Whoosh! Whoosh!
In the instant they reappeared, the two were already standing before each other.
Clang!
A flash of light accompanied the blade leaving its sheath. Red-Haired Shanks drew his sword and slashed diagonally upward, the cold edge gleaming with deadly sharpness!
Luffy raised his right leg high, black Haki swiftly wrapping around his calf. His gaze darkened as he brought it down fiercely against the incoming blade!
Clang!!
Black lightning erupted at the moment of impact, and a violent ring-shaped shockwave burst outward. The blade hummed with a sharp crackle as it locked against Luffy.
"Your Haki training isn't bad."
Red-Haired Shanks gave a low laugh, twisting his wrist as power and Haki surged once more into Gryphon!
Luffy's pupils contracted. He stepped on the blade to borrow its force, then swiftly flipped backward and leaped away. The next instant—
Clang!
A crimson crescent slash narrowly swept past his body, shooting into the sky and slicing off a tower spire at one corner of the castle. The spire slid down through the air along the slanted cut.
Luffy hugged his knees and spun several times before landing. The moment his feet touched the ground, a crimson shadow rapidly closed in along an eerie trajectory.
"What's going on?! I can't see him at all?!"
Luffy frowned in shock. The intense warning in his heart gave him a long-lost, instinctive sense of danger. He immediately stomped the ground and leaped high into the air.
By "couldn't see," he naturally did not mean with his eyes. His Observation Haki had failed, and he could no longer see Red-Haired Shanks's future.
Sure enough, the instant Luffy leaped up, a sharp gust of sword wind swept across the ground, leaving several slashes in the stone tiles.
Then Red-Haired Shanks appeared, his black cloak fluttering.