Newgate reacted decisively. When the strike failed to achieve its goal, he immediately lifted his blade and stepped back, surprise clear on his face as he looked at Ortoren.
"Who are you saying exposed an opening, Whitebeard?" Ortoren rolled his shoulder and grinned.
To be fair, even though that slash hadn't broken through his defense, the sheer weight behind it still left a dull ache in his shoulder.
He tore off the shattered Justice Cloak and casually tossed it aside. Now dressed in brown work pants and high-top leather boots, his upper body was revealed to be nothing more than a plain black vest.
The vest clung tightly to his skin, outlining his powerful musculature. Stripped of the Marine Justice Cloak, Ortoren's presence felt even more savage than before.
Staring at Ortoren's shoulder, dark and gleaming with a metallic luster, Newgate seemed to piece things together. His voice carried a trace of surprise.
"You actually tempered your own flesh and blood with Haki?"
Ortoren laughed loudly.
"You didn't think I got this far just by relying on talent, did you? Even if I'm usually buried in government work, I've never slacked off on my training for even a moment all these years."
He paused briefly, then continued.
"If a swordsman can temper his blade into an unbreakable black sword with Haki, why can't a man temper his own… ahem. You get the idea."
Haki was always a matter of slow, grinding effort. Ortoren had long since fully grasped Rocks' old book, Haki: From Beginner to the Grave.
Setting aside rare monsters like the Red Count, who was born able to awaken Observation Haki to the point of hearing people's hearts, or cheats like the Straw Hat, the vast majority of people had to rely on relentless training day after day, year after year, to refine their Haki.
Ortoren's talent for Haki wasn't bad, but it was hardly dazzling.
A few years ago, when his Haki growth began to slow and settle, Ortoren had already started looking for another path.
While continuing to build the depth of his Haki, he also explored new ways to use it.
Advanced applications like Ryuo were, after all, techniques developed through generations of experimentation.
Ortoren's idea borrowed from the concept of swordsmen forging black blades with Haki. Relying on his abnormal, monstrous physique, the lightning stimulation of the Goro Goro no Mi, and the deep bodily control developed through the Marines' Rokushiki, he combined all of these methods together.
After countless failures, he finally succeeded in mastering the technique of tempering his own body with Haki.
What's more, this technique could be combined with Tekkai, producing the "Black Gold" he had used earlier. And while continuously forging his body, it also served as a form of Haki cultivation in itself. The two reinforced each other, with nothing wasted.
Naturally, Ortoren hadn't kept this technique to himself. But so far, only Lucci had barely touched the threshold. The rest, including Momonga, Isshō, and Gion, were unable to reach that level.
The reason was simple. Ortoren could use lightning power at critical moments to stimulate his flesh and cells, accelerating the fusion between his body and Haki. As for Lucci, his Mythical Zoan vampire abilities allowed him to control his blood and develop it to a certain extent, barely reaching the cellular level as well.
Everyone else was stuck at that exact step.
Because of this, the difficulty of the technique was nothing short of terrifying. That was precisely why Newgate was so astonished that Ortoren had managed to train his Haki to such a degree.
After all, Ortoren's line of thinking wasn't new. There were countless Haki users on the seas, and no shortage of people with wild ideas. Yet this particular approach had never been successfully realized before.
There were many powerful ability users out on the seas, but even Newgate, the top-tier fighter hailed as the strongest man in the world, had never possessed the qualifications to found his own school.
Those capable of truly founding a school were usually masters of physical techniques, Haki, or swordsmanship.
Within the Marines, for example, the man known as Black Arm Zephyr was an unquestioned grandmaster of both Haki and physical combat, with Garp standing among the same ranks.
Although Mihawk looks young, he has already walked his own path of swordsmanship. Every casual strike he makes is an ultimate technique, and he has reached the very pinnacle among swordsmen. He is undoubtedly that kind of figure.
Today, Ortoren pushed the application of Haki into entirely new territory, using it to temper his own body. Even though this path was extremely restrictive in terms of cultivation, it was still enough to be called the founding of a new school.
