Sage Fox Super-Combat Mode

The standoff between Minato and Shanks was on the verge of erupting. Minato moved first, his figure blurring into a streak of golden light as he shifted the battlefield to a deserted island a few kilometers away from Foosha Village. Shanks's speed was no less impressive, and he followed closely behind.

Sessibi Island was a barren isle located not far from the massive island that housed Foosha Village.

The soil on the island contained unknown components that made it difficult to cultivate, and it was infested with swarms of venomous insects. Consequently, despite its proximity to the Goa Kingdom, it remained undeveloped, serving only as a place where passing ships left behind simple, temporary supply points.

Today, two uninvited guests arrived on this island.

An orange-red streak and a dark-red streak descended from the high sky like colliding meteors, slamming into the island. Just as they were about to crash, the two lights collided violently once more before recoiling in opposite directions.

The dark-red streak was sent flying into a mountain by the force of the counterattack.

"BOOM!"

The entire mountain was cleaved open by a black-and-red slash, shattering into countless fragments that scattered across the sky. The island shook as if suffering a massive earthquake, and the scattered travelers resupplying on the barren isle scrambled in panic, firing cannons in their haste to escape the destruction.

Shanks, clad in black-and-red Haki-infused armor, emerged from the ruins of the mountain. He held his black blade, Gryphon, firmly in hand, his body wreathed in Haki; the falling debris was pulverized into dust before it could even touch him.

From the moment the battle began, both Shanks and Minato fought with everything they had. Shanks activated his integrated Three-Color Haki state, while Minato unleashed his Sage Mode. They fought all the way from Foosha Village to Sessibi Island, locked in an inseparable struggle. Wherever they passed, it was as if a hurricane had swept through; the destructive power was so extreme that it triggered small storms in the vicinity of Sessibi Island.

The refugees fleeing Sessibi Island cursed under their breath, though they lacked the courage to voice their complaints aloud.

Ignoring the plight of the innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire, Shanks focused his entire being on Minato, who had been knocked into a small lake within the forest by his counterattack.

Suddenly, a terrifying aura erupted from the forest, obscured by the dense canopy: it was a Sage Art: Tailed Beast Bomb, dozens of meters in diameter. It contained a horrific concentration of Nine-Tailed Fox chakra and natural energy, and everything in its path—towering trees included—was instantly vaporized into ash like fragile candle flames.

If that hits, I'm dead!

The thought flashed through Shanks's mind. Relying on his top-tier Observation Haki, he sidestepped the attack, which appeared impossibly fast to any observer.

However, the moment Shanks dodged, the core of the massive Sage Art: Tailed Beast Bomb—the natural energy and Tailed Beast chakra—suddenly lost its equilibrium. The two energies spiraled into a chaotic frenzy, and a terrifying energy fluctuation detonated right next to Shanks. While Observation Haki could track an opponent's attack, it was not true precognition...

A world-shattering aura exploded in the air, the harrowing energy shockwave battering the entire island.

"Captain!" The Red-Haired pirates, watching from the Red Force in the distance, were momentarily stunned.

Not far away, a Shadow Clone of Minato stood on the water with young Luffy.

"Uncle Minato, who is that red-haired man?" young Luffy asked curiously. "That is Red-Haired Shanks, a famous pirate from the New World."

"Uncle Minato is definitely a stronger pirate than that big pirate," Luffy declared with conviction. Minato's Shadow Clone smiled but offered no explanation.

Back to the battlefield.

As the thick smoke cleared, Shanks's red-haired figure was revealed. Though he remained standing tall, his clothes were in tatters, and his Haki-infused armor had clearly dimmed significantly.

It was evident that the sudden explosion of Minato's specialized Sage Art: Tailed Beast Bomb had cost Shanks dearly. Even if he appeared unscathed on the surface, it was only because he had relied on his intuition to mitigate some of the damage and had expended a vast amount of Haki to withstand the shockwave.

Even so, his body was covered in dense, shallow wounds, and his internal organs ached from the impact.

Having suffered a hidden blow, Shanks's aura grew even more terrifying. He channeled immense Haki into Gryphon and swung it, sending several slashes toward the forest in the direction of his enemy.

At the same time, dozens of smaller, pitch-black Tailed Beast Bombs flew out from the forest. The slashes and the bombs collided, the resulting shockwaves triggering what felt like a minor earthquake across the island. Countless wild beasts on the island perished in the aftermath, while the remaining birds and animals fled in terror.

In truth, even though Shanks's slashes were imbued with the world's peak Haki, they were inferior in mass to the Tailed Beast Bombs. Consequently, he had to swing his blade several more times to dissipate the residual energy.

