"Dual Blade Style! Void Severance Slash!"
Intersecting black blades slashed through the sky, erupting with a sharp force that could rend both sky and sea, making Rorschach's heart suddenly turn cold.
Dark blue Haki surged from within him like a tide. The war halberd in his hands rose from below to meet the descending twin blades.
"Clang!"
Metal clashed, a sharp, piercing explosion tore through the dark sky, echoing across the sea for kilometers above.
Below, Rorschach's body was flung downward. The white short-sleeve shirt on his chest tore open with two crisscrossing gashes.
The black blade light had sliced through the deep blue Haki surrounding his body, leaving two shallow blood marks.
"Whoosh whoosh!"
Dozens of meters below, the sea silently split apart, forming a giant cross-shaped deep-sea trench stretching hundreds of meters!
"Wind Control! Air Barrier!"
Rorschach pressed his left hand downward. Roaring air currents gathered, spinning and compressing beneath him, forming an invisible cushion of air that halted his fall.
He looked down at the two slashes on his chest, and his pupils shrank.
His Armament Haki had actually failed to block Jonathan's strike.
"Your Haki has quantity, but not quality. Without refining it to a higher level, it'll never stand on the world stage."
In the sky, Jonathan smiled slightly, stepping lightly on Moonwalk, gazing at the dark blue armor that coated Rorschach's entire body.
"By the way, I've always been curious—where did you bounty hunters learn the Navy's Six Powers?"
Rorschach stopped his fall. Wind swirled around him and launched him back upward. The dark blue light on the Heavenly Dragon Halberd gleamed with a mountain-like weight as he thrust it at Jonathan.
Jonathan stepped down with Moonwalk, fast as thunder, zigzagging through the air like lightning, approaching Rorschach's side with both blades trailing long black streaks.
"Did Sengoku never tell you? I was his senior."
"Dual Blade Style! Hm?"
Suddenly, lightning burst violently from Rorschach's halberd.
"Crackle!"
Silvery electric currents surged wildly over the heavy halberd. With a twist, it shot straight forward and struck Jonathan's long blade.
"Eighty Million Volts! Thunder Flash!"
The raging lightning struck with incredible speed.
At such close range, even Jonathan's astonishing speed couldn't dodge it. He was engulfed in the chaotic electric storm.
But…
There was no joy on Rorschach's face. Instead, he suddenly retreated.
"Controlling wind and lightning—not bad. But…"
Around two or three meters from Jonathan's body, an invisible armor flared to life, blocking all the incoming lightning.
Two sharp blade lights flashed out from the invisible armor, one high, one low, slicing at Rorschach's legs and neck.
"Advanced Armament Haki isn't just for coating the body. Its greatest strength lies in its ability to attack and defend from a distance!Dual Blade Style! Night Crow Slash!"
While retreating, Rorschach swung his halberd, shattering both incoming strikes. Before he could stabilize, a swift figure shot toward him like lightning, slashing at his face.
The black blade carried an invisible power that exploded with the force to shatter a harbor.
"Buzz!"
A skull-like figure, seven to eight meters tall, rose from the black blade, howling at the sky. The black demonic aura billowed like mist, making the blade look like something straight from hell.
"Single Blade Style! Hell of Avīci!"
Faced with deadly danger, Rorschach held nothing back. He roared, and his suppressed aura surged explosively. His body expanded wildly.
Azure blue scales spread across his body. His now seven-meter-tall form radiated volcano-like power. The four-meter-long war halberd, gripped in his three-meter-long blue giant arm, seemed to transform from a two-handed weapon into a one-handed spear.
"Blue Scaled Form!"
"One Hundred Million Volts Discharge! Thunder Heaven Slash!"
Blade and halberd collided above the hundred-meter sea.
"Clang!"
A metallic resonance shook the heavens, followed by a wild, chaotic shockwave blasting outward from the center.
"Boom!"
Thunder rolled across the sky like the roar of a dragon.
Below, the sea churned violently from the shockwaves, sending out concentric waves.
Waves over ten meters high rippled outward, shaking the entire ocean.
The rushing roar of the tides filled the air.
In the sky, two figures—one large, one small—clashed weapons, locked in a stalemate.
"Hahaha, not bad! Really not bad!"
