Hawkeye, the Common Ground Between Haki and Ki

"A distinguished guest of the Donquixote Family..."

Vice Admiral Tsuru looked at Zhu Mang, her eyes flickering.

Meanwhile, Zhu Mang himself, the man at the center of it all, paid no heed to the tension in the air.

He flashed over to Hawkeye, acting as though they were old friends. "Can I take a look at the sword on your back?"

Hawkeye fell silent for a moment before drawing Yoru with his backhand and handing it to Zhu Mang.

"It really is a fine blade." Zhu Mang gave it a swing, then handed it back to Hawkeye and asked curiously, "I heard black blades are formed after Armament Haki has been imbued into them for a long time. Is that true? Or was it black to begin with?"

Hawkeye took Yoru back, secretly letting out a slight breath of relief.

He had seen that the man before him had no intention of stealing his sword and was merely curious, which was why he had handed it over so readily.

"Half true," Hawkeye said. "Armament Haki can indeed affect a blade to some degree. When certain special Haki is fused into a blade and leaves behind the former owner's will, it can become a cursed blade. But Armament Haki itself has no color, so it will not change a blade's color."

"Huh? Isn't Armament Haki black?" Zhu Mang asked in confusion. He remembered it clearly being black when he read the manga, while Conqueror's Haki had been black and red.

Had crossing worlds twice fried his brain?

Hawkeye gave him an odd look, wondering whether those powerful attacks from earlier had not been launched with Armament Haki. How could he know so little about Armament Haki?

Still, he demonstrated it.

Whoosh!

Armament Haki extended from his hand and swiftly wrapped around Yoru.

Yet unless one looked very closely, there was practically no difference from when the blade was not coated in Haki.

"Armament Haki is an invisible suit of armor," Hawkeye explained.

"Ohhh~" Zhu Mang suddenly understood.

So the anime had misled him.

He remembered now.

The manga had indeed mentioned this setting: Armament Haki was an invisible suit of armor.

If it was invisible, then why had it appeared black in the anime?

That was probably a secondary setting added by the anime production to make Haki coating easier to see.

The real Armament Haki before him was, for the most part, invisible.

Only upon close inspection could one see a faint film on Yoru's surface that caused slight ripples in the air, as though a transparent coating had been plated over the blade.

Zhu Mang placed his finger against the sharp edge coated in Armament Haki.

Hawkeye was just about to stop him. His Armament Haki had reached the very highest level; he considered it no weaker than that of the Four Emperors.

Combined with Yoru's sharpness, in this state, an ordinary person's finger would be severed just by approaching the blade. He would not even need to swing it!

But before he could say anything, the sight before him stunned him.

Zhu Mang casually placed his finger on it, then even gave it a few gentle squeezes as if he were pinching jelly.

"How is this possible..." Hawkeye felt his worldview shatter.

There was actually someone in this world who could ignore Yoru coated in his Armament Haki with nothing but his physical body, without relying on any Armament Haki defense whatsoever!

At the same time, Zhu Mang made a discovery that excited him.

Armament Haki actually shared certain similarities with ki!

Thinking about it carefully, some aspects of the One Piece World really did resemble the Dragon Ball World.

Of course, that was only if one excluded the alien arc of the Dragon Ball World.

In other words, the classic first Dragon Ball series, from Son Goku meeting Bulma to Son Goku marrying Chi-Chi.

Considering that the two authors had something akin to a teacher-student relationship, it seemed understandable.

The One Piece World was, in fact, much like Earth in Dragon Ball.

In Dragon Ball, once one's physique had been trained to a certain level, one could draw forth ki from within one's body.

Attacks enhanced by ki were far more powerful than those relying on the body alone.

The same was true in the One Piece World.

Once one's physique had been trained to a certain level, one could develop Armament Haki to strengthen attacks or defense.

However, compared to the Dragon Ball World, the One Piece World's application of ki was clearly much cruder.

And its quantity was far smaller as well.

In the Dragon Ball World, Earthlings like Krillin, Tien Shinhan, and Yamcha might not have had much ki in total, but they could use their ingenuity to make all sorts of creative uses of it.

There was the Destructo Disc that could cut through anything.

There was the Tri-Beam that could hold back second-form Cell for an entire day with a bag of Senzu Beans and a bag of cigarettes.

Master Roshi in particular possessed the Son family's signature Kamehameha, the Thunder Shock Surprise that turned ki into electricity, the Evil Containment Wave that sealed opponents regardless of power level, and more.

Solar Flare, which turned ki into blinding light, and Telepathy, which used ki to communicate mentally, were also Earth techniques.

In One Piece, aside from Armament Haki, there were also Observation Haki and Conqueror's Haki, though Conqueror's Haki was said to be innate.

Observation Haki, on the other hand, seemed more like a passive bodily response combined with ki.

Still, there were some talented people in One Piece who had developed unique applications from the otherwise uniform foundation of Armament Haki.

For example, the Navy's Armament Haki armor. Black Arm Zephyr, Fist Garp, and Kong—the Navy's senior powerhouses of the past—did not rely on Devil Fruits, yet they could still suppress an era. Perhaps this was why.

Then there was Wano Country's "Ryou," flowing Armament Haki. Zhu Mang did not know whether it was the embryonic form of the ki as he understood it.

After all, ki in Dragon Ball was essentially drawn out from within the body and used to attack.

Observation Haki seemed to have even more branches.

Some could reach over extreme distances, while others could foresee the future...

But compared to the flourishing variety in Dragon Ball, One Piece seemed much weaker in this regard.

Even some of the most prominent figures on the seas might not have mastered Haki to any profound degree.

That was because, besides Haki and physical strength, there was also the so-called Treasure of the Sea.

The Devil Fruit.

A powerful Devil Fruit could turn a weakling into a mid- to high-level powerhouse on the seas.

And with painstaking research, it was not impossible to become one of the very strongest solely through a Devil Fruit.

With such cheat-like things around, naturally, some people stopped pursuing physical training and Haki refinement, turning instead to developing their fruits.

Of course, that was not Zhu Mang's goal.

After discovering that Haki and ki had certain common ground, he wondered whether he could use One Piece's Armament Haki to achieve his goal rather than learn how to use ki on Earth in the Dragon Ball World, which he might no longer have time to visit.

Though he might already possess far more ki than they did in terms of quantity, when it came to fine control... he only had to think of those fish he had roasted into charcoal.

Those fish probably wished they could rot at the bottom of the sea!