemingly capable of cutting through space, burst forth from within the giant lava hand without warning.

These strikes are not merely sword energy; they also possess a twisting and corrosive quality.

Under the gaze of countless horrified eyes, the Lava Demon God's indestructible right hand, along with half of his forearm, was...

This sudden internal attack sliced ​​it into several pieces of varying sizes, like slicing a cake.

Huge chunks of lava broke free from the main body's control, radiating intense heat, and crashed into the sea below, sending up plumes of steam into the sky.

"The arm...was severed?!"

"what happened"!

The pirates, who had just begun to see a glimmer of hope, and the marines, who thought victory was assured, were once again shocked and forced to stop their fight.

Sakazuki, in his lava form, abruptly lowered his head to look at his severed arm, where surging magma instinctively attempted to regenerate and repair itself.

But his attention was completely drawn to the extremely repulsive black energy that had suddenly erupted in his palm.

Where Shiki had been crushed, the black rock writhed and intertwined like living tentacles, and a blurry humanoid outline was rapidly re-coalescing at a speed visible to the naked eye. Flesh, bones, skin... were all being rapidly reconstructed under a force that defied common sense.

The flesh tissue that had been carbonized by the high temperature fell off, and the newly grown skin appeared unhealthy and pale.

What's most eye-catching is the long hair that has grown back. The originally dazzling golden hair has been tinged with a dark red color, like congealed blood, starting from the ends, making it look eerie and sinister.

His body also underwent a terrifying, inhuman mutation. On his bare upper body, from his shoulder blades, elbows, and even ribs, black blades of varying lengths pierced through his skin and grew out.

These blades are not made of metal, but rather resemble some kind of living product, a product of bone and malice. Embedded in the blades are slowly rotating, sinister, blood-red eyeballs.

When the newborn figure fully materialized and slowly raised its head, everyone gasped.

That was Shiki's face... yet it was no longer his!

His facial features became more angular, filled with an inhuman sharpness, and most chillingly, sent shivers down everyone's spine.

On his face, near where his eyes were originally, below his forehead, two identical eyes, filled with madness and destructive desire, suddenly opened.

Four eyes, flashing with a dark red light, coldly stared at the Lava Demon God before them, and at the entire battlefield of Marineford.

A terrifying aura, far larger and more chaotic than before, filled with corrosive and distorting connotations, swept out like a storm.

Within this aura, one can still faintly sense Shiki's Haki and the fluctuations of the Float-Float Fruit, but it is more of a power that does not belong to humans.

Sakazuki sensed this strange and dangerous aura. He realized that Shiki's last words, "I'm not human anymore," were not a desperate wail.

It was not a statement, but a resolute declaration; he abandoned his human identity and form by devouring the bizarre broken sword with an eyeball.

Having embraced some indescribable forbidden power and completed their transformation into non-human monsters, Sakazuki started with a cheat code, and Shiki followed suit. At this point, the older brother was no match for the younger brother.

"Shiki, you look really ugly now," Whitebeard said, looking at the familiar yet unfamiliar figure in the sky. He gripped the Murakumogiri tighter, his eyes filled with complex emotions.

Shiki, now reborn, stretched his newborn neck, making a sickening cracking sound.

His four eyes locked onto the Lava Demon God, and a sinister, inhuman smile spread across his lips.

His voice became hoarse and overlapping, as if countless voices were speaking at the same time: "Sakazuki's grip just now almost killed me."

"But I still want to thank you for helping me overcome my psychological barriers. I never knew it felt so good to not be human..."

Shiki was originally a madman, a mentally ill man whose head had been pierced by a ship's rudder for over twenty years. Since he stopped being human, he has actually felt a clarity he had never experienced before.

Although Law could heal the captain's physical wounds, he couldn't heal his heart. Shiki was unable to escape Roger's shadow, and now he no longer cared about the Pirate King who had been dead for many years.

“Shiki, you’re not even human anymore. To me, you’re nothing more than a puppet of some kind of power,” Sakazuki bluntly stated.

That power, which doesn't belong to Shiki, will ultimately turn the once-great pirate into a slave to power, causing him to lose everything.