Jonathan, gripping his sword with one hand, looked at the wild, seven-meter-tall blue humanoid Kirin before him, a look of admiration on his face.
He chuckled, saying, "It's been years, but the Navy's birthed another fine talent. Unlike my Hunter Guild… sigh, we've truly fallen. No one to carry the torch."
As he sighed, the black sword in his left hand shimmered with invisible light. A red demon, seven to eight meters tall, roared out of the blade and slashed at Rorschach's arm.
"Single Blade Style! Asura's Wrath!"
Silver lightning flared in Rorschach's eyes, his vertical pupils narrowing with majesty.
"Buzz!"
A surge of Conqueror's Haki blasted toward Jonathan's face.
Dark blue Haki flowed across his entire body. His already thick arms swelled again.
His ten fingers turned into black Kirin claws, and his blue scales flared, releasing jets of scorching steam. He gripped the Heavenly Dragon Halberd and pressed it down hard toward Jonathan.
Raging thunder surged from within him, forming into a chaotic lightning ball that exploded between them.
"BOOM!"
It was like igniting a thousand-ton powder magazine.
The two-meter-wide lightning ball exploded, sending out a devastating shockwave that twisted and shattered the red demon slash.
Jonathan let out a muffled groan as his two-meter-tall frame was slammed into the sea by Rorschach.
When it came to raw physical strength, this old-era powerhouse was still far inferior to Rorschach, who wielded the power of a Mythical Zoan.
One strike hurled Jonathan into the sea, shattering the surface. As Rorschach sank deeper, his Observation Haki remained locked on his opponent. His massive Kirin claw hand opened, gathering blazing lightning.
Hundreds of meters beneath the sea, Jonathan's body crashed into an unlucky Sea King, splitting it in half before he finally stopped.
Ignoring the spreading blood in the water, Jonathan spread his arms and spun his body. His twin blades cut through the water as he began rotating like a top.
"Whoosh whoosh!"
As he spun, the Haki and blade aura extended from his swords, dragging the surrounding water into a whirlpool a hundred meters wide.
From above, Rorschach looked down and saw a massive whirlpool rapidly forming beneath him.
At its center, a wild figure swung twin blades, stirring the ocean itself!
"Dual Blade Style! Ocean Current Grand Tornado!"
"BOOM!"
The hundred-meter-wide sea vortex broke through the deep ocean like a dragon rising to the heavens, roaring as it shot up toward the airborne Rorschach.
A terrifying aura, like the mighty power of the heavens descending, crashed down upon everything, making one involuntarily feel small and powerless.
But!That wasn't Rorschach!"Wind Control! Water Tornado!"
Rorschach threw the war halberd in his hand toward the sky. His two muscular Kirin arms grasped the invisible air currents above and yanked them down toward the sea.
"Whoooshhh!"
The howling winds swept in from all directions. On the nearby sea surface, the waters began to swirl rapidly, quickly forming another water tornado, like a dragon sucking water, soaring into the sky, twisting and crashing toward the sea current tornado that Jonathan had created.
The sea surface fell into chaos.
Two towering water tornadoes spun wildly, stirring the sea into complete upheaval.
In the blink of an eye, the water tornado controlled by Rorschach's airflow collided with the swirling water pillar that Jonathan was in.
With a massive thunderous boom that shook the heavens, tens of millions of tons of seawater came crashing down.
The spinning water tornadoes dissolved and disappeared.
"Swish!"
Amid the cascading seawater, a black shadow pierced the water curtain and suddenly rushed toward Rorschach, delivering a slash.
"One-Sword Style! Heavenly Waterfall Burial!"
As the black blade, covered in high-level Armament Haki, came down, the falling seawater in the sky was pulled by the blade's aura, transforming into a waterfall-like river of slashing light, rushing toward Rorschach's towering body.
Large amounts of seawater were wrapped in Haki, forming curved crescent-shaped blades.
If a Devil Fruit user were hit by these halberds wrapped in seawater, even if they didn't die, they'd be rendered powerless from the contact.
Howling air currents spun around Rorschach, forming a thick, invisible armor of wind on his body — a unique kind of Armament Armor — keeping all the falling seawater at bay.
His giant Kirin claw, as if supporting the heavens, caught the descending Sky Dragon Halberd and, wrapped in deep blue Haki, slashed downward.