No sooner had Shanks neutralized the previous wave than several more Tailed Beast Bombs, no less powerful than the last, surged toward him, blanketing the entire space above him.

"Not planning on closing the distance?"

Shanks muttered to himself. His expression remained unchanged as he swung his blade, either deflecting the Tailed Beast Bombs or detonating them prematurely.

In the distance, Minato had entered Sage Mode, draped in a Tailed Beast cloak dozens of meters tall. His chakra and natural energy were far more refined than when he first entered the mode, and his physical form was significantly smaller.

Leveraging the near-infinite nature of the Nine-Tailed Fox's chakra, Minato continuously suppressed Shanks with Tailed Beast Bombs, occasionally mixing in a Sage Art: Super Tailed Beast Bomb.

Shanks, with all three types of Haki fully unleashed, managed to neutralize the onslaught with his razor-sharp swordsmanship. The stalemate dragged on; Shanks attempted to close the distance several times by exploiting gaps in the attacks, only to be easily evaded by Minato's Flying Thunder God.

On the surface, it seemed Minato held the initiative. But he knew better: aside from the initial surprise attack, Shanks had merely been playing along, using the pressure to keep him in check.

As for stamina? If not for the incredible sensory perception granted by his Sage Mode, which allowed him to detect the slightest fluctuations in his opponent's surface energy, he wouldn't even have noticed the other man's energy levels dropping!

At this rate, he didn't know if his opponent's strength would run dry or if his own Nine-Tailed Fox chakra would be exhausted first, but he suspected his own physical stamina would be the first to give out.

He was currently in a fusion state of the Nine-Tailed Fox mode and Sage Mode, which theoretically allowed for a balance between his own chakra, the Nine-Tailed Fox's chakra, Sage chakra, and natural energy. However, it was not without cost. More importantly, the massive energy boost placed an immense burden on his body.

He could use Sage chakra to nourish his body in the short term, but if it dragged on, his body would become like an overloaded energy core, suffering damage or even irreversible trauma!

With that thought, Minato decided to go all-in. He began to slow the barrage of Tailed Beast Bombs, instead channeling all his chakra at high speed. The orange-red Tailed Beast cloak expanded like a balloon, growing increasingly massive, its energy fluctuations intensifying...

Seeing the pressure lift and realizing Minato was "charging a big move," Shanks didn't hesitate to close the distance. His rapier, Gryphon, was wreathed in a thick, black-and-red Haki. Wherever the blade passed, it seemed to slice through the very air; the edge had surpassed the speed of sound. The strike was silent yet carried the momentum to pierce through everything, aimed directly at Minato, who stood at the head of the massive "Nine-Tailed Fox" cloak.

Just as the expanding cloak reached its limit, it collided with the tip of Shanks's sword, which seemed to pierce through space itself. The massive chakra energy within the cloak detonated instantly. A terrifying energy storm erupted between them, scattering the winds and clouds in an instant. The force, like a roaring tsunami, ravaged the island once more, shaking it to its foundations.

A moment later, the wind and smoke dissipated, leaving a massive crater at the center of the battlefield that looked like the impact site of a fallen star.

Minato stood draped in a golden energy-formed haori, his face resembling that of a fox, his ears long and pointed, his hair grown to his waist and dancing wildly. His nine fox tails flared like spirits of fire; he looked like a Nine-Tailed Fox in human form.

It was three of his nine tails, crossed and layered, that had blocked Shanks's blade. Had the previous explosion not neutralized part of the sword's momentum, that strike would likely have pierced right through Minato's body.

Shanks wasn't surprised that his majestic strike had failed to land, but he was surprised by his opponent's current form: he had abandoned the massive energy projection, instead condensing the power to the extreme, forming a cloak that clung to his skin.

Is he giving up on long-range combat to fight in close quarters?

As the thought crossed his mind, Shanks's blade attacked Minato without mercy.

However, Minato's speed had already been greatly enhanced by the Sage Mode, and now, by distributing his fused chakra across his entire body rather than using it as a central energy core, he had further boosted all his attributes. He called this the Sage-Fox Super-Combat Mode!

The massive boost from the Super-Combat Mode compensated for Minato's disadvantage in Observation Haki. Against Shanks's fierce and domineering swordsmanship, his nine tails moved in perfect sync with his will, parrying every single attack.

In the blink of an eye, the two had exchanged dozens of blows at close range. Red-Haired gradually noticed that the atmosphere in the surrounding space was beginning to feel wrong; the small area where they fought was saturated with faint red light particles, which were remnants of energy Minato had intentionally left behind while dissipating his chakra cloak.