Before him, no one had ever reached this step. If the remaining obstacles of this technique could one day be overcome and spread widely, then Ortoren would become its founding ancestor.
His status would be no less than that of the pioneers who first opened the path of Ryuo.
There was no intention of continuing this discussion with Newgate. After all, this wasn't a martial exchange symposium.
After rolling his shoulders, the lingering soreness faded significantly. Ortoren then smiled with confidence and said,
"The greetings are over. Next, it's time to get serious, Whitebeard. As the strongest opponent I've faced so far, you're qualified to taste the Haki-forged body I've honed for years."
As his words fell, Ortoren's presence exploded outward.
The skin exposed beyond his clothes rapidly turned pitch black as his aura surged. His entire body looked as if it had been coated in some unknown black metal, giving off an unmistakable sense of toughness.
At first glance, it resembled ordinary Haki armor. But on closer inspection, the Haki had permeated his flesh itself, fully fused as one. There was no separation, and therefore no weakness to exploit.
And it had to be said that even without this technique, Ortoren's natural physique alone already possessed steel-like toughness that ordinary people couldn't break through. Now that the two were combined, even he didn't know just how terrifying his defense and endurance had become.
"In this state lies the strongest defense," Ortoren declared proudly as he looked at Newgate.
After a brief pause, dazzling lightning surged out from his body once more, forming a lightning armor that stacked another layer atop his defense.
At the same time, the lightning gathered in his hands became sharper and more blinding than the rest. As he raised his arm, Ortoren spoke in a deep voice,
"Using lightning as the strongest offense, offense and defense as one. That is invincibility."
The instant his words ended, Soru erupted beneath Ortoren's feet. Since the distance between them was already short, he appeared right in front of Newgate in a flash.
Without another word, a heavy punch wrapped in lightning crashed straight toward Newgate.
"Thunderstorm Thunder Dragon!!!"
Newgate's reactions were just as sharp. Facing Ortoren's heavy punch, he had no intention of taking it head-on. With a step and a burst of force, his massive frame displayed astonishing evasive skill as he instantly shifted away from Ortoren's attack.
The next moment, Ortoren's fist slammed into the ground.
Lightning detonated outward. Vast arcs of electricity swept across hundreds of meters, shattering the earth and blasting out a massive crater as a violent thunderstorm erupted.
While using Haki to block the overflowing lightning, Newgate didn't have time to wield Murakumogiri. The distance was too close, and the weapon itself was too long.
Instead, Haki and tremor power fused in his fist in an instant, and his iron punch smashed straight toward Ortoren.
As if deliberately testing his current defense, Ortoren didn't dodge or evade. He turned around and even arrogantly spread his arms wide, completely opening himself up as he allowed Newgate's punch to slam into his chest.
A dull boom echoed.
The ground beneath Ortoren shattered again, and his body was pressed down by the tremendous force, sliding four or five meters along the ground before finally stopping.
Although this punch was a hurried strike from Newgate and not delivered at full power, it was by no means weak.
Earlier, Vice Admiral Cancer had taken an attack slightly weaker than this and had nearly been defeated on the spot.
Yet now, after the punch landed, Ortoren's defense truly held. Newgate hadn't managed to break through at all.
Of course, that was only on the surface. Outwardly, Ortoren looked unharmed, but in reality, his chest ached intensely. The iron fist of the strongest man, even as a hasty strike combined with tremor power, was not something easy to endure.
Still, Ortoren showed not the slightest hint of discomfort. In terms of presence alone, he intended to overpower the strongest man.
So despite the swelling pain in his chest, Ortoren casually brushed at nonexistent dust on his body, lifted his chin arrogantly, and looked at Newgate.
"You can't even hit with any strength, and you call yourself the strongest man?"
Newgate clearly hadn't expected Ortoren to be this brazen. He froze for a moment, then his expression darkened.
"Brat, I hope you can stay this arrogant from here on out."
As his words fell, a faint, translucent glow spread over Newgate's body. It looked unremarkable, but it signaled one thing clearly.
He was getting serious.
Ortoren hadn't gone all out.
And neither had Whitebeard.