Undying Black Flame

Emilisha hummed a nameless tune, picked up Scorching Cloud, and gave it a few experimental swings, nodding in satisfaction.

With a light step, she decapitated Principle and Honey Badger, then bundled the three heads together.

She crouched down to rummage through Principle's belongings; after all, he was the boss of a faction, and she was eager to see what he carried.

She failed to notice, however, that the headless corpse and the severed head of Luo Ya behind her were slowly igniting with black flames.

"A solid gold lighter, mine, all mine," Emilisha muttered, continuing to dig through Principle's pockets.

Behind her, Luo Ya's headless body had already stood upright, and his head had completely transformed into black flames, floating back toward his severed neck.

His severed arm in the distance did the same.

Surging black flames engulfed Luo Ya's entire body, and his eyes snapped open, glowing with a scarlet light.

A katana with a deep purple hilt slowly manifested in his right hand—it was none other than Ryujin Jakka. Usually, Luo Ya kept it sheathed within Scorching Cloud, primarily because using it without a vessel consumed too much stamina and mental energy.

"Why is it getting so hot?" Before Emilisha could finish her sentence, she lunged forward, the hair on her head sizzling and smelling of singed protein.

"A monster! How can someone not die after being decapitated!" Emilisha was shocked as she turned to see Luo Ya, who was wreathed in wild, black flames.

Luo Ya fixed his scarlet gaze on Emilisha, exhaled a cloud of black-red mist, and lunged at her again without a word.

Clang! Scorching Cloud and Ryujin Jakka collided. From behind Emilisha, a tail covered in chitinous armor and tipped with a curved hook pierced through the air, stabbing into Luo Ya's chest.

Squelch! The hook at the tip punched through his body, but Luo Ya seized the opportunity to grab it and severed it with a single slash of his blade.

Sizzle! Green blood sprayed out, accompanied by the smell of burning flesh. Luo Ya pulled the tail that had impaled him out of his body and tossed it aside.

"Ah!" Emilisha, her appearance now drastically altered, let out a painful shriek. The chitinous armor that had just emerged on her body stood on end; combined with her severed tail, it wasn't hard to guess her Devil Fruit ability.

"Scorpion Lailai?" Luo Ya looked at the fallen Emilisha and shook his head in disappointment.

As fellow Zoan-type users, Emilisha and Principle were not even in the same league. Beyond its peerless sharpness, the greatest feature of Ryujin Jakka, as far as he could tell, was the unbearable pain it inflicted upon its victims. Even a tough guy like Honey Badger couldn't handle it; it was truly the bane of small-fry.

After all, the defining trait of the strong in the world of One Piece was an iron will—the kind that wouldn't even trigger a high-speed rail security scanner.

Luo Ya had been hacked to pieces countless times by the Stickman in the soul world before he could endure such pain without batting an eye.

Watching Luo Ya approach slowly, Emilisha ignored the agonizing pain of her severed tail. "Don't, don't kill me! I have plenty of treasure. As long as you spare me, I'll do anything you want."

As she spoke, Emilisha tore open her dress, revealing her graceful figure. Unfortunately, the mixture of tears and snot on her face ruined the view.

"Too bad, you're not my type." Luo Ya shook his head and swung his blade. A black sword aura flashed, and Emilisha was split in two from the center of her brow.

Her colorful viscera spilled across the ground.

Luo Ya walked over, picked up Scorching Cloud, and wiped the blood from its surface. The black flames covering his body rolled inward and vanished.

"Unexpectedly useful, combining Armament Haki with Ryujin Jakka," Luo Ya muttered as he headed toward the docks.

After long periods of training, Luo Ya's Armament Haki had actually reached the level of hardening, but with Ryujin Jakka, it had always seemed a bit redundant in terms of offense.

During a mission in the Dark World, Luo Ya had once encountered a user of the Snow-Snow Fruit—the same fruit that Monet had eaten in the original story.

Luo Ya discovered that elemental forms could still be struck by Ryujin Jakka. Upon closer study, he realized that Ryujin Jakka's power was rooted in the soul.

After all, a Zanpakuto would be pathetic if it couldn't even strike a soul. Haki, meanwhile, was the product of a fusion between physical and spiritual energy.

Luo Ya had experimented with combining his Armament Haki and Ryujin Jakka, developing a new power.

Because the black flames he used resembled the Stickman, he named it Undying Black Flame, and the "undying" aspect was inspired by the Snow-Snow Fruit.

The surging black flames didn't offer much improvement in temperature or lethality, but they allowed him to transform his body just like a Logia user.

In this mode, unless Luo Ya's soul energy was completely exhausted, even injuries like a decapitation or a pierced heart would heal instantly under the influence of the black flames.

As for the consequences of depleting his soul energy, he would just have to cross that bridge when he came to it.

If one had to name a flaw for the Undying Black Flame, it was the massive consumption. The first time Luo Ya used it to heal his severed arm, he had fallen into a coma for an entire day.

As the saying goes, the only flaw with expensive things is that they are expensive.

"Ha! Ha!" Huo Lun leaned against Treasure Tree Adam, his wolf-like mouth wide open as he panted, surrounded by several mangled corpses. The sounds of battle and gunfire echoed incessantly around him.

Treasure Tree Adam was merely a catalyst; the people, blinded by bloodlust, only wanted to cut down every living thing in front of them.

Luo Ya arrived at the docks and felt a headache coming on at the sight of the chaos. There were at least a thousand people embroiled in the melee, not counting the corpses already littering the ground.

After a moment of silence, he took a deep breath. "Get lost, all of you!"

At his roar, the crowd gradually stopped, all of them turning to look at Luo Ya with bloodshot eyes. I think I might have overdone the posturing, Luo Ya thought, his hair standing on end as he was stared down by so many murderous gazes.

"Kill him!" A massive crowd roared and charged toward Luo Ya, while the rest continued to tear into each other.