Chapter 281: Bubble, Severance and True Form
__________ POV Narration __________
The Three Gods faced off in spectacular fashion, each of their casual attacks enough to kill anyone from below if hit directly.
They were all well aware that the winner of their battle was going to be the winner of the war as well. No matter how injured each side would end up, they'd still be able to crush the opposing army.
Luffy and Enel were both starting to get frustrated with the lack of effects their attacks were showcasing.
The Sun God's incarnation had already tried plenty of things, including his reality-bending powers, turning IMU into a trampoline with a fist sinking into his gut.
Enel had also tried several ways to damage the Sea God, but each time IMU's body would just regenerate.
All until Enel decided to use the wheel on his back to bisect IMU, with Luffy also using his reality-bending ability to prevent the man from easily recovering.
And this time, IMU had genuinely bled. It was the very first time Enel and Luffy managed to injure IMU.
And it seemed to be fatal, for all of 3 seconds, before IMU's torso grew red tendrils and immediately pulled the cut-off parts back together.
"The two of you are growing more and more tiresome..."
IMU's voice this time sounded different, no longer fluid, just beastly.
In an instant, Enel felt himself choke. All of the humidity around them was extracted from the air, forming a large water bubble which encapsulated both the Sun and Lightning Gods.
Luffy choked for only a second before he seemed to grow fins and started swimming towards IMU, whose body also seemed to be within the water.
At that point, the usual weakness of a devil fruit user hadn't applied, as the water was not stagnant. And before IMU managed to do that Enel immediately filled it with his lightning, fighting for control over it with him.
Unfortunately, however, it seemed that IMU's authority over the seas superseded Enel's control, as the water was still slowly becoming stagnant.
Luffy's body immediately started exuding heat underwater when noticing that, the flames within his hair and around his body flaring up and evaporating the water around him, forcing it to stay moving.
Enel did very much the same, evaporating water at such speeds that the bubble was bound to soon run out of water.
At least it would have, but IMU manipulated even the water from the steam caused by them, forcing it to rejoin the bubble.
'Shit... He's essentially forcing us to fight in his territory...' Enel couldn't help but scowl at that thought.
He and Luffy could both hold their breath for a long time. Hell, Luffy seemed to be able to just breathe underwater thanks to his mastered reality-bending abilities.
It seemed that he barely had any limitations when it came to altering his own body whilst in his awakened form.
But Enel was not quite as lucky, he had the option of getting out of the bubble in the blink of an eye with his speed, but that would also put him at a large range, and it seemed that attacks for a distance were quite ineffective.
'Using the wheel is not only tiring, it also appears not to have an effect unless I am close enough to cover it in haki properly.'
Enel's previous attack utilizing the spinning wheel drums was not only up close, but it was also heavily enhanced with haki, which Enel assumed was the only real way to damage IMU.
Even if he had rejoined his body, it was very likely that it still did damage. The more annoying fact was that IMU seemed to be entirely immune to blunt attacks haki or not.
It was similar to Buggy's fruit in a sense, but instead of cuts, it was a wide range of blunt attacks. Unfortunately, it made Luffy's fighting style somewhat more disadvantaged.
Enel's lightning did try to hit what he perceived to be IMU's body, trying to paralyze him or at least stall him for a second while Luffy's flaming punch hit him, but within that bubble, IMU seemed to be capable of almost instantaneous movement.
He moved even faster than Enel's lightning, and before either god realized, they were being attacked by countless haki-enhanced water blades.
Even if they could evaporate water regularly, some slashes still managed to get through, shredding their clothes apart and putting some cuts on their skin.
Enel thankfully managed to dodge most small cuts thanks to his immaterial form, but what he didn't expect was for IMU himself to instantly transfer behind him, and touch his back.
In that moment, Enel choked once more, feeling himself be fully disconnected from his devil fruit power. And in that instant, one cut was all that IMU needed...
It aimed to cut the Lightning God in two right down the middle.