Wild and blazing thunder erupted from Rorschach's mountain-like body. Along with the gathering storm, it turned into a thunderous crescent blade hundreds of meters long. Reflected in Jonathan's tightening pupils, it split heaven and earth as the halberd came crashing down.
"1.5 Billion Volts Discharge! Thunder Crescent Slash!"
"Swish!"
"Rumble—!"
In that instant, thunder roared through the skies, and fierce winds howled.
"Two-Sword Style! Demon Aura! Hell Inferno Slash!"
Blue and red demon spirits burst from Jonathan's twin blades, roaring as they charged at the massive Thunder Crescent Slash.
"Boom!"
Two hours later...
"Boom!"
"Boom!"
"Boom!"
Amid the violent collisions, Jonathan's once fully restored body suddenly deflated like a punctured balloon.
The high-level Armament Haki on his body thinned to almost nothing, like a sheet of paper that Rorschach's halberd could pierce at any moment.
"Clang!"
With a harsh metallic clang, Jonathan Barnett — now once again a gaunt, elderly figure — was disarmed as his twin blades were knocked flying by the heavy war halberd. He himself was flung like a cannonball into the distance.
Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. His old face was filled with exhaustion, and his eyes carried a trace of bitterness.
While tumbling backward, Jonathan looked at the tall, motionless figure floating in the sky — the one who hadn't chased after him — and murmured in a daze:
"I'm old... really old now... I can't even beat a junior anymore... haha... how useless."
In his blurred vision, Jonathan seemed to see a white cape fluttering behind the young man whose body was gradually returning to human form.
Once upon a time, he too had been like that young man — confident, high-spirited, full of passion.
He had once dared to lay down his life for the justice of the Marines.
How many years ago was that?
Forty?Or fifty?Jonathan no longer remembered clearly.
He only remembered that it was a darker time than now.
Back then, the world-famous Pirate King Roger was just a newcomer setting out to sea.
Marine Hero Garp and Fleet Admiral Sengoku were merely fresh recruits who had just joined Marineford.
The current Supreme Commander of all three military branches, Kong, had been his comrade from the same class.
In that era, Rocks D. Xebec had just grown into his power, fighting monsters in the New World, revealing his potential as a sovereign ruler.
Back then, Jonathan Barnett had grown tired of serving the World Government. He resigned and left the Marines, who were desperately short on manpower.
He traveled the world, visiting country after country.
He reached the sky islands 10,000 meters up, and the Fish-Man Island 10,000 meters under the sea.
He had secretly visited the bridge nation that had been under construction for 800 years.
He had even stood atop the Red Line and glimpsed the God's Knights, deeply hidden by the World Government.
Jonathan roamed the world, righting wrongs and fighting evil.
He became neither pirate nor marine.
If he met a kind-hearted pirate, he would help them.
If he met an evil marine, he would cut them down.
And so, the years flew by.
Until the world-shaking battle at God Valley broke out, and Jonathan could no longer stay uninvolved.
Along with a group of self-organized heroic powerhouses, he formed a second line of defense on the outskirts of the battlefield to prevent the remnants of the brutal Rocks Pirates from escaping the siege.
But things didn't go as hoped.
They still couldn't stop Edward Newgate, Shiki, Charlotte Linlin, and others.
Fortunately, a few notorious pirates — whose powers weren't suited for escape and who were heavily injured in the chaos — were intercepted by Jonathan and his allies.
Among them were the infamous pirates Captain John and Silver Axe.
Jonathan, working with many seafaring heroes, killed Captain John and Silver Axe, then refused the Marines' invitation to return.
Instead, he founded the Bounty Hunter Guild in his homeland, the Kingdom of Saint White Poplar.
At that time, the Bounty Hunter Guild was at its peak. Its branches extended across the world.
The scale of bounty hunters was so massive, it rivaled the Navy as a second force.
But times changed. The tides of history rolled on, and the era of bounty hunters was but a fleeting moment — soon drowned in the surging wave of the Great Pirate Era.
"Over thirty years ago, Rocks united the old era and became the king of half the world.
Over ten years ago, Roger started the Great Pirate Era and became the Pirate King.
What kind of era will come next?
Who will become the brightest star of that new age?
Unfortunately, I'm already too old. I probably won't get the chance to see it."
(End of Chapter)
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