As soon as Shiki finished speaking, a mountain nearby surged into the air and hurtled toward Wayne. In the distance, more peaks were torn from the ground and began flying in his direction.
Wayne looked up at the incoming mountains, drew a deep breath, and gripped Rakshasa with both hands. Armament Haki coated the blade as he swung with immense force.
Boom!
With a single strike, the first mountain was cleaved into pieces. Wayne darted through the air and continued his assault, heading straight for the Golden Lion.
But Shiki wasn't flustered. Calmly, he kept summoning more peaks, one after another.
That was the terrifying aspect of Shiki's Devil Fruit. As long as he had touched it, any inanimate matter no matter how massive was under his control. In other words, the entire terrain of this floating island belonged to him.
Mountain after mountain came crashing down, and Wayne sliced them apart one after another.
Shiki remained composed. "Let's see how many more you can cut through. This place... is my battlefield!"
Before long, three more mountains dense and looming came barreling through the sky. Wayne didn't flinch. He exhaled, tilting Rakshasa upward, preparing for yet another swing.
As their back-and-forth clashed on, the sun dipped below the horizon. A pale moon began to rise into the darkening sky.
Beads of sweat began forming on Shiki's forehead not from fatigue. With his mastery of the Float-Float Fruit, this kind of manipulation cost him virtually no stamina.
No, what truly unnerved him... was Wayne.
The young swordsman had been relentlessly slashing through mountains all afternoon, each strike infused with Armament Haki, yet he showed no signs of slowing down. Not even a flicker of exhaustion.
More than that, the entire island was now unrecognizable. The once-towering peaks were gone. What remained was a pockmarked wasteland of craters and shattered ridges.
Wayne floated slightly higher in the air, casting his gaze downward at Shiki with a bold, unshakable confidence.
"So tell me... is this still your battlefield?"
He wasn't even breathing hard. If cutting through mountains was a contest, Wayne could keep going for three days and three nights.
One-Sword Style: Raikiri!
Wayne repeated his lightning-fast strike. With the mountains gone, Shiki had nowhere to hide. This would be pure swordplay now and when it came to swords, Wayne feared no one in the pirate world... aside from a certain coffin-sailing hawk-eyed swordsman.
Lightning surged around Rakshasa as Wayne launched his blade toward the Golden Lion.
But Shiki was ready this time.
With two swift kicks, he crossed his famous blades Sakura Ten and Kogarashi and blocked Wayne's strike mid-air.
Wayne's lips curled. Shiki had taken the bait.
Violet sparks crackled from his arms, transferring through Rakshasa into Shiki's swords. As powerful as they were, unless they were black blades, they were still metal and metal conducted electricity.
Zzzzzzt!
Shiki's body convulsed. A thin trail of smoke rose from his clothes before he crashed hard into the ground below.
The mistake had cost him. He hadn't coated his swords with Armament Haki before the clash. That moment of arrogance had left him wide open.
Wayne hovered silently in midair, watching Shiki's fallen form. He made no move to finish him his Observation Haki told him the lion wasn't down for good.
As expected, Shiki groaned and rose from the crater. With a roar, he launched himself upward and kicked out twice.
Flying Slash!
Two massive, Haki-infused waves of sword energy surged toward Wayne.
Wayne didn't dodge. Instead, he coated Rakshasa in Armament Haki and slashed both projectiles to the side.
Boom!
The impact sent Wayne skidding back through the air, but he quickly stabilized himself. On the ground, the slashes left twin gashes more than ten meters long.
"So the old lion hasn't lost his edge after all."
Wayne studied the gashes on the ground, acknowledging the strength in Shiki's strikes.
Now the real fight would begin.
A stream of black flowed down Wayne's arm, climbing across his shoulders, chest, neck, torso, and legs until his entire body was cloaked in pitch-black Armament Haki.
Only his forehead remained visible marked by a glowing, dark-violet lightning symbol.
This was Wayne's strongest state of Armament Haki. An armor forged from pure will.
Shiki's eyes narrowed. The level of control Wayne had over his Haki was extraordinary.
But at the same time, Shiki smirked faintly. In a battle between top-tier fighters, it wasn't unusual for a duel to drag on for days. To Shiki, using that much power from the start suggested inexperience.
Still, the pressure bearing down on him increased.
Wayne's every move hit harder, faster, more destructively. Shiki had no choice but to fully coat himself in Armament Haki to keep up.
Both possessed flight-capable Devil Fruits, and their figures blurred across the sky in a violent aerial dance. Dozens of exchanges flashed by in mere minutes, their swords clashing in rapid succession before the two finally separated again, each waiting for an opening.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Steel rang against steel Wayne's Rakshasa against Shiki's twin blades. Sword energy rippled outward, leaving deep scars in the air and ground.
And then...
Several figures appeared on the distant battlefield below.
Robin. Gloria. Solomon. Claw. Keith.
Robin and Gloria seemed to have recovered well, but the other three were wrapped in thick bandages. Keith looked like a walking mummy.
Robin stared up at the battle in the sky, then glanced at the horizon.
"It's almost sunrise... and they're still going?"
Solomon shook his head. "For fighters at their level, battling for three days wouldn't surprise me in the slightest."
Among them, Solomon was the strongest. He knew just how much stamina someone like Wayne possessed.
Claw adjusted his glasses with a bandaged hand. "Should we... help Boss out?"
A flicker of hope lit up the others' eyes but Solomon immediately shut it down.
"Didn't you see the shockwaves around them? If you want to die, go ahead. At their level, none of us can intervene. If we try, Wayne might have to waste energy protecting us."
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