Watching Roya and Smoker battle Lao G, the members of the elite camp were all deeply shaken. The power displayed by Smoker and Lao G was certainly frightening, but the most dazzling sight of all was Roya himself, whose overwhelming offensive left everyone breathless.
Explosions of flame erupted again and again, roaring violently, while crescent-shaped sword energies tore through the ground. Roya's strength left every elite-camp recruit present at a loss for words.
Even Drake, Hina, and the others found their minds going blank as they watched Roya clash head-on with Lao G.
Drake knew very well that although Roya had been strong a month ago, he had absolutely not been this strong. The current Roya possessed power that nearly surpassed Drake's own before transformation. As for speed—especially his Soru—even Drake after transforming seemed inferior by comparison.
Moreover, Roya's slashes were undoubtedly fiercer than they had been a month earlier. Watching those occasional half-moon-shaped sword energies erupt, Drake had no doubt that he himself would be cleaved in two by a single strike.
What left the elite camp members most incredulous was that Smoker, widely acknowledged as the strongest in the elite camp, had clearly become little more than a supporting presence in this battle, reduced to providing interference and assistance from the side.
Didn't this mean that Roya's strength had already surpassed Smoker's?!
In just a single month after joining the elite camp, he had gained power that could nearly sweep through the entire camp. Since the elite camp's founding, such a feat was exceedingly rare!
On the battlefield—
At this point in the fight, Roya was not completely uninjured. A faint trace of blood was visible at the corner of his mouth, spilled after being struck by one of Lao G's punches.
Yet even while injured, Roya's offensive showed no sign of weakening—if anything, it seemed to grow even stronger!
Roya appeared to embody a power fundamentally different from that of the people of this world. This power did not originate from his body, but from his soul—from the soul of the sword itself!
Even with a wounded body, Roya's combat ability was completely unaffected. Instead, the injury only intensified his fighting spirit, making his attacks even more ferocious.
Throughout the entire battle, Roya had almost no defensive moves at all. Every single technique he used was a full-force attack!
Such a savage fighting style hardly resembled that of an elite-camp Marine recruit. It was more like the style of a fearsome pirate who dominated the Grand Line!
The more Lao G fought, the more alarmed he became.
He had initially thought that Roya's powerful attacks were merely superficial. He never expected Roya's fighting style to be this brutal—sometimes even willing to take a punch head-on just to land a ruthless sword strike in return!
Under these circumstances, Lao G, who fought with his fists, naturally did not want to engage in such reckless exchanges. Yet the more he tried to avoid head-on clashes, the fiercer and more unstoppable Roya's assault became!
Even though Lao G could use Armament Haki, his fists were still riddled with wounds under Roya's blade. His body, too, was covered in countless cuts, blood continuously flowing out.
"Taimatsu!!"
Roya was completely engulfed in towering flames. Even if the elite camp members wanted to provide support, they simply could not. And with their level of strength, they were in no position to interfere in a battle between Roya, Smoker, and Lao G.
If they rushed in, not only would they be of no help—they would become a burden.
The raging flames left Lao G in a sorry state. Not only did he need to dodge Roya's sword energies, he also had to constantly suppress the flames with his punch or force his way out of the inferno to change the battlefield.
By now—
Lao G, an officer of the Donquixote Family, was clearly being pushed onto the defensive!
At this moment, not only were the elite camp members watching in stunned silence from afar, but even Zephyr, standing atop the Central Hotel, had a light in his eyes unlike anything before.
Roya's performance in this battle—though somewhat rough at the beginning—grew increasingly refined, as if he were a natural-born combat genius. In particular, his understanding of swordsmanship seemed to be steadily improving right in the midst of battle!
On the battlefield—
Roya fought bathed in blood. Aside from the small trace at the corner of his mouth, all the blood present belonged to Lao G.
At this moment, a powerful momentum seemed to be brewing within Roya. Though still only in its embryonic form, it already forcefully suppressed Lao G's own presence.
Then, in the midst of this unceasing battle, there came a sudden instant—
Roya felt as though everything had become extraordinarily slow.
Lao G's punches slowed, his own sword descended slowly, and it even felt as if his blade had become completely motionless.
This was the extension of time perception.
This state usually lasted only an instant, yet within that instant, it gave the sensation that everything had come to a standstill. Many people had a chance of entering this state at the brink of death or in moments of life-and-death crisis.
Beyond that—
Even absolute masters who had honed their perception to the extreme had only an exceedingly small chance of entering such a special state.
Roya's entry into this state was no coincidence. It was because, in this battle, his use of the power of the Soul Sword far exceeded anything he had done before.
After activating the Soul Sword ability countless times, Roya could clearly sense the existence of his own soul—he could feel the presence of the Soul Sword itself!
Roya was neither on the verge of death nor facing a mortal crisis. Yet as the power of his soul was brought forth with increasing intensity, he entered this state.
To the outside world, it lasted only an instant.
But to Roya, it allowed him to see with unparalleled clarity the trajectory traced by the blade in a full-power strike—as if he could see the formation of sword pressure, witness the eruption of sword energy, and touch upon deeper mysteries of sword pressure itself!
Just as Roya tried to observe it even more closely, his senses suddenly returned to normal. Everything before his eyes, which had slowed to near stillness, abruptly accelerated once more.
To the outside world, it was merely a fleeting instant—but to Roya, it was something beyond words.
Buzz!!
Roya's sword suddenly fell.
This strike was nothing more than a normal slash, yet the power it unleashed was at least thirty percent greater than that of his previous ordinary attacks.
Lao G took the blow head-on.
Compared to Getsuga Tenshō, which directly increased power by more than threefold, a mere thirty-percent boost seemed utterly unremarkable. It did not even shake Lao G's fists, and he paid it no mind.
After all, Roya had already used Getsuga Tenshō—an attack with more than triple the power—more than once.
However—
What Lao G did not know was that this increase came from Roya's deeper understanding of sword pressure. It was an enhancement to the base power of his slashes.
And when the base power increased by nearly thirty percent, that meant…
The power of Getsuga Tenshō would likewise surge dramatically on top of that foundation!