Out of trained reflex, Enel's long leg whipped upwards, his position shifting as he delivered a conqueror's haki-enhanced kick to IMU's neck.
The water slicer was also dodged somewhat, but it still managed to catch Enel's arm, more specifically his gauntleted hand, which immediately fell to the lower seas.
IMU's neck was craned unnaturally, and he seemed to spit out some blood whilst still keeping skin contact with Enel. He immediately surrounded him in underwater slashes this time, aiming to kill him, but it was at that moment that Luffy interfered.
The Sun God's anger was heard, as all of the water around them instantly turned to rubber, suffocating Enel briefly, but pulling him away from IMU's grasp whilst pushing the Water God outside of the bubble.
Enel immediately reentered his Awakened state, his body glowed as he directed his stump towards IMU.
"DarkThor!"
In an instant, a sparkling pillar of black lightning shot into IMU, completely disintegrating him in seconds.
Both Enel and Luffy then took that opportunity to burst out of the water bubble, just as Luffy was losing control of it.
"Cough cough~ Shishishi~ Seems you've lost a hand again!" Luffy laughed a bit as he coughed some water. His body was filled with cuts, but they seemed to be closing already.
"Tis but a flesh wound..." Enel scowled as he moved the metal from his other gauntlet to form a tourniquet, completely stopping any blood flow to his stump.
The two of them finally managed to breathe some fresh air, but it was not for long. As the entire blob of water seemed to move now, red eyes appeared on it as it took the form of something strange... Something primordial.
'Shit... Don't tell me...'
"Every generation of gods has failed up to this point... What makes you think that only two of you would be enough to even face me?" IMU's voice sounded just as bestial and enraged as before.
The form that the Sea God took was something that Enel was strangely familiar with. Something that he had seen, something that he had hoped to never see again.
A mass of tentacles, red eyes forming all over the skies around them, a mouth of flesh-tearing teeth, sharpened to the most dangerous degree.
It was strangely resembling something that Enel had seen in his dreams. The outsider god that the original Raijin had expelled out of the world, or rather, that the wheel of fate had crushed for interfering.
'Don't tell me he actually had tried to influence this world in the past before...' Enel scowled at the mere thought of that, but it didn't seem impossible as a concept.
The god that had sent him to that world had already interfered a lot with it.
'But it did seem to not be able to easily go against fate... Maybe he didn't get any backlash because his actions were in harmony with fate?'
Many thoughts rushed into Enel's mind, all at the speed of lightning as he dodged a water tentacle that had whipped towards him and Luffy at breakneck speeds.
Luffy seemed able to just jump over it, whilst Enel just reappeared above the now-transformed IMU.
In an instant, the disk on his back expanded, forming a gigantic saw blade, spinning at breakneck speeds and rushing to cut IMU in half one more.
From one side, Luffy also brought his arms together, pulling reality itself and bending it, sending a tremor much like those Whitebeard wielded towards IMU.
The tremors made the Sea God's body harder to control, and Enel's drums passed through the tentacles IMU had put up for protection with relative ease.
What Enel didn't expect was for the drums to be reflected at him, one of the eyes appearing in front of them at that same moment.
Of course, they did not injure Enel in any way, they simply shrunk, turned back to drums and continued to spin on Enel's back.
It was at that moment that the Lightning God realised that they weren't going to be able to meaningfully damage IMU individually.
Luffy and Enel immediately looked at one another and nodded.
'Time for 'that' then...'
__________________________________________________________________
Hope you liked the chapter! Was too drunk to write yesterday, also had a lot of running around to do during the day(still with the wedding, it's over now tho)
Anyway, hope this turned out fine, I was hungover for most of today, so that's been nice
Story Shoutout: Transcendence: The Versatile Demoness
Discord, again: https://discord.gg/xQTK8caFEQ
If u want to support me look up VeganMaster on Patre_on, you'd also get 15 chapters in advance (or 10/5 depending on tier)