Though these chakra particles lacked a controller and were not inherently aggressive, Red-Haired could not avoid coming into contact with vast amounts of them during every movement, and the Haki armor on his body surface was automatically dissolving the chakra clusters.

To put it simply, it was as if Red-Haired were fighting at a high altitude where oxygen was thin; every attack consumed more stamina and Haki than usual. Although Red-Haired still possessed plenty of both, he had no desire to see them wasted for nothing.

Forcing Minato back with a sword strike to create a gap of several dozen meters, Red-Haired channeled his Haki to flow rapidly across his body. The red patterns on his skin seemed to come alive, pulsing with a scorching aura. As the black and red mixed energy surged violently into Gryphon, Red-Haired sheathed his blade and crouched in a drawing stance. His Haki armor, originally black and red, had become increasingly dense through the intense combat, and now, a golden light faintly shimmered from within!

Red-Haired stood as if engulfed in a burning flame, poised in his iaido stance.

Seeing this familiar scene, Minato frowned slightly. While his close-quarters combat ability in his Super-Warrior state was formidable, it came at the cost of abandoning powerful offensive measures like the Tailed Beast Bomb; after all, without the massive Tailed Beast cloak as a medium, his physical body could not withstand the violent energy of such an attack.

But clearly, Minato was not one to sit and wait for death in his Super-Warrior form; he still had one technique that existed only in his conceptual designs.

"No matter, let's try it."

Minato formed hand seals at lightning speed, gathered chakra in his mouth, and spat out a massive torrent of flame.

"Sage Art: Phoenix Sage Flower Nail Crimson!"

A vast expanse of giant, flaming flowers, carrying both a beautiful and lethal aura, enveloped the motionless Red-Haired.

Surrounded by flames, Red-Haired kept his eyes tightly shut, following his body and intuition to unleash the strike he had been charging for so long.

"Divine Departure? Acala!"

An unparalleled sword-wave surged out violently, merging with Red-Haired's domineering and fierce will to manifest the image of a golden Bodhisattva!

The figure was perfect in form, with two faces and six arms, surrounded by golden flames. Its six arms held various weapons such as a wisdom sword, a vajra, a bow and arrow, and a sun wheel. Standing roughly three meters tall, it was far smaller than the black manifestation he had summoned previously, but its intensity was on a completely different level!

Once the two-faced, six-armed Acala manifested, dozens of flames struck its body, only to be swallowed up without a reaction.

Within the colliding flames, the sound of metal clashing rang out—it was the kunai hidden inside the fire! Yet, they could not stir up the slightest ripple, being ground into dust by the sheer force of the sword aura...

Minato's expression remained unchanged as he quietly continued to unleash flames, shrouding the entire world! Ignoring the "painless" flames, Acala charged directly toward Minato, closing the distance in the blink of an eye!

Watching the astonishing sword technique before him, Minato felt not a shred of panic, for he had already sensed that the entire space was filled with his kunai!

Whoosh.

Minato's figure vanished instantly, having forcibly withstood the suppression of Red-Haired's Conqueror's Haki.

"Still not meeting the attack head-on?"

As this thought flashed through Red-Haired's mind, he suddenly sensed an attack coming from behind, but by the time his brain received the signal, the strike had already arrived!

Clang.

A golden streak of light grazed him from behind, disappearing before he could counterattack.

Though his black-and-red Haki armor fluctuated violently, it held firm against the blow. And this was only the beginning...

An ethereal, sharp voice reached Red-Haired's ears.

"Infinite Flying Thunder God!"

In an instant, the kunai scattered throughout the space, wrapped in red chakra clusters, surrounded Red-Haired.

Each kunai shone like a star, and with every flash, Minato's figure struck Red-Haired like a meteor streaking across the night sky. The entire space became a blur, with only a golden streak of light flickering rapidly as it assaulted Red-Haired.

In just a few short breaths, Red-Haired endured dozens of attacks! The Acala formed by his sword technique had been recalled to protect his body, but in the process, the Haki armor on his skin had become as thin as paper...

After a few more breaths, Acala shattered with a roar, leaving Red-Haired exposed to Minato's onslaught!

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

The golden streak of light's torrential assault wore down Red-Haired's Haki. Though Red-Haired's Haki circulated ever faster, becoming more unified and seamless, it was at this moment that his defense was breached. A streak of light flashed past; Red-Haired moved his left hand to defend with his sword, but unexpectedly, the light sliced across his left arm, severing his sword-wielding limb clean off below the shoulder...