A deep male voice echoed beside them, startling them all. Even in their current state, none of them should have allowed someone to approach so closely without noticing.
Especially Dawn. At that moment, he instantly activated his Observation Haki, trying to locate the owner of the voice.
"Who is it?!"
"Stop skulking around and come out!"
They immediately stood back-to-back in a circle, guarding against a sneak attack as they entered combat readiness.
Though they shouted loudly, every one of them looked grave. The fact that someone had gotten so close without being noticed proved that their strength far surpassed theirs.
The next moment, an overwhelming Haki swept over them like invisible atmospheric pressure. Though Hina and the others tried their utmost to resist the powerful oppression, they inevitably collapsed one after another.
"This is still too early for you. Get some sleep and leave it to me."
Bang! Bang! Bang!
"Hm? There's actually one who hasn't fallen... Conqueror's Haki?" The man radiating Conqueror's Haki paused mid-sentence, then gave a surprised sound as he sensed the boy's resistance ahead of him.
To Dawn, Conqueror's Haki was basically a form of mental oppression. As for what other uses it had, he did not know.
But with an adult soul to begin with, and having tempered himself in this world, his will far surpassed that of ordinary people. Coupled with the fact that he possessed Conqueror's Haki himself, it was only natural that he had not fallen.
As Dawn resisted the tyrannical pressure, his Conqueror's Haki, long awakened but never fully developed because he had no idea how to train it, was stimulated and erupted from him as well.
Boom!!!
The two forces of Haki collided without yielding an inch.
In the dark forest, the surrounding trees swayed violently under the impact