Facing the Gravity Wave that Issho swung out after dodging his attack, Cyrus raised his sword to block it.
The backward pull of gravity tore at his body.
However, this gravity had a negligible effect on him.
"The probing is over. Can we get serious now?" Cyrus said, holding his sword.
Flames appeared on his hand, transforming into several fire serpents that coiled around the blade.
Their exchange just now was, in fact, a test of each other's level.
This was true for Cyrus, and for Issho as well.
Issho, raising his sword to his chest, lowered his head slightly. His ruined eyes showed only the whites.
"Hell's Journey!"
Boom!
A sudden gravitational force pressed down on Cyrus's body.
The sand beneath Cyrus's feet began to sink under the gravitational pressure.
As Issho sheathed his blade and the gravity erupted, Cyrus's body exploded into a sky full of flames under the force.
The flames coalesced at Issho's side, and Flame, wreathed in Haki, came slashing horizontally.
The sound of clashing metal rang out.
Issho, having drawn his sword, blocked Cyrus's strike, and was sent flying backward by the force.
As Issho flew back, Cyrus's newly formed body blurred once more.
"What immense strength!" Issho exclaimed as he flew backward.
He flipped his body over, and the sand beneath him floated up, forming a ball of sand.
Stepping on the sand ball, Issho stabilized himself and then flew up into the air.
Swish!
An orange-red slash flew from Cyrus's blade, splitting the airborne sand ball.
Dodging the slash, Issho sheathed his sword and activated his ability mid-air.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The ground beneath Cyrus was crushed by gravity.
Just as Cyrus dodged, gravity appeared on his body again.
And this time, the gravity was much stronger than before.
Cyrus's body flickered as the gravity continuously followed him.
The desert began to tremble under Issho's ability, and the large pits created by the gravitational pressure were filled with yellow sand.
The swirling sand formed downward-pointing pillars under the influence of gravity.
"Got you!"
Issho, in mid-air, suddenly said, sheathing his blade with a sharp motion.
Boom!
In the desert below, a hundred-meter-wide area of land abruptly sank.
Cyrus, caught within this area, looked up at Issho floating in the sky.
This ability was somewhat similar to the Float-Float Fruit's ability.
As for the gravity on his body, given Cyrus's physique, although his movements were somewhat restricted, the impact wasn't very significant.
This led to Cyrus still having the presence of mind to ponder Issho's ability.
The gravity erupted.
The sand, compressed by gravity, suddenly sank.
Cyrus, also suppressed by gravity, disappeared into the large pit it created.
Issho's expression remained solemn even after landing a hit; he didn't relax for a moment.
His Observation Haki, which was locked onto Cyrus, could see that aside from some torn clothes, Cyrus didn't even have a scratch on him from that attack.
Such a physique was too astonishing.
Although Issho had rarely traveled the seas before, he still knew about some of the powerhouses on the water.
He also knew that some powerhouses possessed terrifying physiques, on the level of monsters.
But hearing about it was one thing; he had never personally encountered one.
And now, he probably understood.
It was probably just like the monster before him.
He hadn't held back on that last attack.
But what was the result? Besides looking a bit disheveled, Cyrus was completely unharmed.
"You dare to get distracted while fighting me."
Cyrus's voice suddenly rang out.
Flames rose from the pit created by the gravitational pressure, soaring hundreds of meters into the sky.
The flames spread outwards.
Issho's body trembled.
The Cyrus his Observation Haki had been locked onto had vanished.
Or rather, he had merged into this endless flame.
"Stroke Cut!"
Cyrus's voice sounded right next to Issho.
Issho spun around abruptly, his arm and sword wreathed in Armament Haki.
A slash that seemed to tear through space itself was already before him.
Boom!
Issho's body was knocked out of the sky.
Cyrus, his body wreathed in flames, floated in the air, looking down at Issho who had crashed into the earth below.
The desert ground exploded, and Issho's figure was obscured by sand.
The sand splashed up, filling the surrounding space.
Then, a series of chaotic fields of force intertwined randomly, enveloping Cyrus.
Cyrus tilted his head slightly as a gravity wave appeared, grazing past his ear.
Although he dodged it, the gravity wave's area of effect was larger than he had perceived.
A small part of Cyrus's head disappeared under the sudden gravity wave.
Then, more gravity waves sealed off Cyrus's body.
The damaged parts of his body burned with flames.
The swirling sand, gathered by the gravity waves, condensed into pillars of sand that floated in the air.
"This kind of attack has no effect on a Logia user!"
Cyrus's expression remained unchanged despite his damaged body, his eyes looking down below.
Amidst the swirling sand, Issho who's kneeling on one knee, suddenly drew his longsword.
An invisible wave of gravity shot straight into the sky.
Another wave of gravity enveloped and sealed Cyrus.
The flames that filled the sky were also suppressed by gravity, abruptly falling towards the ground and compressing.
Issho's whitened eyes faced the direction where Cyrus was.
"You seem to be underestimating me a little."
"Not at all!"
"But you're not fighting seriously."
Issho remained on one knee, his expression grave.
He could feel that, since the fight began, although the commotion looked huge, his opponent was only fighting him with his physique and Elemental Transformation ability.
But a person like this surely had more tricks up his sleeve.
Cyrus, being pressed down to the ground by gravity again, didn't speak after hearing Issho's words. Instead, he looked up at the sky.
A meteor pierced through the clouds above the desert, hurtling down towards him.
Under the influence of the powerful gravity, Cyrus raised the sword in his hand.
"World Ashes!"
A scorching slash shot up into the sky, splitting the meteor falling from the heavens from bottom to top.
Boom!
The slash cut through the meteor and flew into the sky, parting the clouds.
The sundered meteor continued to fall, but as it descended, it rapidly disintegrated.
Before it even touched the ground, it had already turned to ash.
"Single-Blade Cremation!"
As the meteor turned to ash, Cyrus's voice rang out again.
Issho's body shot backward abruptly, but Cyrus's figure had already appeared in front of him.
"Gravity Blade: Raging Tiger!"
He drew his sword in a horizontal sweep, and a gravity wave with an extremely large area of effect slammed into Cyrus, who had suddenly appeared before him.
Then, a pillar of fire, hundreds of meters thick, suddenly erupted, completely enveloping both Cyrus and Issho within it.
Yamamoto Genryusai needed to abandon all else and pursue only powerful attacks to use this move.
But the elementalized Cyrus didn't need to face the side effects of this move.
Issho, pushed back by the gravity, looked a bit battered.
His light purple and white kimono was scorched black.
As his feet landed, he slid across the sand.
Holding his sword horizontally before him, Issho's face was grave.
In that last exchange, he had felt the threat of death.
'Logia types... they really are powerful.'
'No, it's the person who is powerful.'
'This young man's strength was too... immense.'
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